Project 1 - Leadership Project

INTRODUCTION

Rationale and Purpose

“Let’s be clear – we are failing too many of our children. We’re sending them out into the 21^st century economy by sending them through the doors of 20^th century schools.”

-Barack Obama, at the Center for American Progress

It is evident that 20^th century schooling is insufficient to meet 21^st century expectations in the workforce. The current education system places a heavy emphasis on high academic performance, as measured through standardized testing. As a result, the educators’ selections of instructional models willingly shape students into proficient 20^th century test-takers. Although high academic proficiency is expected, this over-emphasis neglects the critical need to holistically develop students into self-driven, socially-adept individuals that would flourish in the 21^st century workforce.

This study will develop instructional units that prepare students and equip our teaching repertoire to meet 21^st century expectations. To be specific, during high-quality instruction of the core curriculum, our focus students are the remaining 20% of students that will require the next level of intervention. In other words, the focus students are those whose needs are not met through traditional schooling. The focus students have 3 shared characteristics: low motivation (not engaged, lack self-initiatpive, lack self-efficacy), low collaborative skills (in group work and presentation settings) and low science achievement. These students that share all three characteristics are the “vital few” that are the least prepared for increased demands in high school, college and the 21st century workforce. These will be the focus students of our action-research.

Leadership Role

My leadership role within this project was to:

• To conduct action-research that answers the question: “How will a project-based learning (PBL) science curriculum affect students’ motivation, collaboration and academic achievement?”
• To facilitate action-research team meetings that evaluates the effects of the PBL curriculum, using an improvement science framework, in order to ensure that the curriculum adequately prepares all students to have competitive skills in the 21^st century workforce.

Literature Review, Root Cause Analysis, Logic Model and PDSA Cycles

Below you will find a comprehensive visual of the literature review and root cause analysis that informed the development of the logic model for this project. The logic model will outline the problem, assumptions, activities, and anticipated outcomes of the action-research project.

CHALLENGES AND CHANGES

During the course of the leadership project, several challenges were posed that required changes to be made to the original implementation plan, as described below.

• Fidelity of Implementation: Since our teachers are only able to meet on a monthly basis, the fidelity of implementation of the program is different from classroom to classroom; each teacher places his or her own “twist” on project-based learning. Since implementation is slightly different between the three classrooms, the focus of the action-research was shifted to using the tools as measuring overall trends that we notice in students’ motivation, collaboration and achievement amongst the three classes. This can be a starting point of discussion about areas that all three teachers may focus on collaboratively to improve their instruction.
• Reduction of Data Collection Tools: Originally, we planned on measuring students’ motivation, collaboration and academic achievement in science, using 5 different data collection tools. Our teachers found it was too challenging to use all of the tools and it would be more strategic to scale back our data collection to focus on one data collection tool: the student motivation/attitudes survey.
• Measuring Attitudes rather than Motivation: Our team found that student motivation was too broad to define and is difficult to objectively observe, let alone measure. Measuring students’ attitudes, on the other hand, was a something that we could measure reliably through survey questions.
• Using PDSA Cycles to Improve the Student Attitudes Survey: Our team went through a few PDSA cycles to improve the Student Attitudes Survey. At first, we had developed a student attitude survey, based on our own professional experience working with students. However, there were concerns about its validity and reliability. After conducting a literature review of existing attitude surveys, we contacted Dr. David E. Kanter, who had developed a 1-5 agreement scale survey to measure student attitudes, which had been tested for validity and reliability during his research pertaining to project-based learning in secondary-science classrooms. We revised some of the questions and language of the survey to fit our school context. After administering the survey, we debriefed and made additional changes such as making the survey anonymous to further increase validity. In addition, an evaluation methods consultant assisted us with improving our experimental design by identifying a control group that we could administer the survey to. Having the data from the control group for comparison would further support our findings.

DATA

Student Attitudes Survey

This year, our focus was on measuring how student attitudes have changed as a result of a project-based learning curriculum. To measure students’ growth, the Student Attitudes Survey was administered before our long-term project and at the end of the project. The pre-survey results were compiled below; the post-survey has not yet been administered.

The data compiled from all three classroom teachers show that the students scored highest on Science Self-Concept and lowest on Perception of the Value and Relevance of Science. In response to the low score, our teachers discussed how we could target its improvement by making curricular modifications to the culminating PBL project. We arranged for a guest speaker, a practicing architect to visit during the course of the long-term project, to help students connect how science and math are used in life. Although we don’t have data about the impact of PBL on our students yet, we were able to use the tools we developed to frame our conversations and inform our instructional practice.

Student Reflections

After the long-term project, students were asked to reflect on their team and individual performance. Here are some of the student reflections from students who originally scored low on attitude, collaboration and academic achievement.

