SUSTAINABILITY OF
GRANT-BASED TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVES IN NON-GRANT SUPPORTED ENVIRONMENTS
James B. Carr=
oll,
University of Portland
Abstract
Using Davis’ (2002)= model of sustainability, three strategies for encouraging technology use by stude= nt teachers (conferences, mini-grants, equipment libraries) were analyzed for = the likelihood of sustainability after the termination of grant resources that = were initially available to implement these strategies. A discussion of strategi= es for supporting sustainability of innovations is included.
Over the = past decade numerous grant-based resources have been made available to higher education to improve the infusion of technology in teaching and learning. M= any of these efforts were focused specifically on teacher education as a primary path to improving the quality of the teaching force and consequently the ho= pe of increasing K-12 student learning (i.e. Preparing Tomorrow’s Teache= rs to use Technology (PT3)—U.S. Department of Education; Teac= her Quality Enhancement (TQE)—U.S. Department of Education). Now that fun= ding has essentially disappeared for these programs questions remain about the efficacy of initiatives implemented with these funds and more specifically = if it is possible to continue the successful work done under these programs without the substantial resources that have been provided by granting agenc= ies.
Fundament= al to the examination of sustainability of innovations in schools of education is= the realization that teacher education is a complex system (Cilliers, 1998; Dav= is, 2002). Too often technology has been examined as a stand-alone issue that c= an be addressed independent of the other complexities of the communities that = will be affected by the impact of the infusion of technology in teacher education programs. To quote Cilliers talking more broadly about complex systems: = 220;A complex system cannot be reduced to a collection of its basic constituents,= not because the system is not constituted by them, but because too much of the relational information gets lost in the process” (p. 10). The point is that to learn about the impact of the infusion of technology an examination must be made of individuals and organizations involved as well as descripti= ons of the interactions among those participants.
Davis (20= 02) examines the issues of sustainability with the pressures of complex systems= in mind from two points of view: individual personal development and organizational development. For Davis the Concerns Based Adoption Model (CB= AM) (Hall & Hord, 1987) serves as a foundation to examine individual change= as a progression through three stages: self awareness of innovations, task management of innovations, and understanding the impact of the implementation of the innovation and refocusing b= ased on that understanding. Davis’ cycle of personal development matches similar models of professional development that appear in the literature all seeing personal change as dynamic and recursive (see for instance Orlich (1= 979) AAIM: awareness, application, implementation, and maintenance).
DavisR= 17; model of organization change follows five stages: localized exploitation, internal integration, educational process redesign (internal), educational networking redesign, educational scope redefinition. He makes the case that technology innovation starts with experimentation by individuals in unique setting and that successful innovations expand to eventually affect fundame= ntal program designs and capacities.
Although = Davis sees this generally as a progressive set of changes through the defined sta= ges some evidence suggests that organizational impact may appear at any stage working its way through the other stages in a less linear fashion. An examp= le is the National Educational Technology Standards (ISTE, 2000) and the subsequent adoption of the NETS by NCATE as part of the strategies used to evaluate the efficacy of teacher education programs. This program level pressure has inspired many programs to implement changes at Davis’ th= ird stage (educational process redesign—internal) regardless of the level= of activity at the first two. Davis (2003) acknowledges this as a challenge of Cilliers’ (1998) complex systems and an indication of the distinct ne= ed for change agents (Carroll, Morrell & Eifler, 2005) in the process of implementing technology change in teacher education.
Even thou= gh this examination focuses on the sustainability of efforts that have already been implemented through grant-funded programs these approaches to the examinati= on of sustainability apply directly to initiatives that can be put in place in less well funded environments. Often funding follows successful initiatives= and Davis provides some insight into what is likely to be successful in the com= plex system of teacher eduation.
In the re= mainder of this paper I will examine the strategies successfully implemented by a long-term, grant-funded technology in teacher education program in light of Davis’ sustainable practices. Second, a review of the efficacy of the activities that have been implemented to sustain grant programs will be com= pleted.
Program
Description
The Oregon Technology in Education Network (OTEN) is a consortium of teacher education programs in seven small to medium sized private liberal arts colleges. Each program assigns a campus coordinator to the OTEN administrative council. Oversight of OTEN activities is handle by a board composed of the deans of = the respective programs. OTEN has been funded since 1999 and received a federal Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology grant (PT3) in 2001 a= nd a federal Teacher Quality Enhancement Partnership grant (TQEP) in 2004. OTEN activities reach about 1000 of the 2500 student teachers in the state of Or= egon each year. Although most OTEN activities are designed to enhance student teaching experiences, grant resources are also available to faculty in the teacher education programs, K-12 teachers participating in program activiti= es and early career teachers who have graduated from OTEN campuses.
