PT3 Project Jericho:

Measuring, Comparing, and Understanding Online, Offline, and Long-term Collaborations between K-12 Teachers and University Faculties

Maryann Durland

Durland Consulting, Inc.

United States

mdurland@aol.com

Kay Sloan

Rockman et al

United States

kay@rockman.com

Abstract: This paper explores the online, offline, and long-term collaborations of two cohorts of K-17 teachers who participated in the first two years of Project Jericho, a PT3 implementation grant funded by the U.S. Department of Education. Through surveys, interviews, and network analysis (a methodological tool for analyzing relational data), we examined the multiple tools that enabled Jericho participants to develop curriculum and collaborative relationships. This study explores the nature of each tool—its degree of use, its role in the development of extended collaborative relationships between K-12 and university faculties, the communication skills that differentiate the use of one tool over another, and the success of various tools in sustaining collaborations. The findings from the study of the first two cohorts provides a framework for examining parallel collaborations that developed in seven other university/school partnerships, modeled on Jericho, during years three and four of the project.

Introduction

Project Jericho, funded by a U.S. Department of Education Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology implementation grant, has focused on improving pre-service teacher education through university and public school partnerships that break down the walls between K-12 teachers, university methods faculties, and faculties from academic disciplines. During its first two years, the project brought participants together to determine what students, K-17, need to know, what teachers should be prepared to teach, and how the effective use of technology can enhance instruction. Jericho’s focus has been not on isolated technology professional development, but on the classroom application and integration of technology through collaboration and curriculum development.

University faculties from Clemson University and Furman University, and South Carolina teachers from nearby K-12 schools, worked together to match up technology skills and applications with state-mandated curriculum components and then develop technology-rich units for integration in university content classes, Education methods classes, and prospective teachers' field experiences. The first year’s cohort included teachers from Language Arts and Social Studies; the second-year cohort was drawn from Science and Mathematics.

Using network analysis methodology to add a further quantitative dimension to findings from survey and interview data, this paper explores the online, offline, and long-term collaborations of the two cohort groups of K-17 teachers. The findings from this analysis provide a framework for exploring parallel collaborations that developed in Year 3, and during a fourth extension year, when seven other university/school partnerships adapted the Jericho model to form collaborative teams and enhance their pre-service programs.

Findings from the Initial Data Collection

To date, there have been three evaluation reports on Project Jericho activities. Overall, the evaluations, based on observations, survey data, and interviews, have explored four broad categories: participants’ perceptions of collaboration and dialogue; changes in their technology proficiency and use; their participation in online forums, egroups, and other activities designed to support collaboration and curriculum development; and the professional growth and institutional changes resulting from project participation. Findings in each area include:

Perceptions of collaboration and dialogue

The survey data from Years 1 and 2 show that teachers rated the success of face-to-face dialogue high, at 5.85 on a scale of 1 to 7; they also ranked it second—to genuine excitement about using technology—among the factors that made Project Jericho a success. Participants commented favorably on the wide range of ideas and resources they were able to share, from URL’s for favorite web sites, to new hardware and software, to more substantive uses of technology. Participants, across grade levels and disciplines, made new contacts and plans for extending newly formed partnerships beyond the meetings themselves.

Changes in Technology Proficiency and Use

Teachers were asked to become Jericho participants in part because they were a technology-savvy group. Almost all (93%) of the first-year participants had home computers; 81% also had Internet access. In describing their level of expertise in various computer activities, K-17 teachers as a group rated themselves above average or higher (at the “I rarely need help” or “I usually help others do this” stage). Higher education participants rated themselves slightly lower, but responses still indicated that the project therefore convened a group of experienced technology users with considerable knowledge to share. Teachers as a group also reported relatively high use of technology, especially for instructional planning (2.8 on a 3-point scale for the Year 1 and Year 2 cohorts), conducting online research (2.7 and 2.5), contacting colleagues (2.7 and 2.8) and classroom management (2.6 and 2.7). The mean for classroom instruction was 2.5 and 2.6, between “sometimes” and “frequently.” On balance, university participants’ use of technology measured up well against K-12 teachers’ use.

