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Districtwide instructional improvement: a case study of a high school in the Los Coyotes High School District

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Districtwide instructional improvement: a case study of a high school in the Los Coyotes High School District

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Content DISTRICTWIDE INSTRUCTIONAL IMPROVEMENT: A CASE STUDY OF A
HIGH SCHOOL IN THE LOS COYOTES HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT
by
Sueling Hsu Chen
_____________________________________
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
December 2007
Copyright 2007 Sueling Hsu Chen
ii
DEDICATION
This dissertation is dedicated to my mother, Mary Chen Shiou Hsu, my
husband, Stan Chen, and my daughters, Veronica, Eunice, and Miranda. Without
your patience, understanding, and love, my life would have been meaningless.
Thank you, Mommy, for raising me and giving me an excellent education. Thank
you, Stan, for giving me the much needed support, advice, and encouragement.
Your sacrifice is acknowledged and appreciated. Thank you, Veronica, Eunice, and
Miranda, for teaching me how to be a good mom, teacher, principal, and educator.
Without you, I would not discover the secret of education. You inspire, energize,
and bring out the best in me.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is very important for me to acknowledge those people who have supported
and assisted me in many different ways during the past three years when I worked on
obtaining my Educational Doctorate (Ed. D.). Without their support,
encouragement, and understanding, this impossible journey would not have become
possible. How fortunate I am to have these people around me.
To my late father, Ken Sung, whose decease was my turning point of going
back to school after nineteen years of being away, his sudden death disrupted
equilibrium in my life. Losing him kept me in a deep sorrow. Returning to school
was a way of meditation for healing over the loss of my dear father. In spite of being
an independent adult, there is no easy way to face the distress of losing loved ones.
He always had faith in me for whatever I chose to do. He is smiling and watching
me from heaven and I want him to be proud to have a daughter like me.
To my mother, Mary, who has been the best role model for my entire life, her
independence and perseverance taught me not to give up easily. Her kindness to
others taught me to have compassion for those who are less fortunate than me. Her
smile and delicious meal, made my family warm and full. She continues to take care
of my family and me throughout our incredibly busy lives. For a senior Chinese
lady, who does not speak English nor drive a car, who joined me and immigrated to
the United States in her senior years, my mother reveals her tenderness outside and
iv
strength inside in making the best out of the worst situation. Her life centered
around all her children and grandchildren. She has succeeded in helping each of us
to become responsible, successful and appreciative.
To my dear husband, Stan, who quietly took over many shared
responsibilities and smoothed out many obstacles in our business. Without his
commitment and support, I would not have been able to operate a school
successfully, open up another school, work on expanding the new school, and pursue
a doctoral degree. I oftentimes think that he is a saint for being able to put up with
someone like me who is heavily loaded with her job, mother, children, volunteer
work, and this dissertation. He has always been encouraging, supportive, and
understanding. Honey, THANK YOU for being who you are, accepting who I am
and be there for me all the time. Like Anisa described, you are the wind beneath my
wings to keep me moving and in balance.
To my three wonderful children, Veronica, Eunice, and Miranda, who are
angels and extremely understanding. I have always wanted to be a good role model
for you. I want you to dream big and challenge yourself to rise above all the
challenges and obstacles to fulfill your dreams. Through this journey, I asked myself
several times if I wanted to finish it and realized the price I needed to pay for it. I
shared with you my struggle of time and frustrations of not being able to memorize
all the research I read and wanted to quote. You were so great in reversing your
roles and making me feel like a daughter again. All three of you told me on different
occasions that if it was easy to obtain a doctorate, then there would be nothing to be
v
proud of. You told me that to receive a doctoral degree from a reputable university
must be very difficult, but you were confident that I could do it. I did not want to fail
myself; moreover, I did not want to fail in your confidence of me. Daddy and I are
so lucky to have each one of you. You are beautiful, responsible, independent,
intelligent, considerate, and full of compassion. Many people have to do many
things for their children and still cannot stop worrying about them. You are not
demanding of your parents at all. While I was in the doctoral program for the past
three years, Veronica was admitted to Cornell and Eunice to Berkeley. I don’t know
how you made it happen, but I know I can trust you to take care of your own
business. Even my little Miranda, you are unbelievably mature for your age.
Watching you grow makes me want to cry. You exceed everyone’s expectations.
All three of you are my precious angels. You are my inspiration and motivation.
To my co-workers at Arborland, Sheri Salzman, Anisa Foy, Kelly Luque,
Cynthia Van Praet, Kelly Snider, Suzanne Nitti, Linda Martinez, Lisa Walker, Marty
Shepard, Michelle Vasquez, Suzanne Currey, and Silvia Rivera, for the past three
years, you went through ups and downs with me. We have learned together to be
better educators in serving the children. To the newer Arborland family members,
Heidi Cole, Anna Duenas, Ifra Khoso, Claire Yang, Varee Wongstaponpat, Zoralla
Gonzalez, Emily Garton, Amber Castro, Rich Bordner, and Jennifer Lee, you came
to Arborland while I was already in the doctoral program. I hope my study has
helped me to assist you in building your professional capacity. For both veterans and
new Arborland members, your dedication in the job has allowed me to study in the
vi
evenings and over the weekends. When there were not enough evenings and
weekends to complete my work, you comfortably asked me to take days off because
you would take care of the schools for me. How lucky I am to be associated with
you. Cheer for our relationship! Cheer for the service we provide to the children
and their families! Cheer for our efforts and success!
To my siblings, Kevin, Sue-Jean, and Shu-Yuan, I feel very lucky to be your
younger sister. You spoiled me when I was a child and supported me when I became
an adult. I know how proud you are of me in seeing every little step I make. Thank
you for flying thousands of miles to Los Angeles to attend my commencement. And
thank you for looking after Mom while I was busy studying.
To my house keeper, Lijun Cao, who has helped me with many of my
motherly duties, you took Miranda to many birthday parties while I studied. There
was always food on the table when the children were hungry. Thank you for
assisting me with many household chores so that I could concentrate on my study
over the weekends.
To Dr. George Giokaris, my professor, colleague, and friend, who invited me
to join the program and continuously encouraged me to complete the program,
without your support, it would not have been possible to complete the program.
To Dr. Marsh, my advisor, I want to tell you how lucky I feel to be in your
group. You have been very organized in guiding us step by step to reach our goals.
You have high expectations, yet realistic and reasonable. Thank you, for your
wonderful guidance.
vii
To the Principal and staff members at Beach High School, thank you for
answering my surveys and interviews. Your input assisted me in finding answers to
the research questions. To my USC classmates, it was a pleasure getting to know
you and learn from you. Carly Olson set a great example for all of us. Sylvia
Kauffman organized the group project. I will always remember our Thursday dates.
To my friends, I know I had no personal time for the past three years. Thank
you for being patient with me. I hope to spend more time with you in the future.
viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedication ................................................................................................ ii
Acknowledgements .................................................................................. . iii
List of Tables ............................................................................................. ix
Abstract ...................................................................................................... xi
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION…………………………………… . 1
CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE…………………… 18
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY………………....... 58
CHAPTER FOUR: DATA FINDINGS, ANALYSIS, AND
INTERPRETATIONS……………………………………………………... 82
Figure 1: Graphic Representation of Stage of Concern Raw Score ............. 139
CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND
IMPLICATIONS…………………………………………………………... 194
Bibliography……………………………………………………………….. 215
APPENDICES……………………………………………………………... 226
ix
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: The Relationship of Data Collection Instruments to Research
Questions ................................................................................................... 68
Table 2: School Level Survey Results by Percentage for Research
Question 1 .................................................................................................. 97
Table 3: School Level Survey Results by Percentage for Research
Question 2 .................................................................................................... 99
Table 4: Summary of Innovation Configuration Teacher
Self-Report .................................................................................................. 114
Table 5: Innovation Configuration – Random Teacher Implementation
of CITW Reform Revision ......................................................................... 117
Table 6: School Level Survey Results by Percentage for Research
Question 3 ..................................................................................................... 125
Table 7: Stage of Concern about the Innovation .......................................... 126
Table 8: Statement on Stages of Concern Questionnaire by Stages
and Question Numbers ................................................................................. 129
Table 9: Stage of Concern Questionnaire Raw Score .................................... 132
Table 10: Individual Teacher’s Highest Score on the Stage of
Concern Questionnaire. ................................................................................... 134
Table 11: Distribution of Individual Teacher’s Strongest
Concern ............................................................................................................ 136
Table 12: Beach High School’s API ................................................................. 138
Table 13: School Level Survey Results by Percentage for Research
Question 4 ....................................................................................................... 144
Table 14: School Level Survey Reliability Coefficient (Alpha) for
Research Question 1 ......................................................................................... 146
Table 15: School Level Survey Reliability Coefficient (Alpha) for
x
Research Question 2 ......................................................................................... 149
Table 16: School Level Survey Reliability Coefficient (Alpha)
for Research Question 3 ................................................................................... 153
Table 17: School Level Survey Reliability Coefficient (Alpha) for
Research Question 4 ......................................................................................... 160
Table 18: School Level Survey Results by Percentage for Research
Question 4 ........................................................................................................ 166
Table 19: School Level Survey Reliability Coefficient (Alpha) for Research
Question 4: How effective were the district design and implementation strategies
at the school and classroom levels? ................................................................. 168
xi
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study is to investigate the design for instructional
leadership pertaining to student performance that is in place in one high school
district. The scope of this case study focuses on one high school in Southern
California that actually implemented the district-wide reform effort of instructional
leadership at the school, and classroom levels. Four research questions defined the
problems and guided the research of the studies. These four research questions were:
1. What was the district design for improving teaching and learning?
2. What school level efforts facilitated the implementation of the district’s
design?
3. To what extent was the district’s design implemented at the school and
classroom levels?
4. How effective were the design and implementation strategies at the school and
classroom levels?
This triangulated cross-data analysis included qualitative and quantitative
methods from interviews, surveys, and documentation. Six key best practices were
found: strong district leadership with clear mission and high expectation, district
recognition of the importance of instructional excellence to improve student learning,
utilizing research proven instructional methods to build on a teacher’s knowledge
and ability, creating a professional learning community and culture, offering physical
capital to support the reform, using data to identify weak areas and plans for
xii
improvement. Seven areas of improvement are identified to sustain the change:
teacher buy-in, involvement and empowerment of other stakeholders, matching
responsibilities and authorities, systematic training at the school site, evidence of
reform and student achievement, connecting reform to standards, and leadership
training. Implications for state legislatures, board of trustees, district administrators,
site administrators, and teachers implementing instructional reform including:
successful reform factors, communication and chains of command, stakeholder
support, and district support including allocating time and money for professional
development. Recommendations for future researches included: defining
instructional leaderships role and its impact on student achievement, the relationship
between instructional strategies usage and student achievement, repeating the study
to investigate sustainability, and evaluate success of the reform through learners’
viewpoints.
1
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
The publication of “A Nation at Risk” in 1983 was a wake up call for most
Americans. The report unveiled the reality that the educational foundations of our
society had been eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future
as a nation and a people.