OTEN supp= orts a wide variety of activities but a few have demonstrated sufficient efficacy = that it is worth the energy necessary to attempt to sustain them beyond the life= of the current grant. Certainly, one approach is to write further grants but considering the depletion of grant resources, particularly at the federal level, the ability to support these best practices of the program with local funds needs to be examined.
Conferences. Each year OTEN sponso= rs two conferences. In the fall student teachers, K-12 teachers involved in OTEN activities and teacher education faculty are invited to a one-day conference anchored by a keynote presentation from a nationally recognized figure in educational technology. After the keynote participants attend workshops intended to stimulate ideas for uses of technology in teaching and learning= .
In the sp= ring OTEN participants who have been involved in technology infusion projects co= me together is a less formal, seminar style conference setting to discuss the impact of the work they have been doing.
Minigrants. Each campus has an all= ocated amount available to fund small technology infusion projects. Grantees submit proposals for classroom projects that include a rationale for the project, = an assessment plan, and a discussion of why the proposed work would be difficu= lt or impossible without technology assistance.
Equipment Libraries. Each of the s= even OTEN institutions receives a yearly allocation to buy equipment for a campus-based equipment lending library. All of the hardware in these librar= ies is available to student teachers to take into their clinical placements to augment technology resources available on site.
Analysis
What foll= ows is a analysis of each of these activities in terms of Davis’ (2002) definitions of personal and organizational sustainability and an examinatio= n of specific strategies that OTEN has used to move these activities into program supported rather than grant supported realms.
Fall Conference. Davis sees the ad= option of technology by individual teachers moving through three stages. First, teachers need to be aware of innovations and begin to interpret the potenti= al of the innovation in personal terms. The fall conferences are designed specifically to support student teachers in this way. When we talk to presenters before the conference we remind them that they should assume no = prior knowledge from the session participants of the technological innovation bei= ng discussed or, for the most part, prior knowledge of teaching strategies. We insist that presentations are hands-on when possible and that participants = have access to follow-up resources after the conference, usually in electronic f= orm.
Second, D= avis sees teachers needing to use technology in real instructional settings to s= ee how they are managed and to begin to assess the impact of their use. Genera= lly, the fall conferences do not support this well. Occasionally, experienced teachers or faculty may interject ideas about the impact of the technology = into discussions during the sessions but this is not part of the conference desi= gn, nor does it happen with any consistency. Providing resources online after t= he conference provides the potential for support while teachers are investigat= ing the management of innovation in their classrooms but we have no idea the ex= tent to which these resources are used.
Third, Da= vis sees teachers adopting technologies when they have the chance to reflect on their use in real classrooms and to refocus the use of these innovations in a way that is in alignment with their personal beliefs and pedagogy. When OTEN fi= rst designed the conference activities we realized this would not be possible i= n a conference that focused primarily on initial awareness of the use of these tools in teaching and learning. This issue is discussed further in the outl= ine of the impact of the spring conference.
For Davis innovations are most likely to be sustained if they reach a level of integration demonstrated not only by changes in the Schools of Education bu= t by an impact in K-12 environments as well. Reaching this level is accomplished= via a path including 1) experimentation with innovations by individuals leading= to 2) coordination of access to innovation across individuals while retaining = old structures leading to 3) changes in working habits within the organization leading to 4) better networking across individuals and organizations (specifically links to K-12 schools) leading to 5) changes in the understan= ding of the scope of the work that organizations can do. To examine our work in Davis’ terms we need to look at the impact of the OTEN activities at = the School of Education level.
The fall conference has minimal influence on teacher education. The conference is designed for student teachers, and faculty, although encouraged to attend, participate voluntarily and in very low numbers. After repeated attempts we have been unable to convince teacher education faculty that awareness experiences around technology might be of interest to them as well. Interestingly, there is some evidence that conference participants are increasing their networking among individuals and organizations (Davis̵= 7; fourth stage) independent of the Schools of Education through personal cont= act and via the OTEN webpage (http://www.oten.info).
Regardles= s, sustaining the conferences after grant resources are available will require structural changes within the Schools of Education. Our strategy here has b= een to use the Deans’ oversight council as a forum to discuss the efficac= y of the conferences. Here Deans talk about the direct impact on student teachers and how cost might be distributed across institutions to retain the benefit= s of the conference experiences. Although somewhat out of alignment with Davis’ model of developing sustainability it is possible that these activities may be institutionalized by mandate from higher administration rather than as a direct growth out of existing organizational structures.
