Influencer Strategy
Influencer Strategy
Robert Bracken
Spring - 2017
Lamar University - Beaumont
INFLUENCER STRATEGY
One thing I’ve learned about today’s digital age is that the answers are readily available. Often times, you just have to ask the “Oracle Google” the right questions. Some of these questions may include, “Why reinvent the wheel? Is there a bridge design that hasn’t been done before? What’s the right way to make a garden?” We live in a society that is changing. In order to implement this change we must be able to ask the right questions and change alongside the growing online communities. When it comes to designing and implementing a blended learning curriculum we must be aware of what is the current situation in the classroom, what are the changes we want to see being made, how can we change the behavior, as well as who are the biggest influences towards the change.
Kids love to play on personal learning devices such as; tablets, computers, and new gaming consoles. However, how educational are the apps that are catching the most attention? Also, how can we implement a blended learning curriculum change? We have great infrastructure but also great teaching that opens the minds of the student to love to learn. This may be achieved by, utilizing the station rotation blended learning model highlighted by Tim Hudson (2013) The results I want to achieve are building a successful model that can be replicated, aligning “what’s possible” with established goals, and open communication to teachers across the district to share ideas, highlight successes to encourage growth.
Recently, I visited a Yearbook/Newspaper class at our high school and the students seemed to be engaging and willing to learn. Within the classroom, the students were using computers for their learning and projects. Each of the students I interviewed didn’t know much before they signed up for the class. They got hands-on training their first day in the class. They told me it took a couple of months to get up to speed on the software necessary to complete their projects. Even things like “taking a photo” required going on Youtube and learning. What is unique is their love of the class. I believe the blended learning was very important to this. I could see the love of learning in these students as they begged their teacher to come in on multiple Saturdays to meet deadlines. Just think if this had been an english or math class, do you think that the outcome would have been the same? These students weren’t being treated like robots, they weren’t measured by some test score. It is in my conclusion that it wasn’t just the ownership that the students craved, but it was the innovative learning platform like blended learning.
I will measure my blended learning results by taking a survey of the teachers who I identify in this paper as my early adopters. Ms. Baker at Doerre has implemented a Pineapple Chart at her school so every teacher can visit every room and gather ideas. Through this micro model the teachers are encouraged to explore and see for themselves. Also, there is no requirement to learn! I will also measure my progress by helping the teachers with their formative and summative assessments. When a teacher can see something is working they’re more than likely to continue. The opposite is true, when a teacher can see something not working they’re more than likely to discontinue that method.
One vital behavior I’m trying to change is to make it ok for kids to be on the computer. I will take my early adopter teachers and make sure that the blended learning students are visibly separated. In Ms. Goedde’s class she had a separate area for the students. Along with laptops you’ll see students with headphones so they can concentrate and send nonverbal cues to classmates they are not open to collaboration. We will inform other stakeholders through email regularly the progress we’re making. They will have a written record that a student learned and made progress through blended learning through email messages, formative assessments, and the summative assessments.
The picture we have of learning is eyes and ears on the teacher. The new picture we should have on learning is a light bulb above the student’s head. The light bulb can be turned on in any number of ways, blended learning is just one of them. If a Principal or parent walked into a room and saw a kid on a computer, how do we make them feel that student is getting a great education? We can change these vital behaviors through the influencer model by reassuring the early adopter teacher that blended learning works and is based on good research, reassure resistant teachers that blended learning works, and then reassure Principals and parents that blended learning works. By fixing the social and structural behaviors we can show that blended learning deserves to be in the classroom. Online instructional delivery boosts learning and ownership. (Digital Learning Now 2013)
Within the study of psychology it is found that one of the most effective ways to change a person's behavior that you must first have to change their thought process. Some of the behaviors I noticed within the classroom were that the students seemed to be good listeners and project oriented.
However, in other classrooms I have attended I found students to be anxious with no clear direction. Furthermore, to think of how I can personally make a positive change in the students of Klein ISD I would like to implement some changes based off experience. First, I would like to figure out a way for the students to love learning. Second, search for ways to teach the students how to learn through online delivery in the changing society. And Lastly, allow the student to be able to control this process. My focused goal is to start small and have one pilot blended learning group by summer of 2017. I can do this by reaching out to the early adopter teachers and get them on board. We can exchange information through many collaborative websites like Google Drive. This group will be hand selected by me with input from other people in the district who find this initiative a great idea.
The teachers I want to use to propel my vision forward are teachers who have already embraced blended learning in their classroom. The first one is Lili Reyna an elementary teacher for english language learners. There is Mark Roberts, a high school robotics and computer science teacher. Tiffany Keiser an elementary special education teacher. These three teachers I’ve met recently and they are influencers. Two of them are working on their Principal Masters certification and they’re being prepared to take on a leadership role in the future. At Doerre Intermediate I want to use Ashley Baker and Erica Goedde. Ashley teaches ELA and Erica teaches science. Both utilize blended learning and the station rotation model in their class to achieve amazing results. Ms. Goedde won the Teacher of the Year last year in her class.
Here is my influencer model to get blended learning to be accepted by our early adopter teachers. This model is based on The 4 Disciplines of Execution, written by S. Covery.
Right now some of our teachers are already doing blended learning but not addressing the opportunity correctly.
Structural
Blended learning is what we do at Klein ISD.
Our exceptional teachers are the ones who do blended learning.