Even though most began as fairly skilled technology users, Jericho participants said, in follow-up surveys, that the project, though not conceived as a training project, increased their technology skills and knowledge. Data from follow-up surveys and interviews also indicated that the project was a catalyst for helping participants understand more about using technology in their teaching. University participants especially profited from sharing web sites, hearing about new hardware and software, and learning about what is available for new teachers to use.

Forum Participation

Jericho is not about training but about sharing, and the forum was an online tool for sharing ideas about technology integration, lesson ideas, and observations on the implementation of ISTE standards. Teachers at all levels said they enjoyed exchanging ideas on the online forum, and that it gave them a sense of the myriad “tasks of teachers today” and the “the changing role of educators.” The topics/discussions teachers said interested them most were: standards—both curriculum and technology—and accountability, other websites (“very stimulating and helpful”), hearing what pre-service teachers think about the current debates about teaching particular content, and in general interacting with pre-service teachers. Teachers also found the focus on specific issues in their fields to be very stimulating.

Professional Growth and Institutional Change

According to K-12 teachers, Jericho brought recognition and validation for their efforts in integrating technology into their teaching. For higher education faculties, the project meant increased awareness and respect for K-12 teachers, and at the same time very practical, classroom-tested idea of how to use technology effectively. The two higher education institutions involved built on many of the ideas and curriculum developed through Jericho to bring their pre-service programs into compliance with the ISTE standards. A number of faculty members continued to collaborate with Jericho colleagues to integrate technology and new perspectives into their teaching.

Year 3 Adaptations of the Jericho Model

Even the somewhat limited, exchanges in the Year 3 schools adapting the Jericho model helped participants understand how public school teachers use technology and added support for revamping teacher education programs and developing relationships with public school teachers. The experiences of those adapting the Jericho model at other universities, in many ways mirrored, on a smaller scale, earlier Jericho findings: Collaborative work was exciting for faculty and had positive results, but most found that sustaining it depends on folding collaborative activities, such as these into the university reward structure. One or two face-to-face meetings did not provide sufficient groundwork or develop enough trust and personal ties for subsequent online collaborations, such as e-mentors.

Current Research Problem

There were several avenues and tools available to the participants to support collaborative relationships and help participants complete curriculum projects. To share information, K-12 teachers and university faculty participating in Years 1 and 2 of Project Jericho used emails, list serves, and the online forum, as well as face-to-face meetings. All participants consistently and enthusiastically endorsed the face-to-face sharing—across disciplines, across faculties, across grades K-17—and noted that these traditional forms of collaboration successfully broke down the walls that separate preparation from practice. Monthly meetings gave K-17 teachers a rare opportunity to come together to address the many complex questions about how to use technology to improve pre-service education. In informal conversations, participants made it clear that they got ideas from one another and routinely tried these out. The sharing lead to increases in technology confidence and use—even though the project itself was not oriented toward training and proficiency.

The forums, however, were the least successful of the tools available for the teacher/university partnerships. Even though participants enjoyed the forums, they found them to be only moderately successful. Polled midway through the first year, participants rated the forums’ success at 4.15 on a 7-point scale. They also reported somewhat infrequent participation (2.65 on a 4-point scale, or between “a few times a month” and “once or twice since the project began”). In a follow-up survey, Year 1 participants rated the forums’ benefit to them personally at 2.3 on a 3-point scale; 2^nd year participants’ ratings were lower, at 1.7. As participants became more comfortable with electronic sharing, they did begin to use less formal egroups to share progress on lesson development, and email to circulate lessons and responses.

Although we generally understand how face-to-face meetings and traditional forms of exchange supported teacher collaborations, we know less about how other methods of exchanging ideas supported and guided collaborative work. This current research paper paper addresses this core component of Project Jericho. It seeks to understand more about the nature, use, and evolution of communication tools for building and supporting collaborations. Current research on online collaborations, network building, and teaming has supported the use of network analysis as a methodological tool for understanding these communication relationships.

