Walking with Our Colleagues as They Take Their Next Step

 The CBAM Framework 

In today’s blog post I’ll be using the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) as the lens through which I view my co-teaching support role as teacher librarian in a COVID19 era school. The framework “holds that people considering and experiencing change evolve in the kinds of questions they ask and in their use of whatever the change is” (Loucks-Horsley, 1996). These stages of questions start as self-focused, take on a more task-oriented slant, and then become centered around the effect this change has had on student learning.  The voyage from stage one “Awareness” to last stage of “Refocusing” can take anywhere from 3-5 years (Loucks-Horsley, 1996). 

 

My Context and Challenges

I would like to acknowledge that the expectations for this framework cannot be applied perfectly to my current teacher librarian experience. First, the changes asked of teachers during this time of COVID19 do not provide a timeline conducive to a questioning dialogue. It is expected that teachers adopt these teaching practices nearly over-night with little to no formal training or time for Innovation Configuration, Stages of Concern discussion or Levels of Use interviews. Though necessary in these pandemic circumstances, it does leave very little time for the processes described in their model.

 

Second, I am the only in-person resource that my colleagues have access to where they can voice concerns, seek support and reflect on the success or failures of its implementation. This is problematic because I am very new to this role and have little experience working with the programs that are to be implemented. I am often learning alongside my colleagues or teaching myself using on-line tutorials so that I can offer some insights when called upon. This has proved to be a frustrating situation. As an example, I was asked to teach my colleagues how to use specifically selected online learning platforms with their students, but to save money, I was not granted my own password and username. Therefore, I did not have a way to explore and learn the platforms myself without having to first beg for the use of one of my colleagues’ private log in information. 

 

The third challenge is establishing a rapport of trust with my colleagues. Having started only this past September, my experience with collaborative teaching is limited and I have had little time to get to know other teachers in the building. I am often many years younger than some of them, which leads to a hesitancy to trust my capabilities. Finally, my predecessor did much to harm the role of teacher librarian at my school and reduced it in the eyes of many teachers to a role in which students are taught typing and where most of one's time is spent in the library office. Therefore, before I can teach collaboratively and effectively with any of my colleagues, I must first prove to them, through successive positive experiences, that I can offer added value, expertise and supports for new teaching practices. With this context in mind, I present two situations in which I have tried my best to encourage growth and the adaptation of technology and reference materials.

 

Saphna

Sapha is an elementary school teacher with over twenty years teaching experience. She has spent most of her career in grade 1 and relies on teaching techniques which have proven successful for her in the past. Many of her activities involve paper and pencil activities and often are delivered as large-group discussions. She has admitted to me that she does not like to use technology both in her professional and personal life unless it is absolutely necessary.

 

With the inevitability of code orange happening sometime this school year, our school decided to purchase a licence to Dreambox so that students could continue their math learning remotely. In order to prepare students for this, teachers were asked to introduce the website and program to their students. When Saphna heard of this directive, she came into my office is a state of alarm and asked for my help. I was happy to oblige. Saphna was very clear that she did not want to learn how the online program worked, but just wanted me to take care of teaching her students how to perform this skill. In that moment, Saphna was at the Awareness stage of concern and at the Non-Use level of use. It was clear that she did not want to move forward on the continuum. 

https://sites.google.com/site/ch7cbam/home/introduction

 

The next time I was scheduled to work with Saphna’s class, I brought in the iPads, demonstrated how to find the icon on their screens, how to log in and how to navigate the site to choose math games which interested them. When the students started calling out “This is so much fun!” and other exclamations of joyful learning, Saphna stopped correcting sheets at her desk and started walking around the classroom observing the intense level of involvement her students were displaying. She then started asking me questions about how she could book the iPads using our on-line system. Now she too wanted to share in this positive learning experience! 

 

Thanks to the trust we had built through positive experiences earlier in the year, she allowed me to model how to implement this online resource. I was able to remove a barrier to her continued progress along the levels of use continuum. It only took one hour-long visit to inspire her to move from Non-Use to Orientation (she had overheard my instructions to her students) and to Preparation (when she learnt how to book the iPads for another session of Dreambox with her students). This implementation of DreamBox in Saphna’s classroom and her surprising eagerness to try this teaching tool independently with her students signifies a big shift in her teaching practice. This program symbolized a more individually-catered program which allows individual progress and learning timelines, requires little to no direct teacher involvement and will accommodate remote learners. 

 

I plan to encourage her to continue making use of DreamBox and the iPads on a more routine basis. This would qualify as the Mechanical and Routine stages in the Levels of Use and push her towards a Management level in Stages of Concern. I will do this by checking in with her periodically for an informal interview in which I ask her how her inclusion of DreamBox and iPads are working out. I am hoping that our burgeoning professional relationship based on trust will allow her to be truthful about her frustrations and concerns and will allow me to provide support in the areas she is finding challenging. As the image below illustrates, I will aim to be positive, safe, and offer support in a mutually, non-evaluative context (Sweeny, Barry, 2002). For without a supportive context, someone like Saphna, who has a difficult personal relationship with technology and online resources, will not be likely to expose her students to the learning possibilities for therein. 

