Dr. Sarah Armstrong: Principal

Shelby Cantley: College IT Administrator

Gayle Ziegler: K-12 Educational Technology Specialist

Expert Perspective from Dr. Sarah Armstrong: Principal

A Conversation with Dr. Armstrong, Principal (and formerly Director of Instruction/Personnel for a Virginia public school system)

Taking this case from the perspective of a central office administrator functioning as a Director of Instruction, several issues come to mind. The first would be the topic itself.

The assumption is made that workplace readiness is a valid subject for study. Having worked with it personally as an administrator, I certainly do believe in its value for students. We have to examine what it is we want students to be able to do when they leave high school or leave their formal education. What's interesting, and what I find is articulated well in this piece, is what surveys of employers indicate are desirable skills: conflict management, cooperation with others, and problem solving. In truth these aren't just workplace skills, these are life skills. They are probably ones that we should focus on to a much greater extent throughout all years of the schooling process. There are requisite skills that have to do with following directions and getting along with others. I think it can be a very worthwhile area of study to weave throughout all the areas of the curriculum in both academic and vocational classes. So if you look at the validity of the topic, I would support it if I were the administrator involved. The critical question for me would be what kind of follow-up will be provided.

Looking at a grant for this series of workshops, I'd want to have some information before I'd bring an instructional designer in, if that were an option. I would want to have had some prior discussions with the high school principal about the intended use of the grant. If we're going to take the time of teachers, we'd better know how it's going to be integrated into vocational and academic subjects. Is it a one time thing or is it something we're going to include in what we're doing as a whole faculty?. Is this a pilot project that might be taken up by this one team of individuals or are we establishing a prototype for the whole system? How it's been conceptualized would make a difference on how I might work with it as an advocate for a program. I do think some things are lacking certainly from the principal's commitment as well as from the committee's design in terms of defining what kind of integration will be taken throughout the whole high school program.

Another issue that is of interest to me is the instructional designer position. As I look at this particular designer's credentials, I would really have to question if I would hire her to work with a group of seasoned teachers in a secondary school setting. I don't see any experience. I know teachers well enough to know that they are going to look at someone coming in from the outside and say "What do you know that I don't?" "Why do you think you have something to tell me?" and a variety of other questions. The case study does reflect those kinds of concerns from the teachers and it does suggest that Ms. Kirkland is confronted with some of these questions of credentials -- whether paper credentials or experience credentials. As a personnel director, I would have looked for someone with a few more common experiences to establish credibility with the teachers ---not just by virtue of ability but by virtue of some common background.

Assuming, however, I had hired Terry Kirkland, I would have made sure to attend the first meeting with her: to introduce her; to provide some sort of indication that this project is something that is supported at the central office; that she, in fact, is my representative; and that we hope the school team, the central office, and this designer can have a productive working relationship. I would want to make sure that something was done that would have added some significance to her working with this team of teachers other than just allowing her to walk in and say "here I am."

The assistant principal, Mavis Barrett, perhaps, was intended to be that contact person to represent Dr. Cranston. Mavis Barrett seems to perform in a way that might be far too common for assistant principals; that is, she seems to be less attentive to a task that needs to have her interested participation and follow-through and is little more than a reactor to whatever might be coming up in the school setting The fact that she's at the beck and call of her beeper and has to be excused from the meetings she attends really causes her to become somewhat insignificant as a player. You don't feel that there's necessarily a great deal of respect for the fact that she's someone who is going to have a sustained effect with this group of people. That aspect of her interaction coupled with what appears to be the hands-off or totally laissez faire response of the principal, about whom we have very little information, suggests that this instructional designer is going into this school setting pretty much isolated. There is no principal to say 'this is an important plan," "this is why were doing it," "this is how it carries over." Nobody in a leadership capacity gives a picture that says this has meaning for us as a school system. The instructional designer and this team of teachers are completely dependent on whatever vision that they can create or pull from the biases and information they're bringing to the project.

The workshop in its own right does appear to have some credibility. There are a lot of hands-on activities and attempts to get the students involved. There's enough variety so that they don't sit longer than twenty minutes. There seems to be some reasonable learning theory embedded in how the workshop is organized. When we find that the Chamber of Commerce president is pretty deadly in terms of his ability to interact with students, it apparent that this workshop is going to fizzle out pretty quickly. The instructional designer, if she's charged to make something work, probably should have tried to figure out how to salvage this particular situation. What's going to occur is when this first group of kids leave, is that they will report back to the other students on the workshop that they participated in and its going to be a pretty bad report. It was an obvious problem that Terry Kirkland had not done her homework on the guest speaker. She should have prepped with him personally. You don't commit someone to four sessions unless you know what they're going to do and what they're going to say.