Network Analysis Results

Each forum message was coded and datasets were created. Network Maps were constructed for each collaborative team, from the forum messages. There were 31 individual discussion forums that took place within a six-month period between 10/02/00 and 4/3/01. Within these forum areas, there were 202 posts (messages). The 31 forums were divided into three large Topic Groups—ISTE/NETS Standards and Teacher Preparation, Essential Conditions’ Impact on General Preparation, and the individual subject areas. The first two Topic Groups include posts from participants from all subject areas. There were four teams, formed by combining individual subject areas (i.e., Algebra, Earth Science, etc.) into a combined subject area. The teams corresponding to the larger subject areas were science, math, language arts, and social sciences. Network data was first analyzed by forum area, then by team across several forum areas, and then across all participants.

The Forum Areas included topics related to Essential Conditions for technology integration, such as Shared Vision, Professional Development, and Technical Assistance; subject-area topics, such as Algebra, Data Analysis and Probability, Physical Science; and recommendations for software, hardware and websites for each combined subject area.

In addition to quantitative network measures such as indegree, outdegree, and betweenness, which are measures of the number of overall connections, sociograms were also constructed. From both the measures, calculated at the individual, team, and total network levels, indications of patterns of communication and communication leaders or hubs within the networks can be compared with survey, observational, and interview data. Other network measures will look at clique structures, the structure and layout of the webbing, and any isolates. Comparisons between networks will be made as appropriate. A final report will contain a profile for each network. Other survey data will be analyzed in relation to each of the networks identified.

The science team contained 18 participants - One K-12 district coordinator, 3 elementary teachers, 3 middle school teachers, 2 high school teachers, 5 teachers from university 1, and 2 teachers from university 2.

In the forum area, Earth Science, there were three threads; one was a welcome (with 2 messages), one “trying to catch up” (with 1 message), and one Earth Science Curriculum Standards (with 1 message). Four separate individuals made each post (message). Figure 1 is a sociogram illustrating the overall communication pattern of the “trying to catch up” message. Each small dot represents an individual. The direction of communication within the networks is indicated by arrows. In Figure 1, all the communication is going from one individual out towards the other participants, as indicated by the arrows, who may have read the post, not read the post due to inactivity, or even deleted the post without reading.

In Figure 2, all of the communication on these three threads, in the Earth Science Area, between all 18 participants, was combined into one network. Here we see the four individuals within the center of the star. These are the four individuals who posted across the discussions on the Earth Science Area forum. The participants around the edges of the star are those who, again, may or may not be a part of this communication process. Figure 3, illustrates how the complexity of the network expands as more individuals participate. Figure 3 is the combination of the science participants in both the Earth Science and the Physical Science forums, all science team members. As the network configuration clearly shows, more individuals participated in posting across the combined forums, though further analysis would indicate which individuals were participating in posting to both, and those individuals around the edges who are not participating in posting to the forums at all. All of the data analyzed though the forums in one direction, meaning that we know the poster, but do not know how the communication was received. Though the findings presented here are limited, they begin to illustrate the complexity of communication structures and of creating sustainable collaborations through developing communication patterns and structures.

Figure 1: ESD1 Sociogram Figure 2: ESD1, 3, 4 Sociogram Figure 3: ESPS Sociogram

Further Data and Analysis

Important questions raised by the above configurations include: Why does certain clustering occur? Are the individuals not participating in posting or reading the posts actually communicating about the content of the posts through other mediums, such as face-to-face or email? To further explore these and questions raised in other data collection and analysis, an online survey for all past and current Jericho participants was designed to provide additional data on sustained collaboration and long-term partnerships for both attribute and relational analysis. Questions specific to the online forums address how helpful the original forums were, and explore why participants may or may not have participated. The survey also addresses questions such as: What collaborative tools do participants currently use? What product(s) have been produced as a result of further collaboration? Have there been extensions of collaborative relationship within the participants’ schools or universities? Have participants noted any institutional changes due to the collaboration? Are there developmental and/or different communication skills necessary for the success use of different tools? As well as the survey, a sample of participants is also being interviewed to gather more in-depth information on how different tools do or do not support collaboration, and what mechanisms or conditions are needed to sustain collaborations over time. Questions still remain about how to best facilitate the development of this trust through the combined development of personal ties online, offline and face-to-face, with work progressing in response to those questions.