Thursday, November 1, 2007

Adoption, Diffusion, Implementation, and Institutionalization of Instructional Innovations

Chapter 11 of our textbook focuses on how educational technology is implemented by the public. The authors focused on several theories, as well as the identification of key indicators of facilitative conditions and institutionalization. Overall, I found the chapter to be interesting as to it's IDT applications, but also to it's greater application to other fields and experiences.
For example, during my credentialing experience, as well as during my first week of orientation at the school I was working at, much of the science professional development was centered around FOSS kits. In theory, they are great for teachers and students as it exhibits some of the constructivist ideas of hands on learning with teachers taking on a more facilitative role. As a new teacher, I was excited to be able to use such materials, and was severely disappointed when I found out that the kits were scattered throughout the school, incomplete, and were not used. To me I found this to be quite baffling since 2 hours of professional development time was spent on learning about FOSS kits. Since I had such a positive experience with them, it would have been interesting to try to apply some of what the book talked about to figure out why the implementation of FOSS kits failed. Perhaps it was due resistance in the school, and if so, maybe it could be attributed to the subcategories of access or attitudinal behaviors. As the book pointed out, learning about what resistance the implementation was met with, could lead to the development of future strategies to combat resistance. Maybe after devising these combative strategies, research into a new curriculum could begin. However, before a new science curriculum could be adopted by that school, I feel that a careful examination of why the old curriculum failed and why it supported by some staff, should be done so that a clear consensus could be reached, so that the school has a better understanding of what it wants from a program before it begins to go through the first few stages of Roger's Innovation-Decision Process model.

1 comment:

Lawrence Pierce said...

I agree that analysis of a failed system is important before a new system is implemented. One stumbling block is cost. It costs time (and therefore money) to analyze a problem. For example, cities spent millions of dollars analyzing the feasibility of contructing new highways to relieve traffic congestion before work begins. Schools are endemically on tight budgets. Second, a useful analysis requires real experts, and many people lack the education or interest to work at that level. Worst of all for concerned teachers, it's demoralizing to see valuable materials disorganized, unused and generally treated as "stuff" to simply be pushed around from time to time. In the end, our final stand is to work as examples, by organizing and implementing our expertise in the entirety of our professional domains, be it a single classroom or a learning system we are developing for many schools. Like you've noted, what good are these fine educational materials if they are not implemented?

The Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley (which developed the FOSS curriculum) has a website: www.lawrencehallofscience.org/foss/introduction/index.html. They have a faq page which has a section on what they believe is required to successfully implement the FOSS curriculum. Here is an except:

Include everyone in the process. Teachers are the stars in the process. They are the gateway through which the energy of the program must pass. Teachers make FOSS happen. Everyone else supports the teachers. Principals set the tone and the agenda. District administrators and school boards establish the policies, define the curriculum, and provide the resources. The support staff manage and maintain the materials. The community—parents, higher education, business, scientists, government—can contribute to the excellence of the program. But to be effective as players in the science program, everyone must be kept fully informed of their role in supporting the teachers. - End of excerpt

Perhaps in the specific school indicated above, there has been only a partial implementation - in which case the issue is as related in the excerpt, a lack of involvement by critical players.

The failure of a curriculum should be of concern to everyone. The concerns expressed here are especially important to consider as our government sets higher and higher standards for student performance.