Since 1983, more than 10 million Americans reached the 12
th
grade without
learning to read at a basic level, more than 20 million were unable to do basic math,
and an additional 25 million at this grade level, did not know the essentials of U.S.
history. More than 6 million American students dropped out of high school
altogether, and the numbers are even more alarming in minority communities. In
1996, 13 percent of all blacks aged 16 to 24 were not in school and did not hold a
diploma. In the Hispanic community, 17 percent of first generation students had
dropped out of high school, including a tragic 44 percent of Hispanic immigrants in
this age group. (Center for Education Reform, 1998)
The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 1995
revealed that U.S. fourth-graders performed relatively well in both mathematics
(ranked 11
th
out of 26 nations) and science (ranked 3
rd
out of 26 nations). In the
same study, U.S. eighth-graders performed near the international average in both
mathematics (ranked 28
th
out of 41 nations) and science (ranked 17
th
out of 41
nations). For U.S. twelfth-graders, however, the scores in various other categories
2
were consistently below the international average and indeed among the lowest of
the TIMSS nations in mathematics (ranked 18
th
out of 21 nations), science (ranked
16
th
out of 21 nations), advanced physics (ranked 16
th
out of 16 nations) and
advanced mathematics (ranked 15
th
out of 16 nations).
In 1999, TIMSS-R assessed eighth graders in mathematics and science
achievement in 38 nations. The U.S. eighth-graders performed about average in both
mathematics (ranked 19
th
out of 38) and science (ranked 18
th
out of 38). In
comparing 1995 TIMSS and 1999 TIMSS-R, there was no change among US eighth-
graders in either mathematics or science achievement. However, the mathematics
and science performance of the United States relative to this group of nations was
lower for eighth-graders in 1999 than it was for fourth-graders 4 years earlier in
1995. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2000)
The latest national report card indicates that in mathematics the percentages
of fourth and eighth graders achieved at or above Basic, at or above Proficient, and at
Advanced were all higher in 2003 than in 1990. During this testing period, special
accommodations such as extended time or small group testing were allowed for
students with disabilities or limited-English-proficiency. At both grades four and
eight, the score gap between White and Black or Hispanic students decreased
between 2000 and 2003, and was smaller in 2003 than in 1990, but the difference
was not found to be significant from 2000 or 1990. In reading, both the fourth and
eighth graders revealed little change from the results in 2002 or 1992 (National
Center for Education Statistics, 2003). Raising student achievement levels in primary
3
and secondary schools is a top national priority. Politicians at every level of
government campaigned and promised to improve education at every election during
the past two decades, but many of the measures they proposed were primarily
motivated by the need to get votes, had not been adequately researched, and thus
were not able to provide convincing results.
Before 1970, extant research on student performance seemed to indicate that
the students’ natural aptitude, their socioeconomic status, particularly their home
environment were decisive factors that would determine their academic achievement.
However, during the 1970’s, ongoing research in the field took a decidedly different
turn and began to examine the connection of instruction with a student’s learning
process, and their level of achievement.
Subsequent to this important shift in direction, research in the field has
conclusively indicated that teachers have the potential to greatly impact student
learning. Additionally, several other factors play a significant role in how children
learn, such as teacher quality, time allotted for professional development, scheduling,
class size, socioeconomic status of the students, the ethnicity of the students,
preschool attendance and experience, as well as language proficiency.
Of the many factors mentioned above, teacher effectiveness appears to have
the greatest impact by far, exceeding the importance of the others. In fact, studies
have shown that if a student is exposed to poor teaching quality for three consecutive
years, the student’s performance scores drop below the national norm (Holland,
2001). For the purposes of the research, “teacher quality” was considered to be an
4
aggregate of the teacher’s test scores, their teaching experience, preparation, attitudes
and certification (Darling-Hammond and Hudson, 1989). Thus far, the research
would conclusively indicate that quality instruction yields higher levels of student
achievement. Correspondingly, to ensure a higher level of student achievement,
quality teachers are an imperative. In San Diego, where a successful reform strategy
was initiated to increase the number of quality teachers, included a renovation of the
recruitment, hiring and evaluation practices for teachers (Darling-Hammond et al,
2003). Professional development plays a key role in improving teacher quality,
particularly programs that include role modeling, mentoring, collaboration, and time
for teachers to reflect on their teaching methods that take into account research-based
strategies. Much of contemporary education reform attempts—including those by
the federal government, state governments, school districts and administrators,
teachers, parents and the students themselves--has focused on enhancing a teacher’s
skills in the classroom, as a way to improve instruction.
California’s Stull Act of 1971 (Former Ed. Code, 13485-13490 changed to
Ed. Code, 44660-44655 in 1976) required school districts to initiate an uniform
system of evaluating the performance of “certificated personnel” within each school
district, and these reforms were to be based on expected student performance levels.
Thus once again, the teacher was seen as the critical factor in a student’s learning
process. Furthermore, the teacher was expected to ensure the student’s academic
achievement, through an adherence to curricular standards and the maintenance of a
5
powerful learning environment, and to see that such progress were concurrent with
the district’s established goals (LaRue, 1996).
The 1999 Public Schools Accountability Act (PSAA) in California reflects
the current political climate for educational reform, and as the name would suggest,
it established a system in which the state holds schools accountable for
demonstrating the academic progress of students. The theoretical basis for these
actions is premised on the belief that the total learning environment for students is
made up of multiple factors, and affects student success in a composite way. The
PSAA assumes that if schools, teachers, and students are made accountable for
student outcomes, requisite changes that ensure improvement will follow (Diamond
& Spillane, 2002). In order to accomplish this goal, the PSAA attempted to improve
student achievement through the implementation of three specific plans: The
Academic Performance Index (API), Immediate Intervention /Underperforming
Schools Program (II/USP), and the Governor’s Performance Award (GPA). It
should be noted, that up to this point, the educational reforms that were undertaken
privileged inputs—what elements go into the learning process as opposed to
considering outcomes or learning results. Similarly, on a national level, Congress
enacted The No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 (Brown, Hara, & Shepardson, 1998;
Massell, 1998; Reigeluth, 2004) for the purpose of decreasing the achievement gap
between the advantaged and disadvantaged groups. One notable characteristic of
these accountability measures was the institution of a binary system of rewards and
sanctions that were aligned with student performance (Elmore & Fuhrman, 2001).
6
Sanctions could range from a simple improvement plan to the state take over of a
school (Duffy & Goertz, 2001).
The Standard Based Reform (SBR), a constructivist theory of learning
emerged in 1990 and established a new paradigm within educational research. While
the behaviorist school of thought had maintained that a student’s intelligence was
genetic and that achievement (and the limits therein) could only result from that
absolute intelligence, the constructivist school attempted to describe the complex
mental process of learning (Hiebert, Gallimore, & Stigler, 2002; Mayer, 1998;
Woolfolk, 2001). Constructivist theories believe that students are active participants
in the learning process, generating new knowledge and meaning from the
connections they make with previously learned knowledge. Constructivists also
believe that making active and meaningful connections promotes an in-depth
learning process that far exceeds learning that might take place through rote methods
that prevail in behaviorist classrooms (Asmul et al., 1998; Mayer, 1998; Reyhner,
2003).
Contrary to previous reform movements, there are three foundational
premises for SBR adherents: for one, that intelligence is teachable and all children
are capable of learning at high levels; second that effective school reform has to be
linked to results; finally—and of critical importance—that teachers are learners too,
constructing their own learning systems and experiences through participation in
collaborative learning communities. The notion that intelligence is teachable
through effort-based learning is supported by constructivist views (Resnick & Hall,
7
1998, 2000). This belief in intelligence being learned is a primary impetus behind
the SBR movement (Resnick, 1999). This concept of reform is aimed at establishing
consistent and clear achievement goals for all students, in hopes that schools will
begin to embrace a system of reform that will align assessment, instruction, and
standards as a composite that enables a holistic learning environment (DuFour &
Eaker, 1998; Edison, 2004; Schmoker, 1999; Snyder, 2002; Wiggins & McTighe,
1998). Thus, with the standards-based movement, America began to link standards,
curriculum, textbooks, instruction, teacher training, assessment, and accountability
with what should be taught and what students were expected to learn. SBR attempts
to replace teacher isolation with collaborative professional environment where
dialogue and development between teachers can occur (DuFour, 1997; Elmore et al.,
1996; Fullan, 1993; Schmoker & Wilson, 1993). The research associated with this
movement links student learning to teacher learning, suggesting that schools will
only produce students who are lifelong learners and effective collaborators if their
teachers are engaged in being the same (DuFour, 1997; Joyce & Showers, 2002;
Richardson, 1998; Sparks, 1998).
Thus, given these dynamics of the reform movements, the school districts
has come to play a crucial role in instructional improvement, since organizationally
the districts are suited to carry on the reform mandates. The districts can utilize
resources, personnel, and finances to train and support instructional leaders at the
school site to create a systematic approach to instructional reform, and both the
government agencies and stakeholders have come to expect this. Under the
8
management of the district, school leadership is believed to be the key towards
creating and sustaining instructional changes.
Successful leaders are not only those who must use reform strategies
effectively, but they must encourage everyone in the organization – parents, students,
teachers, site and district administrators and system leaders – to be engaged and
become active participants in executing the reform strategies (Perry and McDermott,
2003, pg. 1).
A review of the existing research would suggest that districts used three
identifiable strategies for improving instruction: (1) commercial programs from
publishers that provided training, consultation, and direction; (2) centralized staff
development, and instructional practice training; and (3) site based management.
San Diego City Schools and Philadelphia are two exemplary districts which
took on the challenges of implementing a district-led reform. The reforms efforts of
these two districts have been studied extensively. In conducting studies into district
based reform, Fuhrman has recommended that districts execute the following
measures to ensure successful reform: (1) building capacity in new ways; (2)
expanding the meaning of professional development; (3) taking sufficient time; (4)
being honest; (5) taking advantage of national trends (Fuhrman, 1994).
The researchers who studied the San Diego and Philadelphia districts used
interviews, observation, surveys, and record data collected at the state, district, and
school levels over four years. Subsequently, the data was examined through the
rubrics of curriculum and assessment initiatives, teacher development initiatives, and
9
accountability initiatives. Their examination revealed that the San Diego reforms
privileged high quality instruction and professional learning through a district-led
agenda that overturned many notions of bureaucracy and innovation that traditionally
obtain. (Darling-Hammond et al., 2002, p.62)
As for the Philadelphia district, Christman and Corcoran studied the
implementation of Children Achieving in that district and came to the conclusion that
there were consistent improvements in instructional practices and sustained gains in
student achievement. Additionally, they found that the focus of the school
leadership was on instruction, building a professional community, curriculum-based
professional development, as well as the effective use of data including the review of
student work. (Christman & Corcoran, 2002, p.13)
Statement of the Problem
In an atmosphere of increased accountability, school districts are under
tremendous pressure to prove to the policy makers and the general public that they
are making systematic efforts to implement policies that will improve student
performance. Such strategies must prioritize which specific student skills are
important to measure and determine which instructional practices will best improve
those skills, and ensure as well that no subgroups are overlooked in the process of
improving student performance.