• “For our team I think that we have improved on our performance than what we did a couple of days ago. When we first started, we were all nervous at first, but then we got used to talking in front of a medium sized crowd and a couple of other people. The team and I have done a great job on the project and if I were able to vote for a team, it would be us. What we still need to improve on is looking at the audience more and standing straight instead of waving around a little bit.”
• “I think we did pretty good …. Justin did a good job at learning his script and Manuel you also did a good job by learning the length and width of the 3D model and described the enclosure and the enrichment activity. I think I did okay; I looked at the audience a lot and I learned half about my script. I liked doing the research because I got to learn about the Komodo Dragon’s habitat, diet, and interaction  with others. I think I could improve on learning all of my script and not move around a lot.  I was nervous at first but when I kept on presenting I got better and I wasn’t nervous anymore.”
• “For me, I did well to complete my requirements as fast as I can so I can help my teammates with their own requirements. Another thing I did great on was to memorize that script, because when we had our first practice presentation, I didn’t look at the script once. Also I made sure to answered every question I could about the Komodo Dragon. The things I can improve on would be my team skills, because early on in our project me and my teammate had problems, and I could have handled it more civilized. Finally, the last thing I will have to improve on is to give helpful feedback more than cool feedback, because when I was criticizing my teammates, I was little bit harsh.”

These three students were a part of the same team; as their teacher, I can say that this team was probably the most challenging one to support. Two of the students were apathetic towards school, did not see the relevance of teamwork and hated presenting in front of an audience. The third team member performed well in school, but did not have the social skills to work well in teams. However, by the end of the project, you can tell that all three students showed considerable growth in supporting one another, practicing individual accountability in a group setting, presenting in front of large audiences and showing a positive attitude towards learning generally. Based on my observations, the project-based lesson raised these students’ attitude, collaboration and science achievement, preparing them with 21^st century skills to succeed in the future.

MODIFICATIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS

Upon reflection, there are several modifications that could be integrated for better outcomes, including:

• Student-Centered Project Development: The project's driving questions, rubrics and project activities can be developed based on student input. This will ensure the project is meaningful and relevant to students.
• Collaboration with Other Content-Area Teachers: Support from content area teachers within an interdisciplinary project would be a more effective model for helping students bridge learning across disciplines.
• School Emphasis on Developing Presentation Skills: Students have insufficient practice with presenting in front of an audience, an essential skill that is often overlooked by teachers. It would be helpful for all teachers to commit to integrating assignments that involve presenting to provide students with ample opportunities for practice.
• Parental Involvement: Parents should be invited to be guest speakers, panelists during the student presentations, or during other project activities. This will further motivate students to produce the highest quality work, as well as receiving support and input from a valuable stakeholder group.

REFLECTION

Through this action-research leadership project, my identity as a leader has grown immensely. Previously, my belief was that effective leaders were those who were well-versed on their field and had the experience to support it. Therefore, I felt that leadership roles were best appropriated to veteran teachers out of respect, and as a relatively young teacher amongst a faculty of veteran teachers, I should reserve the opportunity for those veteran teachers to lead unless I was appointed to the leadership role. I did not realize that this personal resolve has hindered me from taking advantage of opportunities that would have developed leadership skills.

This leadership project has forced me to assert myself in a leadership position that I otherwise would not have done willingly. My concept of what leadership entails has transformed. I realize now that being a leader is not about knowing everything there is to know, but rather a leader is someone who has the will to facilitate a vision and is open to learn from others along the way. There were several tools that I found helpful to programmatic decision-making, problem-solving and framing a high-quality leadership project, such as performing the literature review, root cause analysis, logic model and PDSA cycle. The experiences and skills I utilized during this leadership project will guide me in my future leadership roles.

CPSEL’s

During the course of my leadership role in planning, developing, implementing and evaluating this leadership project, the following CPSEL standards were met:

• 1.1: Develop a Shared Vision (My action-research used multiple methods of data collection to ensure that our curricular program was preparing all students to be holistic 21^st century learners.)
• 1.2: Plan and Implement Activities Around the Vision (As the action-research was implemented, the PDSA cycle was used as a framework to trouble-shoot challenges that arose. A specific example is the incremental improvement of the Student Attitudes Survey.)

• 2.2: Guide the Instructional Program (Our team used data from the pre-survey to determine the appropriate instructional materials and strategies that will ensure a student-centered learning experience.)

• 5.2: Guide Sound Course of Action using pertinent, State-of-the-Art Methods (The tools used throughout the action-research, including the literature review, root-cause diagram, logic model and PDSA cycles provided methods that were effective scaffolds for programmatic decision-making and problem-solving.)