One of th= e issues that we emphasize in Deans’ council meetings is that OTEN activities = are a structured whole in the sense that they are a series of assessed activiti= es all designed around demonstrable goals. Writing the grants required that we organize what we do in this matter. Because all of the Schools of Education= in OTEN are evaluated by a state board of education (Teacher Standards and Practices Commission (TSPC) in Oregon) and many of them are seeking national accreditation through the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) the OTEN agenda is very attractive as a model for technol= ogy implementation in their respective schools. We readily provide assessment d= ata of OTEN activities to the Deans and will assist in writing technology plans= for accreditation review when we are asked. We realize that organization change cannot happen by overlaying external program design on top of existing organizational structures but the pressure of internal evaluation during accreditation is intense enough that OTEN’s program structure can be = seen as a starting point during the self assessment Schools must do as part of accreditation review.
Both of t= he above points (institutionalizing activities from the top down and overlaying exte= rnal models on existing structures) are not consistent with Davis’ model of design for sustainability. It is important that we continue to find ways for program changes to grow from the exiting structures, structures that have permeated the organizations because of the diffusion of interests and experimentation of the individuals in them.
Spring Conferences. In the spring conferences mini-grant recipients (see below) present reports on their effo= rts to implement specific uses of technology in teaching and learning. The conferences are set up to provide small seminar style meetings that are mea= nt to be conversational in demeanor. Presenters sit at small tables with 6 to = 10 other interested participants and discuss issues related to their work. Although we provide an outline for the expectations of these discussions th= ey are generally very conversational in tone.
Because mini-grant activities (again, see below) are related to Davis’ second= and third levels of individual implementation of innovation these conferences t= ake on a very different tone than the fall conferences. They continue to be informational in the sense that most of the conference participants are hea= ring about activities for the first time but the level of discussion is very different because the participants don’t view the presenters as exper= ts the way they are more likely to do in the fall conference. Since the presen= ters are seen on a more equal level the discussions more readily focus on proble= ms of implementation which is Davis’ second level.
The same = issues in institutionalizing the fall conferences exist with the spring conferences—mainly that faculty do not see these conferences as being generated out of the programmatic needs of the schools. They view these activities as externally generated and because of that unlikely to be used = as a source for internal process redesign. The added difficulty with the spring conference is that if programs do not sustain mini-grant like activities the spring conference will not have the same impact that it is having now. An additional impediment to integrating the spring conferences into programs is that these conferences only make sense if the student teachers have had a chance to actually teach with technology meaning that the conference needs = to occur late in the spring semester. Students who have almost completed their programs are not interested in participating in additional activities. Consequently, the spring conference is only attended by those who received = mini-grants and few if any of the rest of the graduating cohort regardless of the quali= ty of the experience.
Mini-Grants. Throughout the seven = OTEN institutions about 90 mini-grants are distributed a year. These small grant= s go to student teachers, early career teachers, participating K-12 teachers and teacher education faculty. The grants were specifically designed to address Davis’ second and third stages of individual implementation of innovation—management of innovations in real settings and redesign of innovations to meet personal needs. Because lack of resources is a common problem when teachers have an interest in innovation OTEN tries to support = them directly through these small equipment and software grants. Analysis of the grant reports that all recipients are required to complete clearly indicate= s a sophisticated level of understanding of the management of technology in classrooms and shows that the teachers have at least considered how they wi= ll refocus the innovation in a later iteration. From this point of view the mini-grants appear to be a sustainable innovation.
For the p= oint of view of organizational change this is much more problematic. The culture of teacher education is not used to giving students equipment that they may ke= ep even with the understanding that this will lead to potentially robust learn= ing experiences. Discussion with the Deans indicated little interest in reallocation of scant funds to a project of this nature.
More to Davis’ point the idea of mini-grants as an institutional change growi= ng out of a redistribution of technology while retaining old structures and curriculum doesn’t make sense to faculty when all of the needs of sch= ools of education are considered. Perhaps here Colliers’ (1998) descriptio= n of complex systems—and Davis’ (2002) refinement in terms of teacher education—is most apparent. The sustainability of this innovation nee= ds to be viewed within the conflicting demands and established cultures of tea= cher education as a whole. In our discussions with Deans the short-term probabil= ity that mini-grants would be continued after the grant expired rested solidly = on attaining further grant support.