In California, curriculum content standards are the measurement that state
officials use to determine the effectiveness of instruction. It is expected that
10
standards based curriculum, instruction, and assessment should all be in alignment,
with high student performance being the goal. Despite the variety of performance
data available, there is little specific information on how best to utilize and enhance
instruction to increase learning results. As districts develop effective strategies on
how to implement and enable good teaching, it is important to investigate the effects
these plans have on student learning and how these successful practices can best be
replicated in other districts.
Education stakeholders need to be informed about those aspects of districts’
plans that are feasible, and provide a link to accountability aimed at producing a high
level of student performance. The district designs of reform will only be successful
when the designs are accompanied by a structured framework and long term and
short term plans. More needs to be learned about the district designs of enhancing
teaching and learning, the extent of implementing, and the effectiveness of the
design and implementation in the classrooms.
Purpose of the study
This study investigates the design for instructional leadership pertaining to
student performance that is in place in one K-12 school district, and also examines
the actual implementation of instructional leadership at the district, school, and at
classroom levels. The efficacy of the district’s design for instructional leadership
will be evaluated in terms of how well the program is designed and implemented. In
11
order to facilitate that evaluation, this study will attempt to answer the following
questions:
1. What was the district design for improving teaching & learning?
2. What school level efforts facilitated the implementation of the district’s
design?
3. To what extent was the district’s design implemented at the school and
classroom levels?
4. How effective were the design and implementation strategies at the school
and classroom levels?
Importance of the Study
The results of this study should have significance for the state and local
policymakers, school district officials, site administrators, and classroom teachers,
since the results of the study will indicate to what extent legislative policies have
actually been put into practice at the district and site level. This will allow state
policy makers to ascertain the rationale behind changes made and what enabled
successful changes to occur.
This will further enable local policy makers to assess how well the policies
are implemented at the site and classroom levels. The results of the study will reveal
the extent, to which the district design was implemented, the challenges of that
implementation, as well as the successes achieved.
12
The district personnel will discover how well the chains of command work in
the district and specifically at the school and classroom levels. The effectiveness of
district leadership will be revealed through the study, providing the central office
with a reality check on their leadership skills.
Perhaps most importantly, classroom teachers will learn different methods of
instruction, further understand their role within accountability and be able to asses to
what extent the district design assists student learning.
Limitations
The results of the study are limited by the sampling procedures. The research
was conducted at a high school in Orange County, California. The District was
selected based upon research criteria and the School was selected based upon
sampling standard and recommended by the District. There may be biases inherent
in the study due to the selection process. Furthermore, the findings are subject to the
researcher’s own bias in interpreting and analyzing the results.
Delimitations
This is a case study of a medium size high school in a suburban area. This
research is conducted under the assumption that the District has successfully
implemented the district wide reforms in the schools and classrooms and which has
resulted in significant improvements in student performance. The school population
is believed to be representative of the overall student population in California. Any
13
generalization of the findings to other similar school districts or other high schools
needs to be carefully considered in light of these assumptions. The results of the
study may not be applicable to districts or high schools with a different size,
demographics, or located in a different area.
14
Definitions
For the purpose of this study, the following terms are defined as follows:
Academic performance index (API): California’s numerical indicator of
student achievement, used as a basis for a comparative ranking of schools statewide.
Accountability: A system that holds districts, schools, and/or students
responsible for student performance. Accountability systems typically consist of
assessments, public reporting of results, and rewards or sanctions based upon student
performance over time.
Assessment: A measurement of a student’s particular skill or knowledge that
may be written, oral, or performance in nature.
Behaviorism: The theory that learning occurs when an environmental
stimulus triggers a response, causing children to learn through a change in behavior.
Additionally, behaviorists assume that the use of rewards and punishments
moderates behavior in desired ways.
Benchmark: An expectation of student performance at pre-established and
specific levels.
California content frameworks: guides published by the Department of
Education to provide guidance in implementing content standards.
California content standards: what students need to know and do at each
grade level in each of the core subject areas.
15
Capacity: The ability to respond to external demands as necessary in order to
translate established standards into effective instruction and strong student
performance comprised of both qualitative and quantitative factors (Massell, 1998).
Conceptual framework: A comprehensive integration of research and theory
and other pertinent information that is the basis for analysis within a study.
Constructivism: A theory that premised on the idea that children assimilate
new information on preexisting foundations, and continually modify their
understanding. This position advocates that knowledge is created, rather than
transferred through rote processes.
Data: that which is known or assumed; information from which conclusions
can be inferred or described.
Data-driven decision making: A process of making decisions about
curriculum and instruction based on the analysis of classroom data and standardized
test data.
Design: A plan that is intended to affect change.
Equity: Educational impartiality that ensures all students receive fair
treatment and have access to the services they need in order to receive a high-quality
education.
Fiscal resources: funds available and allocated to districts and schools in
order to operate programs.
Human resources: personnel available and allocated to schools in order to
operate and improve programs.
16
Implementation: The translating of an idea into action in order to accomplish
a specified goal.
Innovation: A strategy aimed at improving instruction through changing what
currently exists.
Instructional improvement: A change that enables quality teaching (Gilbert
et. al 2003).
Instructional leadership: directed activities that impart knowledge or skills to
students.
Professional development: Opportunities for staff to develop new knowledge
and skills that will improve their teaching ability.
Public Schools Accountability Act of 1999 (PSAA): California’s most recent
reform act designed to provide public accountability, mediated through a system of
both incentives and sanctions.
Reform: A change in effort that is undertaken to improve instruction.
Sanctions: The consequences imposed for not meeting expected performance
outcomes in some accountability systems.
Staff Development: activities designed to provide professional educational
and training experiences for school staff.
Stakeholder: Any person with an interest in the operations and outcomes of
the specific educational system, including administrators, teachers, parents, students,
and community members.
17
Standardized test: Assessment that is administered and scored in exactly the
same way for all students that are designed to measure specific skills and knowledge.
Standards-based accountability: The assessment of student achievement that
are both publicly reported and used to guide instruction.
Standards-based reform: The change to an educational system that utilizes
subject-matter benchmarks to measure student achievement.
Systemic reform: Comprehensive change at all levels of the educational
process that impacts all stakeholders.
Teaching and learning: Assumption that the eventual goal of all instructional
improvement is to impact student learning; while learning outcomes may not be
specified in some instances, they are nevertheless implied within the concept of
instructional improvement.
18
CHAPTER TWO
Review of the Literature
Introduction
In this chapter, the current status of K-12 student performance in the U.S. is
discussed. The factors that affect student performance are reviewed, along with the
belief that better instruction will create better student performance. Through an in-
depth review of literature, theories of good instruction are explained and the current
trends within educational reform in the U.S. are presented. Further analysis follows
regarding what is presently known about instructional leadership and how such
strategies are implemented in school districts to improve teaching and learning, with
an emphasis on the changing role of the school districts in improving teaching and
learning. Finally, the exemplary districts and their reform designs are described.
The Status of Student Performance
Since 1969 the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has
been regularly conducting assessments of samples of the nation’s students attending
public and private schools at the elementary, junior high, and high school levels. In
1988, Congress created the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) to set
policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The bipartisan,
independent, 26-member Board is composed of state, local, and federal officials,
19
educators, business representatives, and members of the general public. The goal of
NAEP is to make reliable information about the academic performance of American
students in various learning areas available to educators, policy makers, and the
general public. The publication of “A Nation at Risk” in 1983 was a wake up call
for all Americans, in that it revealed the worrisome reality that the educational
foundations of our society had been eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that
threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.
Since 1983, more than 10 million Americans reached the 12
th
grade without
learning to read at a basic level, more than 20 million were unable to do basic math,
and an additional 25 million at this grade level, did not know the essentials of U.S.
history. Additionally, more than 6 million American students dropped out of high
school altogether. The numbers are even more alarming in minority communities.
In 1996, 13 percent of all blacks aged 16 to 24 were not in school and did not hold a
diploma. In the Hispanic community, 17 percent of first generation students had
dropped out of high school, including a tragic 44 percent of Hispanic immigrants in
this age group. (Center for Education Reform, 1998)
In general, overall trends in science and mathematics show noteworthy
improvements since the 1983 publication of “A Nation at Risk”, while trends for
reading show declines. Between 1984 and 1992, writing performance of eleventh
graders showed little change. Writing has remained relatively stable for grade 4, but
there was a significant decline for grade 8 from 1984 to 1990. (National Assessment
of Educational Progress, 1994)
20
The latest national report card indicates that in mathematics the percentages
of fourth and eighth graders achieved at or above Basic, at or above Proficient, and at
Advanced were all higher in 2003 than in 1990. During this testing period, special
accommodations such as extended time or small group testing were allowed for
students with disabilities or limited-English-proficiency. At both grades four and
eight, the score gap between White and Black or Hispanic students decreased
between 2000 and 2003, and was smaller in 2003 than in 1990, but the difference
was not found to be significant from 2000 or 1990. In reading, both the fourth and
eighth graders revealed little change from the results in 2002 or 1992. (National
Center for Education Statistics, 2003)
The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)
The third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) represents
the most extensive investigation of mathematics and science education ever
conducted. The study is sponsored by the International Association for the
evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) and funded in the U.S. by the National
Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
Approximately 50 countries have participated in this comparative survey of
education focusing upon nine and thirteen year olds, and students in their last year of
secondary schools.
The 1995 TIMSS assessments revealed that U.S. fourth-graders performed
relatively well in both mathematics (ranked 11
th
out of 26 nations) and science
21
(ranked 3
rd
out of 26 nations). In the same study, U.S. eighth-graders performed near
the international average in both mathematics (ranked 28
th
out of 41 nations) and
science (ranked 17
th
out of 41 nations). For U.S. twelfth-graders, however, the
scores in various categories were consistently below the international average and
indeed among the lowest of the TIMSS nations in mathematics (ranked 18
th
out of 21
nations), science (ranked 16
th
out of 21 nations), advanced physics (ranked 16
th
out
of 16 nations) and advanced mathematics (ranked 15
th
out of 16 nations). TIMSS
discovered that students in the United Stated receive a less demanding curriculum,
with instruction focused more on mathematics procedures and less on understanding
mathematical concepts.
The Third International Mathematics and Science Study-Repeat (TIMSS-R)
In 1999, TIMSS assessed eighth graders in mathematics and science
achievement in 38 nations. TIMSS also collected information on schools, curricula,
instruction, lessons, and the lives of teachers and students to understand the
educational context in which mathematics and science learning takes place. TIMSS-
R allowed the United States to compare the achievement of its eighth-graders in the
original 1995 TIMSS to the achievement of its eighth-graders 4 years later. It also
provided an opportunity to compare the relative performance of U.S. fourth-graders
in 1995 to the relative performance of U.S. eighth-graders 4 years later in 1999.