Regular training from district administration and school administration.
This table will help me achieve my WIGs (wildly important goals.) Right now our school district has everything in place to do great things in blended learning. We have great technology and enthusiastic teachers. Going through the six sources of influence we can give our early adopter teachers the right foundation for blended learning growth.
Now, I will try to explain how the six sources of influences will shape the desired/vital behaviors need change within myresearch gathered. There is already a ton of motivation and ability inside our school district for blended learning. For instance, we have a digital website for training, every teacher has a laptop, the majority of our teachers have smartphones with high speed data plans, and we have a great culture of growing. We have a Transform Academy where the teachers are practicing a COVA type learning where the teachers and students have Choice, Ownership, Voice, and Authentic learning. This is our second year of the Transform Academy. Teachers leave their classroom for a full day of training on the latest educational trends.
In order to make sure I’m getting results, I will take a survey of stakeholders (students, teachers, administrators) to find the behaviors that are the culture norms of blended learning, and also find the engagement and benefit of blended learning in the classroom.
The following questions will be asked modified from Patrick Reid. (2016)
Likert scale questions are scored 1 (lowest level) to 5 (highest level).
Do you believe there is an educational benefit of having blended learning in the classroom?
Does blended learning show a deeper understanding of the topic being learned?
Does blended learning increase the creativity in student achievement?
Does blended learning increase student ownership in the learning?
Does blended learning help students realize the district goal of “Promise2Purpose”
These teachers will help propel the blended learning platform into a strong pilot program.
One culture buster to the blended learning are the distractions. Students already love to learn. I love to learn and my high school grades didn’t reflect that! Our students want choice and accessibility. How can we give students limited options when their next step in life is unlimited? If we just remove the games or the entertaining websites, the students might get turned off to the technology. There has to be built-in moments of fun and exploring so the students don’t view their digital device as a chain and ball.
In an article from Dreambox Learning, titled, How to Implement a Station Rotation Blended Learning Model, I learned that a school’s learning goals must be the foundation upon which the blended learning models are built. (Hudson, 2013). The school sets a desired learning goal and then strategizes what technologies could best help them get there. An unproven way to implement blended learning is buying a bunch of computers and forcing the kids to use them without considering a goal, time, and lesson planning. Also from this article, I learned how important great teaching is! I was so focused on the student and the learning I forgot about instruction. Having good teacher-led instruction is a great foundation for the blended learning. That way the student stays on course to their learning goals.
Another culture buster are the established teachers who don’t like being told what to do. They’ll accept anything that makes their job easier, but will reject anything that requires more work.
So we have two groups we’re leading to the water, teachers and students. We can do this by implementing a successful pilot group, and showing the success model of other school districts and other classes. I’ve noticed that our digital classes already are on blended learning. It’s up to the students to figure out how to build a yearbook, newspaper, or photoshop project. We can carry these ideas over into other classrooms.
The last part I wanted to mention was the part about Notice the Obvious. We have such a flood of technology infiltrating into our classrooms we need to realize the technology’s limitations. Here are some that I think are true. Technology limits our ability to collaborate. When I visit our High Schools, every student has a laptop but not every student is collaborating together on a project. It’s too simple to have a single student turn in a single project.
When I visit our ELL (english language learner) classrooms, the students are collaborating together and trying to figure out the language and subject matter at the same time. One good student can influence can influence six others. Those students didn’t have a laptop or cellphone for the answer, they had each other and the teacher. They seemed just as happy and hardworking at the privileged students.
There still needs to be a struggle for learning. It’s nice to google the question and get the answer. Or you’ve got the general concepts, or the general workflow to a project, but take it one step further. Find your limit and ask a friend to get you over limit. The other issue is the thought that “the grass is always greener.” There’s always one more piece of technology that will make your life easier. I had so many Apple products but none of them had Siri. I was so mad when Siri came out because that meant I had to buy all new products again. I told myself to wait and not worry about it since Siri didn’t seem like that great of an invention. There are students who stop a project or their learning because they don’t have the right technology. It’s incredibly important to show them that blended learning won’t learn for them. They still have to do the work to get the problems right. I’m in the Professional Learning Department at Klein ISD. It’s my job to make training videos. My office is at the “Teaching and Learning Center” where career teachers have changed jobs to become learning professionals specializing in their field to help schools and students directly (english, math, special education, foreign language, etc.) Our school district has a great social and structural network to make blended learning more of a reality. Going forward I’m going to help build capacity in our teachers to build blended learning programs. I hope these ideas and many more make my project the best it can be.
References:
Bailey, J. Ellis, S. Schneider, C. Ark, T. (2013). Blended learning implementation guide. Retrieved
February 2, 2017, https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/CSD6190.pdf
Hudson, T. (2013, June 28). How to Implement a Station Rotation Blended Learning Model.
Retrieved February 02, 2017, http://www.dreambox.com/blog/thoughts-implementing-blended-learning-model
Reid, Patrick N., (2016). Influencing Organizational Change – (Patricknreid.com.) Retrieved 21
February 2017, http://www.patricknreid.com/2016/10/16/influencing-organizational-change/
Klein ISD. (2017). The Exchange | Klein ISD. Retrieved 22 February 2017, from
http://www.theexchange.kleinisd.net/
Promise2Purpose (2017). Promise2Purpose.net. Retrieved 22 February 2017, from
http://www.promise2purpose.net/