Equipment Libraries. Placing stude= nt teachers in quality clinical placements is a challenge for most teacher education programs. Assuring that quality placements would also be in technology rich environments would reduce the number of available placements below acceptable levels. The grant attempted to overcome this problem by ma= king a large and diverse collection of technology equipment and other resources available to all student teachers within OTEN institutions. The quality of = this collection was enhanced by the fact that the equipment was selected specifically to support the needs of student teachers rather than the unive= rsities as a whole.
Some stud= ents and program faculty took advantage of the availability of the equipment to learn new skills and to investigate the potential of the tools thereby addressing Davis’ first level of individual professional development. Most often equipment was checked out to support specific curricular activities which f= its within Davis’ second level of professional development—manageme= nt of instructional tasks. In a few cases faculty particularly reported more considered infusion of technology into teaching and learning because of the availability of the equipment library—Davis’ third level of professional development.
Interesti= ngly, the equipment libraries also matched the hierarchy of expected organization= al change in Davis’ model. First faculty took advantage of the equipment= on an individual basis experimenting and solving problems that were unique to = his or her needs. Later discussions among faculty indicated a need for the equipment to be available across courses and programs in order to enhance existing structures. In some cases, experience with the equipment has helped the schools of education negotiate more complex relationships with other schools and with information technology units on campuses. Although none of programs have reached Davis’ fifth stage (changing the scope of the organization’s work) a number of OTEN institutions are beginning to investigate how collaboration with K-12 schools can be enhanced through effective uses of technology.
Seemingly equipment libraries would suffer the same budget constraints to which mini-grants are subject but this is not the case because schools of educati= on are collaborating with instructional technology departments to share responsibility for maintaining and upgrading equipment collections. What started out as an entrepreneurial activity on the part of the OTEN and the schools of education is expanding into Davis’ (2002) fourth level of organizational change. “The new educational process gave rise to increased networking between people beyond the department and stimulated redesign of the networking between teachers, departments, the home, the community, and across schools” (p. 268). A prime example of this is t= hat a number of the OTEN campuses schools of education have begun to work with = information technology departments to improve online communication with K-12 schools.
Conclusion
The sustainability of an innovation has to be predicated on the efficacy of the innovation to both the individuals using it and to the organizations that m= ust support it. Educational technology innovations are complicated by the fact = that they are applied in instructional settings in idiosyncratic ways and often their initial cost is high compared with other instructional support resour= ces. In the examination of these three innovations—conferences, mini-grant= s, and equipment libraries—each had some power as individual professional development tools. More problems appeared when examining how these innovati= ons were being adopted by the schools of education that would be responsible for their continued support when grant resources were retired.
From our = point of view sustainability is an issue that needs to be addressed almost from the beginning of the appearance of an innovation. If the individuals within responsible organizations are not discovering powerful applications of the innovations then it is unlikely that the innovations will be sustained. As = in the case of conferences, it may be that the retention of an innovation can = be mandated but even then work needs to be done to ensure that individuals in = the organization find meaningful ways to align the innovation to his or her own pedagogy and beliefs. This happened in the case of equipment libraries. Meaningful pedagogical use of the equipment on an individual basis served as the basis for an expansion of the innovation beyond the initial program.
In our ca= se all three of the innovations described were very effective on multiple measures within the life of the grants. How and if they are sustained is in question. The fall conference is being developed as a collaboration among the seven institutions suggesting it will continue to occur. The mini-grants will probably be deemed too expensive even though they are arguably the most powerful of the innovations described. Finally, the equipment libraries are likely to be slowly subsumed under the larger collections maintained by information technology units on the campuses and the degree to which these remain under the control of the schools of education is likely to vary cons= iderably across OTEN campuses.
All of th= is is exacerbated by the complexity of teacher education. Infusing technology into teaching and learning, regardless of the innovation that is being used as t= he vehicle to that end, must be viewed as part of the larger set of issues aro= und helping new teachers become successful. Sustainability of educational technology innovations is a function of the power that the innovation bring= s to multiple areas of importance within the larger effort of teacher education. Having innovations be sustainable is something that appears over time. Assu= ming that sustainability can be addressed at the end of a grant’s life is a mistake. The process of developing sustainability needs to begin the moment that a technology innovation is identified as contributing to the efficacy = of teaching and learning. Davis (2002) provides one model for that process but even if others may eventually better describe how sustainability is achieved they are still likely to be based on the interests of individual teachers in making the innovations powerful in teaching and learning.
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