So the question is -- after the bells have rung and the students have left having already formed an opinion as to the value of these workshops based on what they've just experienced -- what can be done to make it meaningful? There are probably a number of things that can be worked with. There are three more sessions to go. I would go back to the original plan. I think someone needs to have a candid discussion with Mr. Tuthill. As tactfully as possible I would extract myself from the commitment for the following workshops. You have a three to five minute window in talking to students when they are going to be polite and sit and listen; but unless there's something to hold their attention, you're going to lose them. You should not set yourself or them up for that again.

The next day I would start back up and make sure we got through the intended program and then evaluate again. If you got through the program as designed and it still didn't work, go back to the drawing board. There's no reason that all four programs have to be a carbon copies of each other. I would also try to retrieve it with the 25 % of the group that were sitting there the first time. They didn't finish the program. I'd get them back together and talk to them about the process. Get them involved by soliciting their ideas.

Ultimately, however, it depends upon is how important this is going to be. What needs to be understood by everyone, and this is where the principal must become a leading player, is that these skills that you're saying to students are important and that you're trying to develop are significant enough to try to work into all aspects of the curriculum. Conflict management, problem solving and cooperation are core skills that need to be understood and practiced by students and adults. They are basically societal skills that we must have and they should be embedded within the curriculum If the school is saying this is important for students to have, it should be carried beyond the workshops into the classroom. The question becomes how can it be worked into literature studies, into social studies units, into vocational classes. That would take some thoughtful and effective planning from the principal and the faculty as a whole and not just this committee. The evident lack of leadership and responsibility on the part of the school administrators and the central office suggests there are systemic problems which go far beyond the scope of this committee or this instructional designer to deal with. Unfortunately, this is probably the case in school systems more often than not, whatever the good intentions of everyone involved.

What will likely occur if some cynicism kicks in is that they'll expend the dollars from the grant. They'll do everything they said they would do in the plan; then for lack of leadership or follow through, it will drop. Then they say, "Well, what's next?" and go on to something else. And that would be a shame.

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Expert Perspective from Shelby Cantley, College IT Administrator

An Administrator's Reaction to The Trials of Terry Kirkland

Upon reviewing the instructional design case study, The Trials of Terry Kirkland, I identified three key issues relating to institutional politics and procedures that served to limit the effectiveness of Terry, the fictitious instructional designer in the case. These were, in general order of importance, the compressed development schedule for the Workplace Readiness Workshop, the lack of support exhibited by school administration for the work of Terry, and the role of Jane Pruitt on the design team.

After reading the case and studying the accompanying Gantt chart, I came away with a number of questions regarding the workshop development schedule I would have liked answered, had the information been available. Over what period was the grant for the workshop available for expenditure? Could the actual workshop have been moved to the fall of the next year? If it could have been, what loss of momentum or political advantage would have resulted? It is obvious that Terry Kirkland had little control over the grant period prior to her hiring; that was just one of the restrictions that she as an outside consultant would have to deal with. However, I felt that the period of time scheduled between the formative evaluation and the first workshop was far too short. What would have happened if the formative evaluation identified major problems with the content, the characteristics of the workshop facilitator, the method of instructional delivery, or the group arrangement of the learners? There likely would not have been time to make appropriate changes prior to the first presentation. Worse still, workshop arrangements were already set by this point; it would have impossible to change several arrangements without paying a severe political or public relations price. In addition, I considered the planning of the workshop arrangements well before designing and arranging for the formative evaluation to be prejudicial to the outcome. How would one know if the right facilitator had been selected or properly trained when such actions were taken prior to the formative evaluation? How could one make any substantive changes to the workshop when the guest speaker and guests had already been invited prior to the formative evaluation?

It very likely would have been impossible to move the workshop to the next year once the scheduling problems resulted. Still, I would have pressed for more time between the formative evaluation and the actual performance, even if this resulted in sacrificing some of the development time available at the front end for the facilitator's guide and materials.

It was clear to me that the school administration did a poor job of preparing the way for Terry in this development effort. First of all, I asked myself whether Dr. Jim Cranston carefully selected and hired Terry for this undertaking. Her resume made it clear she had had little or no experience working as a part of a team in her previous employment. Also, she was quite young, possibly younger than any of the other team members. It would have been clear to Dr. Cranston that Terry would be working as a team leader of a group, a fractious group at that. To also be so young would tell me that either she was the wrong person for the job or she would require school administration to strongly communicate to the design team the importance of her role and authority on the team. In my estimation, Dr. Cranston's failure to be present at the initial meeting, as well as his apparent failure to satisfactorily ensure Mavis Barrett's full involvement in the proceedings were crucial administrative shortcomings. Mavis's comments to the group, as well as her suspiciously convenient disappearances makes it clear that she had not internalized her role in support of Terry's success on the design team.