22
The U.S. eighth-graders performed about average in both mathematics
(ranked 19
th
out of 38) and science (ranked 18
th
out of 38). In comparing 1995
TIMSS and 1999 TIMSS-R, there was no change among US eighth-graders in either
mathematics or science achievement. However, the mathematics and science
performance of the United States relative to this group of nations was lower for
eighth-graders in 1999 than it was for fourth-graders 4 years earlier in 1995.
The National Education Goals Panel (NEGP) is a unique bipartisan and
intergovernmental body of federal and state officials created in July 1990 to assess
and report state and national progress toward achieving the National Education
Goals. This organization’s objective is a significant increase in the academic
performance of all students at the elementary and secondary levels in every quartile,
and further that the distribution of minority students in each quartile will more
closely reflect the student population as a whole.
According to Paul E. Barton’s data in 2001, the test results in mathematics
are encouraging. The majority of participating states and the nation as a whole
showed statistically significant positive change in average scores. However, the
nation and the state were less successful in closing the gap in the scores between the
top and the bottom quartiles. More significantly, there was no progress in closing
the gaps between the scores of majority and minority students or between the scores
of students eligible and not eligible for a free or reduced price lunch. The goal of
improving the education of all students seems to depend upon accelerating
23
improvements in achievement for those students who have historically not been as
successful in our educational system.
During the past two decades, education has been one of the hottest topics, as
well as a point of political leverage at every election, at nearly every level from local,
state, to the federal. The general public is not satisfied with the results of public
education in spite of huge amounts of money being poured into the public education
system. In the interest of getting votes, politicians often make a variety of promises
ostensibly aimed at improving education for all. Unfortunately, the majority of
politicians have no viable background or experience in education and thus many of
these promises are misdirected and fall short of any material results. While many
educational reforms were promoted and implemented with the best intentions,
quantifiable results of student performance in the U.S. remain disappointingly low.
Factors That Affect Student Performance
Research indicates that the various degrees of student achievement can be
accounted for through a variety of reasons, such as the student’s innate capabilities,
socioeconomic class, ethnic background, the educational level of parents, parental
involvement, language proficiency, teacher quality, professional development of
teachers, or even factors such as scheduling, class size, and preschool attendance.
(McLaughlin, NCES 1994) Prior to the 1970’s, most of the research on student
performance concluded that the student’s natural aptitude, their socioeconomic
24
status, and their home environment were the critical factors influencing student
achievement (Marzano, 2001).
Obviously, while a parents’ level of income and education have been strongly
correlated to student achievement, such factors remain beyond the realm of what the
school can control. Educational researchers believe that the quality of teachers and
the quality of instruction are the most important external factors that can influence
and raise the achievement of all students. (Darling-Hammond, 1999) Effective
teachers possess the skills to provide quality instruction and thus significantly
improve student learning. While experts may differ as to the impacts of class size,
preschool attendance, or funding allocation on student performance, most agree that
teacher quality must be at the top of educational priorities to produce student
achievement. (Darling-Hammond, 1997) Teachers play a critical role in education,
especially at a time when politicians, parents, and the general public are demanding
accountability. There remains little doubt that teachers have an invaluable role in
determining the directions of reform in their schools as well as in education in
general. (Urbanski, 2001) In short, student learning depends first, last, and foremost
on the quality of teachers.
Instruction and learning are mentioned together because these two elements
are invariably intertwined. Thus the goal of staff development is always to improve
instruction and student learning. At one level, improved instruction refers to
teachers acquiring effective, up-to-date techniques and proven methods for efficient
instruction, while at the student level improved learning means to increase the
25
student’s ability to successfully synthesize the complex academic and social
challenges they face. (Brennen, 2001)
Bloom’s Taxonomy divides learning into six levels: (1) knowledge:
remembering names, and facts related to who, what, when, where, why, and how;
(2) comprehension: understanding the context and the capability to paraphrase,
discuss, give examples, and explain; (3) application: applying learned knowledge to
actual life realities such as solving problems, and being able to predict logical
outcomes; (4) analysis: analyzing context and being able to compare, contrast,
classify, and categorize; (5) synthesis: creating, designing, rewriting, and integrating
the knowledge; (6) evaluation: judging, arguing, appraising, criticizing, and
deciding the intent and usage of knowledge. Most textbooks are oriented toward
Blooms’ two lowest levels – knowledge and comprehension. If teachers continually
use lesson plans that access the rudimentary levels of thinking skills, such as
memorization, recitation, naming, recalling, summarization, and paraphrasing,
students will not acquire the necessary skills to be able to apply the new information
to other situations, or to analyze and integrate their knowledge with previous
information and evaluate it. (Brennen, 2001) The students will not learn higher level
thinking skills unless they experience good teaching. (Darling-Hammond, 2001)
The goal of all effective staff development programs is to improve
instruction. It is generally believed that improvements in teacher practice results in
improved student performance. (Butler, 2001) The ultimate goal is to change the
culture of learning for both teachers and students so that engagement and betterment
26
is a way of life in school. (Fullan, 1991) Barak Rosenshine conducted research on
teacher effect to identify the relationship between teacher behaviors and student
achievement gain and concluded that instructional behaviors were highly associated
with student achievement gain. (Rosenshine, 1996) Furthermore, the professional
development focused on specifically efficacious instructional practices and the ways
that might be utilized to increase those practices by teachers in the classrooms.
(Desimone et. Al., 2002)
Unfortunately, staff development activities have been top-down and market
driven by an industry that attempts to gratify school administrators seeking simple
solutions to resolve complex problems. (St. John, 1999) Between the year 1920 and
1985, the numbers of school administrators increased from one for every thirty two
teachers to one for every eleven teachers; this reflects an increase of over 200
percent. The principals, administrators, and school board members were the leaders
in education. By mid-1980’s, there were many such leaders in education, but there
were hardly any teachers who assumed the leadership role. Only during the past
decade researchers come to recognize the important role the teacher should play in
both the design and implementation of reform. (St. john, 1999) In 2003, the
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) studied how
professional development structures affect classroom instruction and discovered that
the characteristics of effective staff development are collective participation and that
active learning significantly increased the effect of professional development focused
on technology. Additionally, it was found that reform type of active learning
27
increased the impact on instruction, and that reform and coherent instruction
increased the influence on assessment reform. (ASCD Research Brief, 2003)
Views of Good Instruction
Concepts of good instruction might begin with the somewhat obvious but
important premise that not all students are alike. Among themselves, students do not
perceive and organize information in the same way, nor do they necessarily perceive
and organize information the way their teachers do, or even in the way their teachers
ask them to. Therefore, instruction that is able to match or correlate teaching
methods with a student’s learning style will greatly enable the student to obtain and
use knowledge effectively. (Bond, 2004) Prior to 1900, the primary educational goal
sanctioned by society was character development, not knowledge acquisition;
therefore, there was no scientific study available in educational theory or practice.
(Wiburg, 1994) As stated previously, it was during the 1970’s that researchers began
to look at the impact of instruction on student learning. The Behaviorist theories
supported by Ivan Pavlov, B.F. Skinner and Edward Thorndike articulated a belief in
rote memory and repetition as principal methods of assimilating new information.
Skinner’s theory was based upon animal learning in a well controlled laboratory with
a particular focus on systems of reward and punishment. The roots of computer-
assisted instruction can be easily seen in Skinner’s teaching machine. Cognitive
theories, on the other hand, supported by Jean Piaget, Jerome Brunner, Lev
Vygotsdy, Maria Montessori and Albert Bandura, assert that the learner is an active
28
participant in the teaching-learning process. Behaviorism emphasizes both the
curriculum and context of what the child should learn, while cognitive theories
emphasize the learner and their capacity to process information.
Most educational practices have been based upon psychological research
which emphasized individual learning over group instruction within an established
social context such as the classroom environment.
Edward Thorndike believed the principal of effective learning was to refine
the acquisition of subject knowledge by continual and intensive practice. While his
book The Principles of Teaching Based on Psychology was published several
decades earlier in 1921, his philosophy remains popular even today. Influenced by
Darwin, John Dewey suggested that learning is an activity driven by the learner’s
disequilibrium, not by reinforcement. When Russia launched Sputnik in 1957, the
U. S. faced the emerging realities of the cold war and needed to rapidly train military
personnel. Thus instructional technology was initiated at the time to expedite distant
learning with the aid of audiovisual tools and programmed instruction. Robert
Mager published Preparing Instructional Objectives for Programmed Instruction in
1962. He believed that the teachers should establish definite instructional objectives
while students should learn the techniques required to fulfill those objectives more
efficiently. His theory is still widely used today. In 1967, Madeline Hunter
developed instruction theory. She made psychological information available to
teachers and encouraged teachers to write precise instructional objectives, engage
students in task analysis, design guided and independent practice, and use the six
29
steps lesson plans. Her theory is recognized as diagnostic-prescriptive and her
compensatory educational practices have been successfully implemented with
children from low socioeconomic classes. (Hunter, 1967) In 1976, Benjamin Bloom
suggested a variety of strategies for use in the classroom to facilitate learning, such
as peer tutoring, small group study, programmed instruction, and the use of
audiovisual materials. (Bloom, 1976) Eliot Eisner advised teachers to break learning
into small and manageable units, which could then be easily reinforced and
measured. He suggested that if we want students to learn problem solving skills, we
first need to assess and evaluate their ability to acquire knowledge that will enable
the more complex activity of problem solving. (Eisner, 1982)
Larry Bond suggested the traditional apprenticeship comprises of (1)
Modeling: learn from the master; (2) Scaffolding: offer a temporary support; (3)
Fading: master removes support; and (4) Coaching: master observes, provides
feedback, answers questions, and clarifies misconceptions. This traditional
abstract/conceptual instruction was passive and the students were expected to acquire
knowledge by listening to the teacher and reading assigned materials. The new
contextual learning theory alleges that students must be able to apply their
knowledge to become effective thinkers. Bond’s view of contextual/concrete
teaching is comprised of the following characteristics: (1) Fill the gap between what
students know and what they need to know; (2) Integrate academic subjects with real
life applications; (3) Personalize academic content for the students so that the
knowledge is internalized; (4) Present abstractions by methods that appeal to the
30
functions of the five senses; (5) Demonstrate the utility and usage of knowledge; (6)
Give factual knowledge as needed and when it happens; (7) Remove knowledge
intimidation factor by offering a small piece at a time. (Bond, 2004)
Barak Rosenshine defined expert teachers as those whose students had made
the most gains on an achievement test, and novice teachers as those whose students
had made the least gains on the same achievement test. Much of the research
regarding cognitive strategies was explored in the 1970s and boomed in the 1980s.
