Lessons Learned
This project experienced successes and disappointments that resulted in important lessons learned. Analysis of the lessons learned provided some important information for other settings. One lesson learned was the difficulty of establishing random treatment and control groups in a public school setting. This proved especially true in a local control state like Wisconsin. In some Wisconsin settings, it appeared that enthusiasm for the project was diminished once people found that they were assigned to either a treatment group that was not their first choice or assigned to a control group that required delaying work they considered important and exciting. Another problem associated with this research project was the difficulty of isolating variables in a public school setting and then attempting to make meaningful attributions about which of the variables was responsible for any changes. Even when there were changes observed, it was difficult to document that the treatment variables were the reasons (causation) for the change.
The realities of conducting research in public schools are factors that practioners, politicians, funders and researchers must consider and analyze if we are to have quality answers about effective educational practices and strategies. Approaches used in medicine and other fields, where most of the subjects are adults very interested in results that may be life-saving or extremely beneficial, may not be the best models for studies where over-burdened teachers and students, personally, have little to gain or lose from the results of a research study. Research designs for educational research need to recognize that educational improvement needs to give attention to many things including high quality teachers, well designed curriculum, engaging instruction, appropriate assessment, quality parental involvement, use of appropriate instructional tools and resources and many other important and essential considerations if education is to be improved.
A third lesson learned was the importance of ensuring the quality of professional development and providing on-going support to teachers participating in the implementation of project treatments. Teachers were in agreement that the initial professional development provided for this project was of high quality. The professional development was designed around programs that had been carefully developed and tested and was 40 plus hours in length. Teachers rated the programs very highly and left with confidence. However, when faced with other priorities and the specific local challenges inherent in implementation, fidelity suffered. The lack of fidelity in implementing the models probably had many causes but one may have been insufficient support once teachers returned to their own classrooms.
Our fourth lesson was the importance of having local administrators trained and involved in the project. In those settings where administrators were knowledgeable and supportive, project efforts were more successful because teacher’s efforts were understood and valued. We believe that insufficient knowledge and support by administrators may have been a major factor in whether individual building experienced success.
One of the most interesting findings and lesson learned from this study was how students lowered and increased the quality of their work to match the expectations of teachers. If teachers assigned work that had minimal cognitive demand, then students responded in kind. If teachers assigned work that was demanding and requiring higher-level thinking and products, students responded with higher-quality work Classroom observers and evaluation of student products suggested that students worked at higher levels of cognition if given that challenge. Because both the project interventions were concerned with use of technology to enhance higher level thinking and products, considerable of the “effect power” was lost because too many of the activities did not have sufficient cognitive expectations. A lesson learned was that teachers need to be helped in understanding how important setting high student expectations were not only for the success of the project but for quality learning at all times.
Project teachers were cognizant of NCLB accountability requirements and during the project they determined that meeting those requirements was their most important job even if it meant pushing back seemingly conflicting project objectives. An important lesson learned was the need to show teachers that the work of the project prepared students for the accountability expectations of No Child Left Behind. Because that connection was not made, it appeared that teachers saw project work as something that was of lower priority than preparation for standardized tests that would determine whether they met NCLB expectations. The concern about preparing for tests that would determine whether students had made sufficient annually yearly progress to avoid negative sanctions was so strong that anything that did not appear to be directly responsive to test improvement became secondary in importance. Project leaders learned that they must share with teachers how project objectives do in fact contribute to meeting requirements of NCLB.
As demonstrated by the lessons learned, successful projects require attention to many facets. The most significant lesson learned is that improved learning for all students is a complex endeavor that requires extensive research, careful thought, detailed planning and careful planning.
Recommendations Based on Findings
This study included to many uncontrolled variables that we believe affected the limited difference in results between the three groups in the study. If we were replicating this study, the following are items we would do differently to enhance the outcome:
• The fact that the Big6 were only required to teach 2 units during the year and 6 Traits was using the model on nearly a daily basis. This did not adequately assess the impact of using the “information literacy” model given the limited number of times it was actually implemented in the classrooms.
• If doing over again, we would require teachers to completely redo, or esign their instructional units from scratch versus modify their old units to fit the models and to incorporate technology. Based on our experience in this research, we highly recommend that when faced with this degree of instructional/learning change that teachers develop their units from “scratch” based perhaps on many of the instructional units and other resources found on the web rather than remain connected to their earlier paradigm.
• Incorporate more training with ongoing collaboration between teachers and work with a coach to achieve better instructional units including more use of technology.
• Study would have been better if we had started with 6 and 7th grade students in the first year instead of 7th and 8th grade. This would have allowed us to follow two grade levels for two years instead of just one grade.
• We should have included the building principal as a major change agent which was not included in the research design.
• We should have included, library media specialists as a coach since they tend to be more skilled in project based learning and Information Literacy.
• Should have demanded more involvement by superintendents and middle level management i.e. Directors of Instruction. This was a major oversight as with the principals. It is fair to say that most instructional leaders lack complete understanding of the use of technology in teaching and learning and therefore are quite uncomfortable with being a strong leader who has high expectations for technology integration but know little about what it should look like in the classroom nor how to evaluate the instruction and provide recommendations to various teachers. This is a critical problem in most of K-12 education but they could have provided much needed leadership and commitment on the part of some instructors.