Finally, Jane Pruitt's role on the design team was a crucial challenge. When I first confronted her attitude in the case, my reaction to her presence was to take one of the following actions: Win her over to a supportive role on the team through helping her to take ownership in its work; get her off the team; or, if the other two actions failed, marginalize her role on the team. My preference would be to win her over. Several actions could have been taken that would have supported this occurring. First, as suggested earlier, a strong administrative role in the proceedings might have helped "adjust" Jane's attitude. Secondly, had Terry been more experienced in group work, she could have approached Jane and the group differently. She should have complemented the work of the planning group the previous year, particularly noting the leadership role played by Jane. Instead of announcing what step needed to be taken next, she could have tried to lead the group to that conclusion by asking a series of questions that would have resulted in an understanding of what learning the stakeholders viewed as being most crucial. These and other actions might have deflected Jane's anger at losing leadership of the process and made her a willing participant.

Removing Jane from the committee was beyond the power of Terry to accomplish and would have required more extensive political skills with school administration than she exhibited. Besides, with Jane being a powerful senior faculty member, if Terry had been successful in her removal, there probably would have been other negative results in the future that school administration would have had to address. Marginalizing Jane on the committee was less desirable and only effective if achieved in a way that she was not fully aware it had happened.

A fourth option would be to leave Jane in place on the committee, playing a disruptive role. It appears to me that what actually resulted in the case was a combination of this option, along with some compromise and marginalization. Including Jane's unit on job applications and interviewing for a short seminar the next year was a compromise intended to buy peace from Jane. On the other hand, allowing Jane to work alone arranging many of the details for the formative evaluation appears to be an attempt at marginalizing her involvement on the team by keeping her away from some of the more substantive activities. Terry's failure to collaborate with Jane in arranging for a facilitator or student sample, or to have anyone else play this role, led to one of the most crucial errors in the design process: The substitution of Len Gold's history class in place of a more representative trial setting for the formative evaluation.

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Expert Perspective from Gayle Ziegler, K-12 Educational Technology Specialist

This prospective is based on my educational background in instructional technology (including instructional design) and my experience as an educational technology specialist at an elementary school (where committee work abounds!).

Key Issues:

The key issues in the case of Terry Kirkland include an incomplete needs assessment, marginal administrative support, and ineffective committee dynamics Based on the information presented, the needs of the school were not clearly defined. What was the impetus for creating the Workplace Readiness workshops in the first place? Was it that grant money was available and Jane Pruitt took the initiative to propose a project that would benefit her department, all 10th grade students, and local employers? Were Dundee graduates having difficulty getting hired or remaining employed after high school? Did local employers express dissatisfaction w ith the performance/skills of their teenage employees? Was the Dundee administration responding to general recommendations of the SCANS report that may or may not have specifically applied to students in their schools?

Clear answers to these questions would help define both the audience for and scope of the project. The basic "problem" should have been identified from the very start. A more thorough needs analysis (including input from a cross section of students, teachers, and a wider variety of employers), would provide useful information for the workshop content.

Although it is clear that the original committee needed help in getting the project off the ground, the hiring of an "outsider" put the committee on the defensive in the beginning when it was most important for Terry to capitalize on their knowledge of the school, students, and community. Also, what happens when Terry leaves and the next project needs to be designed? Although it may not have been practical to do so, might Terry have been brought in to train teachers in instructional design, using the Workshop Readiness project as a model case? [Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime.] This way the committee, as well as other teachers, could claim greater ownership in the project, and would gain skills for designing future projects.

Perspectives of Key Players in the Case:

The perspectives and personalities of the key players in this case are quite typical. Terry's intentions were good, though she either minimized or excluded key elements (breadth of stakeholder interviews, student input). This may have been because she performed the needs assessment before knowing enough about the dynamics of the school and the intended audience.

The administration (Dr. Cranston, Mavis Barrett) may genuinely support the objectives of the project, but realistically are unable to play an active, day-to-day role in its design. While it's easy to say the administration should have demonstrated stronger support, the challenge is in finding creative ways for administrators to stay abreast of and provide input to school projects in light of their demanding schedules.

Jane's "dominating personality" may have made her a difficult participant, even if her ideas had not been shunned. Nevertheless, Jane possesses a level of subject matter expertise, and an effort to make her feel valued could have added to the success of the project.

Action Plan and Possible Outcomes:

It would be counter-productive for the committee to dwell entirely on the shortcomings of the workshop. Certainly, parts of it were successful (the facilitator was excellent and many students showed interest in small group activities). Intermediate changes for the next session might include:

• Directly address the relevance of workplace readiness skills to college bound students.
• Clarify to Lucky Larry the tone and objectives of the workshop as well as the scheduled timeframe for his comments.
• Maintain student interest by decreasing the overall length of the workshop (3 hours is a long time for teenagers!) and/or limiting the number of planned activities.
• Assure sufficient time for participant evaluations.

After the second session, information from participant evaluations and observations from both sessions can be used to supplement the original needs assessment. Committee members should be thanked for their efforts and asked to participate in a review of the design process so that the workshops may be revised to best suit the needs of the school. As previously mentioned, the faculty might benefit from an in-service workshop on instructional design. If the district has on-going needs for ID projects, they might consider hiring Terry on a more permanent basis to facilitate ID throughout the district schools.

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