The years rolled by and by some strange and completely unexpected quirk of fate I found myself in various positions of educational leadership. There I was, "leading by telling"-that's what one does, right? What it all boiled down to was telling other people "how to" accomplish what they wanted and solve their problems in the classroom. All efforts were well-intentioned, all well accepted and all very, very naïve. Worst of all, I was considered successful by peers and administrators, but I knew better - something was missing.
My observations revealed the naïve notion that telling others "how to" do anything as complex as managing a classroom, developing a lesson for diversified learners, or meeting the educational needs of the children of poverty was only as good as the mood it put the receiver of the information in at the moment. Repeated calls, e-mail messages, and visits from the individuals I was "leading" informed me that my experience was not their experience and therefore, my "how to's" were not their "how to's", and their problems continued to plague them - as they had (and as they continue to plague) the nation as a whole. It appears we virtually all lead by telling and it still appears we are leading by telling. As a single example, one need only recall the 1983 Report to the Nation on the Status of Science and Mathematics Education in the U.S., A Nation At Risk and the subsequent report published in 2000, Before It's Too Late to realize that all of the efforts to improve science and math education (essentially done by "telling") not only failed to improve academic achievement, it worsened.
So why is this situation of leading by telling not particularly effective? A physician friend of mine explains it this way, recalling a wise professor of his from medical school, concerning emergency surgery and his desire to do more than merely save a patient; "If a man is drowning, you don't teach him to swim, you rescue him. You can teach him to swim later". His med school professor was right, we've been "rescuing" in times of emergency. Once the emergency is over, however, do we ever go back and take the next educational "surgical" step? Sure, most likely we do, but once again as well meaning leaders, we "tell" others "how" to do what we perceive needs to be done. In doing so, did we take any data? Did we ask the individual what the problem really was or why it might be occurring, or help her/him discover the what and why of the problem? No, most likely we just jumped directly to the "how to" fix it. In fairness to us all, it's a simple matter of the economy of time. There just is not sufficient time to do anything else - or is there?
Since there will always be time constraints and teachers will always have emergent problems, educational leaders will always be put in "rescue" positions-but it doesn't have to stop there. Nor does any follow-up effort on the part of the educational leader need to revolve around the telling of how to's. The focus on problem solving in education could instead be on "partnering" in the construction of knowledge. This has become my promising methodology as an instructor in a teacher-credentialing program. At this point, my intent is not to tell "how to" do this, just what and why: anyone can select her/his own "how".
What does "partnering" mean when it comes to problem-solving in education? In the case of guiding university students in developing into highly effective teachers, it means working together (instructor and students) around a common problem. This is very much a "learning centered" not "teaching centered" approach. Our problem of choice is student engagement in young learners. We spend hours working together to observe and document instances of student engagement (or disengagement) as we take turns teaching lessons to young learners who spend after-school hours at a Boys and Girls Club. All of our observations are posted on a customized website by LearningFramework called Cabrillo. This is an interactive-software that allows me to "partner" with my students in our problem-solving effort around student engagement and disengagement. In other words, we work together as researchers. I don't assign them to complete certain tasks without me. We are all responsible for data collection, analysis and conclusion making. If titles must be assigned, then as the instructor I am the principal investigator and my students are the research staff.
Is this approach working? Possibly, it is successful. We are finding initial success, as evidenced by the papers my students write. Prior to turning the 5-week activity of studying student engagement into an actual action research effort, the papers my teacher credentialing students wrote were bland accounts of their peer's lessons filled with platitudes. The papers contained statements like this one, "The kids (at the Boys and Girls Club) were able to have fun and make popcorn balls and at the same time learn first-hand the scientific process of how popcorn pops." There is not a single shred of data in this statement. Yes, it is an observation, however, it is unsupported and actually says very little. Conversely, student papers from the same course, in the same location with the same population of young learners now consistently contain statements like this, "My hypothesis is that students need to feel that there is some sort of structure and that they work better when they can see the big-picture goal. I observed that during the rhythm lesson (hitting pots, pans, and bins) the instructor began the lesson with a recording of what was intended to be the end product of the activity. The students were wowed by the unique sounds made from the household items. I noticed that more than a few students (the young learners at the Club) began hitting the tables in rhythmic beats, showing that they were anxious to start the lesson."
The value with this instructional approach is that these developing teachers are now better "conditioned" to recognize the behaviors and symptoms of engagement and disengagement. My hypothesis is that as future classroom teachers they will be virtually natural on-their-feet action researchers in their own classrooms. Why? The reason may simply lie in the opportunity the students have had to immerse themselves in this highly focused effort - they didn't read about it, they lived it. This, coupled with the on-going timely feedback they received from me via the interactive software, meant that they could not get away with less than actual data collection, observation of student engagement/ disengagement, and well-supported statements. They construct their own knowledge, their data belongs to them - it is theirs to write about. I later give them an additional opportunity to publish their papers on the web so that they can contribute to the field. Why should their efforts stop with me as the instructor? They should not.
Would action research around the problem of student engagement/ disengagement housed in an interactive web environment assist in-service teachers in solving their problems in the classroom? My initial hypothesis is yes.