Cognitive strategy asked teachers to develop concrete prompts when teaching
abstract content. The improved instruction procedures included scaffolding, thinking
aloud by the teacher, providing the learner with cue cards, starting with simplified
tasks, anticipating student errors and difficult areas. (Rosenshine, 1996) Researchers
believe that cognitive strategies provide good instructional elements such as: (1)
procedural prompts for facilitators; (2) teach the cognitive strategies by using small
steps; (3) provide models of the appropriate responses; (4) think aloud as choices are
being made; (5) anticipate and discuss potential difficulties; (6) regulate the
difficulty of the material; (7) provide cue cards; (8) guide student practice; (9)
provide feedback and corrections; (10) provide and teach a checklist; (11) provide
independent practice with new examples; (12) increase student responsibilities; and
(13) assess student mastery. (Rosenshine, 1996)
Au and Raphael recommended that teachers start with a high degree of
control over student learning activities when they are giving explicit instructions. As
the instruction proceeds, this control is gradually decreased when teachers offer
31
modeling, scaffolding, and facilitating. At the last stage, when the students have
gained proficiency in the newly acquired knowledge, teachers should only
participate. Thus, the instructional process evolves from the teacher having total
control to simply participating. (Au, 1998)
Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory suggests that people posses at
relative levels of the following seven, autonomous, intellectual competencies:
linguistic, mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, self-understanding, and
the understanding of others. Based upon his theory, competent teachers will
recognize, accept, and capitalize education by privileging the student’s dominant
intelligence. (Brennen, 2001) Due to the existence of these multiple inclinations and
correspondingly differing learning styles, Tracey Hall, Nicole Strangman, and Anne
Meyer have suggested that teachers use differentiated instruction to meet the
individual student’s need, including providing multiple examples, highlighting
critical features, providing multiple media and formats, supporting background
context, providing opportunities to practice with support, offering flexible
opportunities for demonstrating skills, offering choices of content and tools, offering
adjustable levels of challenge, and offering choices of learning contexts. (Hall et. al.,
2001)
Elements of Standard-Based Reform
Traditional achievement tests are norm referenced to compare students
against one another rather than against s standard of excellence. The children who
32
have not been taught a demanding and challenging curriculum do poorly on tests of
problem solving. (Resnick, 1999) Recent educational reforms have shifted the
emphasis from the norm referenced testing to those that are standard-based.
Emphasis has also shifted from a focus on educational inputs, such as per student
expenditure on instructional materials in the 1980s, to educational outcomes, such as
the percentage of students attaining a score of “proficiency” on a statewide
assessment, in the 1990s. Additionally, all educators are held accountable for
student achievement.
In the era of research-based reform, it is important to understand the
underlying learning theories upon which instructional strategies are developed as
research continually provides more data for us to analyze and consider. It is
becoming increasingly more important for teachers to be aware of and to be able to
apply these theories to their classroom practices (Joyce & Showers, 2002) since
many studies have concluded that individual teachers can have a great impact on
student learning and thus significantly influence the learning process. Linda
Darling-Hammond (2003) who is very affirmative of recent standard-based reform in
U.S. has stated:
From one prospective, the standards-based reform movement in the United
States has been extremely successful: At least 47 states have created
standards for student learning; many have also adopted new curriculum
frameworks to guide instruction and new assessments to test students’
knowledge. Many school districts across the country have weighed in with
their own version of standards-based reform, including new curricula, testing
systems, accountability schemes, and promotions or graduation requirements.
33
In the past century, reforms in education had focused primarily on the nature
of knowledge, the learning process, and the varying aptitudes that constitute
“learning” as such. Contemporary trends in education reform are standard-based
which link testing, curriculum, textbooks, teacher training, and accountability with
specific rubrics about what should be taught and what students should be expected to
learn at varying levels of knowledge proficiency. The new vision is to create effort-
based systems grounded in knowledge-based constructivist systems that expect all
students to reach high standards of achievement. (Resnick, 1999)
The federal and state levels increase funding to support education, and as a
result increased mandates, expectations, and regulations. The idea of centralization
is premised on the ability to offer the same opportunity to all students, especially
minority groups with the specific intent to reduce the achievement gap. With
frequent communications among policy makers, policy ideas have traveled quickly
from state to state, thus standard-based education reform has quickly become a
national movement. The fundamental principles of Standard-based reform suggest
that (1) we need to have major changes in education by changing how education is
practiced and governed; (2) data is powerful and should be used to assess student
achievement; (3) standard, curriculum, textbooks, assessment, and teacher training
should be in alignment; (4) intelligence is teachable and all children can achieve at
high levels; (5) sanctions and rewards will be utilized based upon students’ test
scores, students may be denied of graduation, a low performing school make be
taken over by the state (6) effective school reform is linked to students’ learning
34
results; (7) teachers are learners too, in order to cultivate life long learners, the
teachers need to be learners themselves, thus systemic staff development is required
to develop teachers’ instructional skills; (Resnick & Hall, 1998, 2000) (8) the district
is responsible for carrying out reform implementations; (9) the superintendent and
the district leader, is expected to lead the reform.
Standard-Based Reform and Instructional Improvement
Despite the very best intentions with which standard-based reform has been
implemented and endorsed, there are still many challenges that this reform
movement needs to take into account:
(1) Equity: The merit of standard-based reform is to ensure all students
accomplish a high level of achievement and that all students have equal and adequate
opportunities to learn. However, research continues to reveal that low income and
minority students are taught by the least experienced and least prepared teachers.
(Ferguson, 1991) Since high performing schools are well publicized by the news
media, highly educated parents flock to these institutions, while, not surprisingly,
less people want to attend the low performing schools. (Diamond & Spillane, 2002)
As socioeconomic and family backgrounds have been shown to be important factors
that affect student performance, the low performing schools are in effect punished
for the students they serve.
(2) Sanctions: States and districts are using test data to punish low
performing teachers and students. The low income and minority students who are
35
most vulnerable and need help the most tend to be penalized most severely. (Darling-
Hammond, 2003)
(3) Teach to the test: The overemphasizing of test results encourages
teachers to “teach to the test” thus narrowing the curriculum instead of expanding it
(Madaus, 1988), thus creating an atmosphere that suggests what happens in the
classroom is not as consequential or as important as the test scores.
(4) The teacher: The tremendous pressures that standard-based reform puts
on the teacher has an adverse affect in the classroom. It takes away creativity and
even the fun of teaching for these professionals.
(5) Inappropriate timing: The yearly standardized testing and subsequent
reporting of the test scores create an artificial annual schedule for evaluating schools.
The weak teachers have a year to flounder around without making corrections, thus
children often unfairly spend an entire year with an incompetent teacher. (Dorn,
1998)
(6) Low performing students: Due to the fear of sanctions as a result of low
test scores, administrators and teachers have the incentive to exclude low performing
students from entering their programs to avoid low test scores.
(7) Staff development: While local school districts are responsible for
increasing the instructional capacity of all teachers, in reality their response has been
very slow in creating new kinds of professional development that are adequate to
meet the new performance-based accountability systems of assessment. (Elmore &
Fuhrman, 2001)
36
(8) Instructional change: Standard-based reform requires changes in the way
education is practiced and governed. It requires administrators to redesign their
organizations to focus on the improvement of instruction in every classroom. It
demands teachers not only to teach to the standard but also to continue to teach in
innovative ways. Additionally, standard-based reform requires administrators and
teachers to evaluate their colleagues for meeting the performance expectations.
(Elmore, 1997)
In the past, professional development has been of the piece meal and shut gun
type. Contrary to the research findings, it focused on the individual as the unit of
change. (Massell et. al., 1997) The training was meant for monetary gain in the
future instead of improving instructions in the classrooms. With the standard-based
reform, professional development needs to be more systematic and aligned with
curriculum, instruction, and assessment in an effort to collaborate with other
educators. According to Richard Elmore (1993) “systemic means orchestrating
multiple state policies – curriculum, testing, teacher education, and professional
development and instructional improvement means that the objective of policy
focuses on increasing students’ access to academic learning.” Mike Schmoker has
defined the goal of staff development as central to success: “to have any impact on
instruction, they had to be simple, measurable statements linked to student
assessments”. Historically, staff development has failed to improve teaching or raise
student achievement. In order to have a successful standard-based educational
reform, the educators ought to replace complex, long-term plans with more feasible
37
plans with an emphasis on actual teaching lessons, and those that promote
collaboration, team-based, short-term deliberation and actions. (Schmoker, 2004)
The central office administrators need to carry out the mandates to connect staff
development with instructional improvement. (Massell et. al., 1997)
If the goal of standard-based reform is to improve teaching and learning,
many elements need to be incorporated to ensure a successful reform: (1) strong
leadership to enhance the vision of reform; (2) active support of stakeholders who
share the same outlook as the leader; (3) allowing adequate time for the changes to
occur; (4) adequate and systematic staff training; (5) allowing flexible strategies for
solving multiple problems; (6) redesigning the organizational structure as necessary
in order to implement reforms; (7) managing or relocating resources as needed to
conform to the reform objectives; (8) and on-going self-assessment to evaluate the
results. (Klein et. Al., 1996)
Role of the School District
Richard Elmore (1993) has affirmed that “the average state share of revenue
for elementary and secondary education has increased steadily from 30 percent to
over 50 percent over the past twenty years; in many states, that share is well over 60
percent, and in those states education expenditure account for at least half of all
general fund expenditures over which state government exercise authority.” Along
38
with the increases in expenditure, has come the corresponding public demand for
more accountability from the policy makers and local educators. As a response to
the demand, many states have implemented standard-based educational reforms that
require administrators, teachers, and students to be accountable for student
achievement by imposing high school graduation exams for students, entry
requirement for teachers, curriculum content standards, testing for students and
teachers, and a system of rewards and sanctions.
There is no question that the central goal of state policy is to improve student
learning. However, the rewards and sanctions go directly to schools, rather than the
districts. Both federal and state policies have focused on the school as a unit of
intervention instead of the district. These policies override the existence of local
districts. Many industrialized countries have national educational policies and
curriculum where cities and municipalities govern local schools instead of the district
or the school board. Some progressive reformers have advocated that the best public
education governing system is one that is directly licensed by the state and empower
parents to select school of their choice, while other reformers have suggested that
increased policy making at the state level does not necessarily decrease the influence
of the local districts. Chubb and Moe (1990) have criticized districts as being
inefficient bureaucratic institutions since the local districts were originally formed to
protect local community and regional interests.
Some districts, however, are able to extend state policy to exceed established
expectations. They create more incentives for teaching and learning, expect higher
39
standards, and expand assessments. (Marsh, 2000) Some districts play a proactive
policy making role and even go so far as to replace state policies with their own.
Districts are in existence because (1) their instructional policy making has the
potential to undermine state policymakers’ efforts to streamline instructional
guidance, (2) their policies influence state policymakers’ efforts to transmit messages
for instructional change to practitioners, and (3) they influence state efforts to
increase coherence of messages. (Spillane, 1996)
Given the many federal and state regulations, districts are expected to be the
state agency of compliance. In a way, districts can play a vital role in promoting
school reform form compliance to accountability. (WestEd, 2000) Unfortunately,
the district leaders and site administrators are often overloaded with budget and
personnel issues, parent complaints, student discipline, infrastructure, policy
implementation, public relations, and political power wrestling on a daily basis
which leaves a minimum amount of time for emphasizing instruction and learning.