 

https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/731/2015/07/CBAM-explanation.pdf

 

The SAMR Framework

For the following example, I will apply the Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition (SAMR) model. This model is used to show “a progression that adopters of education technology often follow as they progress through teaching and learning with technology” (Technology is Learning, 2020). The image below shows the progression from use of technology used as a Substitute for a previous learning activity to a Redefiniton which leads to new learning activities which were impossible before.

 

https://www.3plearning.com/blog/connectingsamrmodel/

 

Sonya

Sonya is familiar with technology and has implemented the use of ipads, laptops and web-based resources during research activities into her past teaching practice. She has confided in me that “it wasn’t worth the trouble” and that “kids get too much screen-time at home anyway”. Thus her willingness to accept technology into her classroom had reached a stalemate as she saw little benefit from the added effort of booking the devices, bring them down, cleaning them off (and in the COVID19 era this has become important but time-consuming!) and spending time finding online resources. In other words, she has used technology as a Substitution in the past, but has not experienced any of the other steps along this continuum.

 

In early October, she approached me about enhancing her Rocks and Minerals unit with some “fun activities.” I thought immediately of how I could bring technology into her classroom to model how impactful it could be. Thankfully, we had worked together in a different context last year, which lead to a spirit of trust between us and she immediately agreed to try something new. 

 

The first step was to try to incorporate technology more deeply. To help me do this, I found an on-line scavenger hunt which used QR codes. The students must first find the sheets scattered around the school ground and then use the iPads to take a picture of the QR codes. This re-directed them to a website where they found the answers to the questions on their sheet. I would define this activity as an Augmentation activity since the same task could be accomplished using encyclopaedias, books, laptops and websites, or other reference materials. It was very successful as the students enjoyed using the iPads independently and were grateful for a time to be outside while learning.

 

Moving forward, I sensed some momentum and a renewed interest in technology in Sonya. I therefore took a risk and suggested another technologically-based activity for her and her students. In Winnipeg, there is a popular Facebook site called Winnipeg Rocks  in which anyone who wishes to participate may paint a rock, find a rock or track a painted rock they find. I suggested to Sonya that she ask students collect rocks and paint them with positive messages, register them on the Facebook page, distribute them into the neighbourhood and track their progress. 

 

Much to my surprise she loved the idea and implemented this idea the following week. I would consider this a Redefinition activity as the technology has facilitated connections between students and their community, and given them an ability to affect positive change in their neighbourhood during a difficult time for many. It also has re-kindled a joy for technology in Sonya as she saw how technology can be used, not to mimic paper and pencil activities, but to open her classroom up to interactions with the broader world. She is now asking me for more "fun activity" ideas which I interpret to mean more redefinition technology suggestions. 

My plan moving forward is to continue to suggest technology-based resources which have the potential to Redefine her teaching style and focus on student questions instead of teacher questions. I will do this with frequent and informal conversations as we continue to form a professional foundation of trust and meet during our collaborative lesson planning time.

 

Conclusions:

Though both models are different, they both center around continuums and rely on people encouraging teachers to take that next step. Each of these steps requires a degree of risk and teachers will only take the risk if a relationship built on trust is present. It is also important to remember that each teacher is unique and that “each person involved will respond to the new initiative with unique attitudes and beliefs…[and that] each person will use a new program differently”(American Institutes for Research, 2020).  Whether it is a big leap or a small step, walking with our colleagues and encouraging them to take their next steps is fast becoming one of my favourite parts of being a teacher librarian. 

 

 

References:

 

American Institutes for Research. (2020). Retrieved on October 25, 2020 from: https://www.air.org/resource/concerns-based-adoption-model-cbam

Concerns-Based Adoption Model. (2010) Retrieved on October 30, 2020 from: https://sites.google.com/site/ch7cbam/home/introduction

Loucks-Horsley, S. (1996). Professional Development for Science Education: A Critical and Immediate Challenge. National Standards & the Science Curriculum, edited by Rodger Bybee of the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co., 1996 . Retrieved on October 25, 2020 from: https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/731/2015/07/CBAM-explanation.pdf

Rocks and Minerals Scavenger Hunt. Retrieved on October 20, 2020 from: https://www.johnston.k12.nc.us/cms/lib/NC02214550/Centricity/Domain/7822/ROCKS%20MINERALS%20QR%20SCAVENGER%20HUNT.docx.

SAMR Model. Retrieved October 25, 2020 from: https://www.3plearning.com/blog/connectingsamrmodel/

Sweeny, B. (2002). The Bridge. Retreived October 25, 2020 from: https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/731/2015/07/CBAM-explanation.pdf

Technology is Learning. Retrieved on October 25, 2020 from: https://sites.google.com/a/msad60.org/technology-is-learning/samr-model

Winnipeg Rocks. (2020). https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-rocks-facebook-group-1.4738331.