Elected district leaders are also often more interested in gaining voter popularity than
being involved in curriculum design and instruction, particularly those that may be
controversial among constituent groups of parents, teachers, community members,
and unions. In today’s education environment, instruction and learning are not
activities relegated merely to the classroom but regularly extend beyond those
boundaries. (Resnick and Hall, 1998) In general, the research has shown that school
districts are active changing agents and can have significant impact on teaching and
40
learning. Richard Elmore (1993) believed that the local districts have a crucial role
to play in the standard-based movement:
Local jurisdictions have the strongest incentives to pursue policies that
increase the value and productivity of public service in the community.
Local jurisdictions were encouraged to pursue their own primary interest in
the improvement of services (like instruction in education), and receive
access to the redistributive power and broader source of revenue from the
state and federal level. Local jurisdictions are potentially powerful partners
in a strategic game of balancing interests and assets across levels of
government.
Key Elements in a District Design
In order for the district design to be successful in improving teaching and
learning, the following elements need to be included:
(1) Teachers need to be able to buy-in to the design and take further
ownership to make the design work, since teachers are the ultimate source of
delivering the design, their agreement with its basic principles is critical because it
would be difficult for them to implement ideas that they didn’t believe in. In order
for reforms to be sustained through time and demonstrate student improvement, the
initial buy-in has to evolve into eventual ownership. (WestEd, 2000)
(2) In terms of data analysis, the districts need to be able to prove to the
stakeholders the necessity of implementing reform and demonstrate the success of
the reforms through results. Data is published on the school report card and
available for public viewing, data is also utilized to identify low performing schools
41
in order to provide additional support for student achievement. (Coast Mountain
School District #82, 2003)
(3) Specific curriculum materials: researchers have realized that professional
development organized around good instructional materials has a powerful effect on
instruction. (National Center on Education and Economy, 2002) Many districts
have adopted new textbooks that are in alignment with the newly established
standards. There are also many externally developed reform designs available, such
as ATLAS Communities, the Modern Red Schoolhouse, Roots and Wings, Core
Knowledge, Accelerated School Projects, Comer School Development Program,
Paideia, Success for All, the Audrey Cohen College, Co-NECT Schools,
Expeditionary Learning, and Coalition of Essential Schools; (Datnow, 2000)
(4) Focus on improving instruction: utilize research proven instructional
methods and build on a teacher’s knowledge and ability to reflect on their classroom
teaching. (Perry & McDermott, 2003)
(5) Build a professional learning community by offering on-going and job-
embedded professional development. Create a culture that recognizes teachers are
learners as well and that effective teaching enables students in productive ways
towards their own strives for achievement; (Schmoker, 2004)
(6) Strong leaders: successful leaders enhance the capacity of everyone
involved in the educational process and the organization, including system leaders,
district administrators, site leaders, teacher leaders, teachers, parents, and students.
Leaders also prove that the reform is sustainable, (Togneri, 2003), and that
42
leadership is potentially a critical factor in deciding the outcome of standard-based
reform. (Elmore, 1999) Michael Fullan (1998) reminds leaders to respect different
opinions, turn danger into opportunity to form new alliances, expect high standards
while offering needed support at the same time, and to maintain faith that the design
will bring material results.
(7) Early intervention for low performing students and schools is critical.
Many schools test kindergarten children as they begin the curriculum to determine if
intervention is necessary at the early stages; almost all schools offer special
assistance to students who are not meeting established state performance goals.
(Massell, 2000)
(8) Organizational support that ensures that the same vision is shared by all is
critically important, whether it is a top down or bottom up decision to have a reform.
It is equally important to have the support of all stakeholders, such as board
members, district personnel, site administrators, teachers, parents, students, and
community members, as well as making sure that there is time to communicate and
build a sense of team vision.
(9) Physical capital: the districts need to allocate financial resources towards
implementing the design, such as personnel, staff development, and materials.
(Marsh, 2000)
43
Factors Influencing District Design
Americans like to think of this country as being the greatest for generating
excellent ideas and materials for the benefit of all human beings. Thus it is not
wholly surprising, that citizens of this country were dismayed when “A Nation at
Risk” was published in 1983. Fifteen years later, William Bennett (1998) declared
that we were “A Nation Still at Risk”
What should disturb us most about the latest international results is not that
other countries’ best students outstrip our best; it is that other countries have
done far better at producing excellence and equity than has the United States.
A vast transfer of power is needed from producers to consumers. There must
be an end to paternalism, the one-size-fits-all structure, and the
condescending, government-knows-best attitude. Every family must have the
opportunity to choose where its children go to school.
The political results of empowering parents with the ability to choose schools
for their children, threatened the existence of public education. The threat was
exacerbated by community pressures that were demanding satisfactory student
achievement by the raising of our nation’s education standards. Unsatisfactory
student achievement creates internal (from the community) and external (from the
state) pressures for the districts to develop educational reforms that focus on student
achievement. (Elmore, 1993)
The growing discontent with our educational system is reflected in the
number of employers who complain of the inadequacies of the entry level work force
who are often not properly educated or equipped. With innovative technologies
taking over many routine business functions, employers are looking for workers with
the capability of making decisions and solving problems. (Resnick & Hall, 1998) On
44
the other hand, teachers complain that the required assessments have no bearing on
what students learn in the classroom. If the students are expected to be tested well,
they need to be taught the expected standards well. Teachers have been asking for a
more challenging curriculum that is more closely aligned with the established
assessment parameters and standards. Districts leaders eagerly seek for verifiable
evidence of progress as a way to justify their designs. Some districts have built their
own innovative approaches to teaching while many have adopted externally
developed programs due to their reputation for success. (Corcoran, 2003)
Besides adopting new curricula, districts should also use national or state
standards documents (i.e. McREL or CBE) to compose district level standards
which describe essential knowledge and skills, including the ability to make
decisions, solve complex problems in the traditional subject areas of the language
arts, mathematics, science, history, geography, fine arts, and foreign languages.
(Marzano, 1997)
Leadership is another potentially key factor that can influence the
development of the design that a district chooses to implement. As Gulluci et. Al.
(2003) have stated: “Change is driven by strong leadership from the ‘top’ and
guided by the district leaders’ explicit theory of learning, instructional improvement,
and system change.” A strong leader communicates a strong sense of the school’s
mission, develops professional learning, and empowers other stakeholders in the
community. Some districts choose a top-down model where the design comes from
the superintendent or the board which defines learning standards, staff development,
45
accountability, and offers support and incentives for student achievement and
improvement. Commonly the district may provide schools with an opportunity to
attend a design fair, followed by a staff vote to select the design. According to
Amanda Datnow (2000), “teachers stated that the reform adoption voting process
was not genuine. Either teachers voted several times until the desired outcome was
achieved, or they were strongly encouraged to vote for the reform the first time.” At
other districts, the design practice comes from the bottom-up. This type of design
emphasizes empowering teachers, students, and parents to form learning
communities through collaboration. (Gallucci et.al., 2003) The latter type of
leadership involves others so they may share the same vision, pledge
professionalism, and behave in a collegial manner. (Sergiovanni, 1992)
Strategies to Implement Changes
In order for the districts to facilitate major changes, research has revealed that
the following strategies had been implemented:
(1) Development of leadership and consensus towards a shared vision and
establishment of common goals that emphasized improving teaching and learning,
and building a strong culture of shared values around instructional improvement.
Another important aspect of leadership was to consistently remind each other of the
common goals by posting signs for stakeholders to see and engaging in discussions
about those goals on a regular basis. This enables the teachers to understand the
consistency and commitment behind the reforms undertaken, so they do not
46
misconstrue the efforts as short-lived, nor casually ignore them. Research has found
that teachers and principals are more supportive of policies that they have played a
substantial part in developing. (Firestone, 1989)
(2) Implement a system wide framework to support instructional
improvement, including the adoption of curricula that connects with the established
state standards, and are consistent across grade levels. Align assessment with
curricula and instruction, and use multiple assessment methods including the use of
system wide data and demand accountability. (Togneri, 2003)
(3) Change instructional practices to those that are research-based to ensure
better results. (Fullan, 2000) Darling-Hammond (1998) has suggested that a
teacher’s instructional skills have a direct correlation to a student’s learning, thus
successful reform must invest in the teacher’s capability to teach more effectively.
Additionally, it is important to incorporate a variety of instructional strategies in the
classroom such as small group instruction, non-linguistic representation, cooperative
learning, note-taking, and one-on-one tutoring. Furthermore, focus on the
achievement and quality of the teaching, while continuing to develop ever more
effective approaches to instruction. (Datnow, 2000)
(4) Create a collaborative school culture that enhances and builds the capacity
of the district staff, by creating a learning community where leaders and practitioners
can acquire the skills and knowledge they need to improve their job performance.
The majority of teachers want to do a good job, thus assisting them in sharpening
their professional skills will further generate their loyalty and commitment to the
47
profession. (Rosenholtz, 1991) The varied methods of staff development might
include inter-visitation, internal and external consulting, on-going work shops, on-
site training, and teacher collaboration. (Marsh, 2000) Michael Fullan (2000) has
defined a professional learning community as a process of re-culturing, by which he
means changing the limited attention generally paid to pedagogy, and student
improvement and making it instead a source of routine and sustained assessment.
Dennis Sparks (2001) has concluded that “the key is to replace a belief in ‘experts’
who ‘deliver’ knowledge of good teaching in workshops with communities of
teachers who learn through on-going collaboration and practice.”
(5) Use data extensively to make decisions, monitor student learning,
evaluate school improvement, identify gaps in achievement, plan professional
development activities, align curriculum and instruction, assign and evaluate
personnel, identify appropriate programs for students, and allocate district resources.
Many districts hire experts for data analysis to meet the state accountability
requirement, and many administrators and teachers are taught data analysis as well.
(Massell, 2000)
(6) Since districts have limited resources, it is crucial to allocate resources
wisely to maximize the reform goals of improving teaching and learning, whether
resources are allocated to new materials, hiring additional personnel, allowing extra
planning time, release time, staff development time for teachers (Marsh, 2000),
distributing additional resources to low performing schools, (Massell, 2000), (7) or
fostering relations with stakeholders, as Michael Fullan (2000) has stated:
48
Effective schools use their internal collaborative strength to seek out
relationship relationships with the community. They see parents more as part
of the solution than as part of the problem. They pursue programs and
activities that are based on two-way capacity building in order to mobilize the
resources of both the community and the school in the service of learning.
District and School Connection
Districts have been articulated as active agents of change while schools can
be agents of practice, reform, or resistance (Darling-Hammond et. al., 2003).
Richard Elmore (1999) has advocated for the important role a district may play,
especially in the era of standard-based reform in improving teaching and learning.
Taking the district system as the unit of change is critical to putting forward
equitable and sustainable reform. (McLaughlin and Talbert, 2003)
A district is made up of many schools, and the schools are the units which the
state either rewards or sanctions according to the Accountability Act. Schools in
turn rely on teachers to deliver progressively more effective instruction. Such
changes in instruction can only occur when the teachers continue to learn themselves
and develop the practical details of effective instruction. (Elmore, 1999) Through
teachers’ effective teaching, the students exhibit higher levels of academic
achievements, thus we come full circle to achieving the goal of district design in
improving teaching and learning. While teachers are generally acknowledged as the
most important assets in a school, educational reform is a complex and difficult
process which may cause differences in perceptions among the various levels.
According to Perry and McDermott (2003), “In the best situations, school
49
supervisors receive support to understand that some fundamental relationships
between central office and schools need to be rethought. Since relationships are not
often clear, and habits of mind are resistant to change, the support might come in the
form of process of inquiry and reflection from a critical friend. The process of
inquiry can be long.” Collegiality is a form of professional equality where true
colleagues work unselfishly to enable each other. (Sergiovanni, 1992) Collegiality
is the ultimate result of a successful collaboration between the district and the school.
It is important to ask, in a district-led reform, are the teachers aware of the reform
design? Can the teachers articulate the design? Do the site administrators agree with
the district reform policies? How do the site administrators reinforce the reform
design, by encouraging or threatening? A teacher survey and interviews with
teachers, teacher leaders, site administrators, the principal, and district office
personnel would probably be empowering in helping us to understand the
district/school connection in carrying out the district-led reforms.
Impact of District Efforts
Some studies have examined the ways in which local schools and teachers
are influenced by the district efforts. It has been shown, that a district’s culture and
organization affects teacher attitudes and commitment. (Rosenhotlz, 1991) A
cohesive district increases a teachers’ inner motivation while a fragmented district
has high staff turn over. A successful school district implies strong instructional
leadership, a clear school mission, good teacher rapport, high expectation from its
50
students, and high levels of teacher competency, as well as support for continued
teacher learning and collaboration. Further, studies have shown that teachers who
have a positive perception of their district culture, in turn enhanced their school
culture. (Marsh, 2000) An instructionally effective district will produce enhanced
student performance. (Murphy and Hallinger, 1988) Many researches have
indicated that the district’s efforts created teacher commitment and improved student
achievement. District office support of school reform makes a difference for
teaching and student achievement alike. Neither state nor federal accountability
systems can have quite the same effect and create an atmosphere of equality for
students across schools the way a district can. This was confirmed by a study of San
Diego and Bay Area districts in California, which proved that the districts played an
essential role in achieving educational equity and closing achievement gaps.
(McLaughlin and Talbert, 2003) Further study of school administrators on their
perceptions, understanding, and the extent to which they are willing to implement
their policies will further reveal the material impacts of a district’s effort at the
school site and a survey of teachers on their awareness and perception of the
district’s effectiveness should also clarify the impact of district’s effort at the
classroom.
Exemplary Districts
In researching the reforms initiated at the San Diego City Schools, it was
revealed that successful reform came from substantial transformations in the culture,
51
organization, instruction and outcomes of the district, including major changes
within the leadership team (Darling-Hammond et. al., 2003). The board of San
Diego City Schools discontinued the contract with its superintendent in 1997 and
hired Alan Bersin as Superintendent of Public Education in 1998. Bersin then
picked Tony Alvarado as Chancellor of Instruction to manage their instruction and
professional accountability system. In meeting the board’s reform expectation, they
jolted the system and redesigned both instructional and operational domains by
changing resource allocation, organizational structure, and personnel policies. As
Bersin explained:
If people don’t understand you are serious about change in the first six
months, the bureaucracy will own you. The bureaucracy will defeat you at
every turn if you give it a chance.
Bersin’s reform appeared to take a top-down approach which focused on
accountability, problem control, and incentives while Alvarado took a bottom-up
approach and focused on teaching, teacher development, support and collaboration.
Alvarado was recognized by his many years of work in the city as superintendent of
two local school districts and chancellor of the Board of Education and trusted by
many reformers and the teacher’s union. The two of them compliment each other
with different expertise, yet they share the same reform vision (Darling Hammond et.
al., 2003)
A successful district has a systemic approach to reform. The systemic
approach involves all personnel in the school and the district, such as human
resources, business, technology, maintenance, school board, union, teachers, parents,
52
and the community. Every member is able to articulate the district goal of improving
teaching and learning. District wide communication is open and clear. There is no
‘black box’ to look for. Every reforming districts developed data, analyzed data, and
used data to drive instruction. They used data on trends in organizational conditions,
demographics, and student achievement within and across schools to focus their
efforts to initiate change and to distribute resources and support for each individual
school. (McLaughlin and Talbert, 2003)
From their research on the San Diego City Schools, Darling-Hammond
(2003) and the research team focused on the reforms initiated in teaching and
learning on three specific initiatives: (1) curriculum and assessment, (2) teacher
development, and (3) accountability. The instruction design of San Diego City
Schools included: (1) setting clear goals and performance standards to achieve higher
order thinking skills and performance capabilities, (2) evaluating student products in
terms of thinking, strategizing, academic skills and how scaffolding the learning
process was used to assist students to achieve established goals and performance
standards, (3) using a variety of teaching strategies that precisely demonstrate key
skills, and engaged students in active learning with opportunities for extensive
practice and revision, providing multiple methods for access to content, attending to
the student’s prior knowledge and cultural experiences, and teaching students to
think cognitively about their own learning strategies (Darling-Hammond et. al.,
2003)
53
The schools’ reform was led, supported, and leveraged by the district reform.
The strategies utilized by the San Diego City Schools were: (1) recruitment and
retention of high quality principals and teachers and weeding out weak staff
members; (2) a massive investment in high quality, intensive professional
development to sustain instructional quality and standard-based reform; the staff
development contained leadership training, workshops, on-site coaching, modeling,
literacy instruction, and other subject areas; (3) reorganizing and showing the
emphasis of organization in teaching and learning; having principals work closely
with instructional leaders in the district office to improve the quality of teaching;
principal evaluation and district support were also centered around instruction; (4)
reallocation of resources, downsizing the district office, consolidating fragmented
programs, and allocating funding towards specifically instruction related areas, such
as classrooms; (5) providing a centralized curriculum and teacher guidance based on
research findings, developing district wide strategies for literacy training, special
courses, and subject instruction; (6) demanding professional accountability
throughout the district to support instruction. (Darling-Hammond et. al., 2003).
David Hornbeck was appointed to be Superintendent of Philadelphia schools
in 1994. Like many large urban school districts, the Philadelphia schools had
problems with low student achievement, high school drop out rates, inadequate
funding, high turnover among teachers and principals, and buildings that were
physically deteriorating. Hornbeck was an advocate of education reform and was
instrumental in Kentucky’s Education Reform Act. Through his leadership,
54
Philadelphia received with $50 million in Annenberg Challenge grants with $100
million matching funds from corporations, foundations, and federal grants.
In his reforms, Hornbeck emphasized the importance of equity and
exemplified over and over again that “all children can lean at high levels and ‘all’
means ‘all’” including low income families, racial and language minorities, and
students with disabilities (Foley, 2001). He designed a ten-point Children Achieving
reform plan to improve Philadelphia schools: (1) set high expectation for all students,
(2) set standards to hold educators accountable, (3) decentralize and allow schools to
make more decisions, (4) provide intensive and sustained training of staff, (5) make
sure that all children are well fed, healthy, and ready to learn, (6) provide students
with community support, (7) provide modern technology with one computer for
every six students, (8) engage the public in understanding, supporting, and
participating in school reform, (9) ensure adequate financial and other resources and
allocate them effectively, (10) be prepared to address all these priorities
simultaneously. Following the design, Hornbeck developed eight similar strategies
to implement the reform: (1) fair funding: he believed funding was inadequate and
vigorously sought a new state funding formula that is fair to Philadelphia schools
before the Annenberg Challenge grant diminished, (2) standards: set high standards
to outline the knowledge and skills Philadelphia teachers should teach and students
should learn, (3) accountability: create an accountability system to reward and
sanction schools and teachers based on performance, (4) decentralization: empower
schools and teachers to make decisions by creating local school councils and
55
learning communities within schools, (5) leadership and support: provide staff
development to train administrators and teachers how to effectively implement the
reform, (6) better coordination of resources: connect students with social services
for them to receive basic support to cover human needs, (7) civic and parent
engagement: involve parents and community to be active in the schools, (8) and
once again, a commitment to engage all these reforms simultaneously. (Cocoran and
Christman, 2002).
Many reforms seemed to be simple and straightforward by aligning
curriculum, instruction, and assessments with the standards to ensure student
achievement; however, the actual implementation is excessively complex and offers
us many lessons. State approaches to reform are varied: some use a centralized
approach with clearly defined directives from the state, while others utilized a
decentralized approach and relied on the local districts to implement the reform on
their own. Regardless of the approach, in order to be successful, reform relies on
strong leadership to guide, support, and overcome a difficult political arena to be
sustainable. Unfortunately, the education leaders tend to change jobs frequently and
cause damages in reform implementation and sustainability. (Fuhrman, 1994) Some
states run into sequencing problems in attempting to initiate their reforms, such as
having new content standards and old norm-referenced assessment in simultaneous
use. Similarly new assessment criteria are brought into play with teachers unfamiliar
with the new criteria and using old methods of instruction in the classrooms.
(Fuhrman, 1994) The all-at-once strategy of Philadelphia was judged as a slip in the
56
big reform picture. Hornbeck’s belief in decentralization provided too much
freedom to well-intended but under-prepared principals and teachers. The central
office had believed that the entire reform structure must be implemented
simultaneously and immediately. The principals and teachers were overwhelmed by
the numerous demands placed upon them, such as developing curriculum, generating
assessment, providing new staff development, initiating new procedures, new
evaluations, and not receiving sufficient support from the district office. There was
little time to guide the reform or to receive feedback to modify the policy (Foley,
2001). Philadelphia’s literacy reform offered a one-size-fits-all approach which
resulted in elementary schools showing real gains, while middle schools had a mixed
story, and high schools struggled. The high school teachers were requested to make
changes in curriculum and instruction without guidance or support. The lesson of
the Philadelphia reforms is that reform strategies must be customized to address the
specific needs at each level and there must be solid guidance in curriculum and
instruction support to generate the desired results (Corcoran and Christman, 2002).
Studies of the reforms initiated at the San Diego City Schools indicated that
communicating the sources of the reform and facilitating principals and teachers to
understand the professional commitment involved was a major challenge of the
reform project. It is very difficult to implement coherent approaches to change in a
large district that has an established decentralized culture. Schools that are
bureaucratically organized had problems developing staff collaboration and changing
instruction with new resources. Research also discovered that it is much more
57
challenging to transform the quality of teaching and learning in high schools than
hitherto imagined. (Darling-Hammond et. al., 2003).
58
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
In this chapter, the research methodology utilized for the study is explained,
as well as a description of the sample, sampling criteria, and population.
Instrumentation and data collection processes are reviewed, and methods of data
analysis are presented.
Purpose of Study
The purpose of this study was to investigate the perception of administrators,
lead teachers, and teachers on the district design, school efforts in implementing the
design, the extent of implementation, and the effectiveness of the district design in
improving teaching and learning at a high school site. Four research questions were
utilized to guide the study:
1. What was their perception of the district design for improving teaching and
learning?
2. What school level efforts were made to facilitate the implementation of the
district design?
3. To what extent was the district design implemented at the school and
classroom levels?
4. How effective was the design and implementation strategies at the site and
classroom level?
59
Based on the purpose of the study, a qualitative, descriptive case study
research method was used along with quantitative analysis provided by two
questionnaires. These methods provided the opportunity to do an in-depth analysis
of a school involved in a district-wide instructional improvement plan to improve
student learning. Document review, interviews, and teacher questionnaires were
used to collect data and provide the basis for analysis from both the emic and etic
perspective of the research questions (Gall, Borg, & Gall, 1996). The instruments
were developed based on conceptual frameworks designed to identify the key
elements addressed in research questions.
Methodology
This study utilized both qualitative and quantitative case study methods to
research how successfully a district design for improving teaching and learning was
implemented at the school and classroom levels. Interviews, document reviews, and
questionnaires were used to collect the data. This study was conducted in a high
school in a suburb of Southern California. A case study method was utilized to
analyze the effectiveness of the district’s design in improving teaching and learning,
from the perspective of the people most closely involved in the process at the school
level. This method allowed for thorough investigation of the primary concern’s of
the study, using a specific school as the unit of study.
The findings of this study will later be incorporated in a cross-study meta-
analysis with other similar studies. A group of sixteen doctoral students at the
60
University of Southern California Rossier School of Education, divided themselves
into four groups and selected four qualified districts and eight schools to conduct
their specific researches. These studies were conducted with the intent that a Ph. D.
student would collect, compare and aggregate the above studies and discover
whether systematic relationships exist in terms of the schools’ implementation of
instructional strategies in improving teaching and learning.
Sample and Population
Purposeful sampling was used in selecting the district and school of study. A
group of doctoral students examining a district’s design for improving teaching and
learning and the effectiveness of implementing the design at the school and
classroom levels developed criteria for selecting the districts and schools that would
be utilized in the study during the summer of 2004 at the University of Southern
California. This group of doctoral students determined that the sampling districts be
medium sized, serving between 10,000 to 60,000 students, with a diverse population
in terms of ethnicity and socioeconomic status, and offered a district-wide policy
above and beyond current legislative requirements for improving teaching and
learning, with special efforts implemented for at least a two-year duration.
The domains of district action included defining “teaching” and “learning”,
acquiring and allocating human, fiscal, and physical resources, creating local systems
of accountability, professional development, responding to and contending with
exogenous policy, partnering with non-system actors, ad communicating externally
61
and internally (Gilbert, S., Hightower, M., Husbands, J., Marsh, J., McLaughlin, M.,
Talbert, J. & Young, V. 2003).
The selected school within the chosen districts had to meet or exceed its API
targets two out of three years with the same principal in charge for more than two
years, while these targets were met. The “Beach High School” in the “Los Coyotes
High School District” was recommended by the District and selected by the
researcher based upon the above criteria.
In order to obtain permission from the Los Coyotes High School District to
conduct a research study, a written application to conduct the research project was
sent to the District for approval. District level permission was obtained to conduct
the study within a few weeks of the application submission. With the District’s
permission and recommendation, the researcher contacted the Principal of Beach
High School via e-mail and followed up with regular mail and telephone calls.
Permission from the school to conduct the research was obtained in approximately
two weeks. The purposeful sampling was also used in selecting leadership team
members and lead teachers to ensure “information rich” participants. The Principal
was asked to identify the leadership team members and lead teachers who were
actively involved in the district design and/or implementation. The Assistant
Principals were identified as the leadership team members while the Department
Chairs were designated as the lead teachers.
Strategic random sampling was used to select the classroom teachers to be
interviewed to avoid having the same content areas or grade levels. Besides
62
interviewing the Principal, leadership team members, lead teachers, and classroom
teachers, a quantitative research was also conducted to triangulate the data for
validity. All administrators and teachers were requested to complete the school level
survey and all the classroom teachers were requested to complete the teacher
questionnaires.
The School District
Los Coyotes High School District offers 9
th
through 12
th
grade public
education to more than 15, 000 students in four cities. The District employs more
than 600 certificated teachers and provides comprehensive high schools along with
continuation and alternative high schools. The District serves a varied
socioeconomic population, and is actively engaged in partnerships with parent
organizations, the business community, and higher education institutions.
The School
Beach High School serves more than 2000 9
th
through 12
th
grade students
living in the community with an ethnic breakdown of 51percent Latino, 39 percent
Anglo, 5 percent Asian, and 3 percent African-American. Additionally, a very small
number of students are of Native American or Filipino heritage. 12 percent of the
students are served by the Aid to Families with Dependent Children benefits. 72
percent of the students project themselves as college bound; 28 percent are expected
to go on to other training or enter the work force immediately upon graduation. In
63
addition, the school draws more than 100 students from outside the school boundary
to magnet programs in the fine arts, culinary arts, and agriculture
The student body of Beach High School is socio-economically diverse as
well with both million dollar homes and low-rent housing existing within walking
distance of the school. During the research period, 21 percent of the students
qualified for the Free and Reduced Lunch program, and 19 percent were designated
Title I (underachieving, socio-economically disadvantaged) students. An active
parent community reflects middle class values stressing the importance of education
as a prerequisite for professional, managerial, and skilled careers. The school is a
community high school with strong family ties, history, and community pride.
The mission of Beach High School is to provide a quality curriculum and
instruction through a wide range of academic and extracurricular opportunities by
which all students may discover their interests and talents, form connections, and
become active participants in the educational community.
The Beach High School has been designated as a California Distinguished
School by the California Department of Education. It has received many Golden
Bell Awards. As a direct result of on-going school-wide and departmental data and
curriculum analysis, Beach High School has experienced exciting academic growth
and success, ultimately resulting in significant increases to the school’s Academic
Performance Index (API). With the drastic improvement of API, Beach High School
has been eligible for government awards. From 2002 to 2003, its actual API growth
was 51 points (API growth score was 601 in 2002 and 660 in 2003). From 2003 to
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2004, its actual API growth was 31 points (API growth score was 660 in 2003 and
691 in 2004). In other words, Beach High School has improved 82 points on the API
index in two years, while the initial growth target was only 7 points a year. The
school’s subgroups have also experienced significant growth.
Interviewees
School Principal: Kandy has been the Principal of Beach High School for
three years. She taught in both elementary and high schools and was an
administrator for intermediate and K-8 schools. Prior to joining Beach High School,
Kandy was a principal at a smaller high school for seven years. She was attracted to
the Los Coyotes High School District’s plan for improving teaching and student
learning. In the small high school that Kandy came from, she was the only person to
have provided teaching and learning plans for everyone. She was glad to join this
District where a district plan is in place and she has colleagues that she can
collaborate with.
Leadership Team Members (who were directly involved in teaching and
learning): Jacob is the Assistant Principal who is in charge of Instruction and
Operations at Beach High School. Jacob is very knowledgeable about the Los
Coyotes High School District’s plan for improving teacher teaching and student
learning. He has been an administrator for the District for six years; two years as the
Dean of Attendance, one year as the Assistant Principal of Pupil Services, and three
years as the Assistant Principal of Instruction and Operation at Beach High School.
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He has worked closely with the District and School Site to implement the District’s
plan from the very beginning.
Samantha is the Assistant Principal of Pupil Services at Beach High School.
She has been with Beach High School for one and a half years. Even though she was
not involved in creating the District’s plan, she was expected to monitor the teachers
to ensure that the District’s plan was appropriately implemented in the classrooms.
Lead Teacher (department chair, mentors, teacher coaches, resource teachers,
program specialists): According to Principal Kandy, the Lead Teachers are the
Department Chairs. They serve as teacher coaches and mentors. The researcher was
given a department roster, with the department chair and co-chair identified. With
the permission of the Principal, the researcher was able to contact the department
chair or co-chair of the core subjects, English, Mathematics, Science, and Social
Science to interview.
Classroom Teachers: Strategic random sampling was used to select
classroom teachers for interviews. Names of six teachers were randomly drawn
under the departments of English, Mathematics, Science, Social Science, Foreign
Languages, and Fine Arts. The main purpose of interviewing the teachers was to
better understand and confirm the extent of implementation of the District’s plan at
the individual classroom level. While the principal did not participate in the
selection of these teachers, she did work with the researcher to facilitate conducting
the interviews during the school day. At the conclusion of the interviews, the
researcher asked each teacher to self-report his/her extent of implementation of the
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district’s reforms on the innovation configuration. The innovation configuration was
designed by the researchers to identify the extent of implementations in the
classroom levels based upon district design for improving teaching and learning.
Documents and Artifacts
The researcher examined school accountability report card, single school plan
for student achievement, district and school web sites, the district and school
organization charts, school profile, master schedule, memos, newsletter, faculty
handbook, California School Recognition Program application, roster, and staff
development hand outs. The documents and artifacts provided the researcher with
pertinent information about the Los Coyotes High School District and Beach High
School. The researcher sought answers to the research questions by examining all
possible related documents. The documents were also used to verify the alignment
of the study’s findings. The Document Review Guide is essentially an
organizational tool, which enabled the researcher to remain focused on the primary
research questions and to maintain documents in a systematic fashion.
Instrumentation
The instrumentation for this study was created and developed by members of
a cross-analysis research team consisting of 16 Ed. D. candidates in the Rossier
School of Education at the University of Southern California. Led by David Marsh,
Ph.D., Associate Dean for Academic Programs, the research team met once in April
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of 2004, again in May of 2004, and weekly during a subsequent five week summer
session. An exhaustive collection of relevant literature was collected by small
groups working on various aspects of the research, and then they explained and
disseminated the material to the entire study team. Following this, each study team
member completed an individual analysis and synthesis of this literature. Both the
purpose of the study and the research questions were developed through the mutual
efforts of all the study team members. Working in small groups, various members of
the study team collaboratively developed conceptual frameworks and appropriate
data collection instruments, submitting them to the entire group for revision and
ultimate approval. Table 1, below, describes the relationship of each instrument of
data collection to each research question, thus making sure that all research questions
were appropriately addressed. The “X” in a matrix cell identifies that a given data
collection instrument tool was used to investigate and collect information for a
specific research question. A data needs grid was created for each of the four
research questions which included data needs, data sources, and instrumentation
needs. The grid is presented in Table 1.
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Table 1: The Relationship of Data Collection Instruments to Research Questions
Data Collection
Instruments
RQ 1:
District
Design
RQ 2:
School
Level
Effort
RQ 3:
Extent of
Implementation
RQ 4:
Effectiveness of
Implementation
Principal Interview
Guide
X X X
Leadership Team
Member Interview
Guide
X X X
Lead Teacher
Interview Guide
X X X
Teacher Interview
Guide
X X X X
Innovation
Configuration
X
School Level Survey X X X X
Teacher
Questionnaire (SOC)
X
Case Study Guide Components
Document Review
Guide
X X X X
Analysis of the first research question (What is the district design for
improving teaching and learning?) resulted in one conceptual framework
(Conceptual Framework A) addressing the district design elements and strategies.
The conceptual framework focuses on an overview of the elements of the district
design for improving teaching and learning, the district’s change strategy, the
definition of standards-based instruction, the intended outcomes of instructional
improvement, and the communication methods to the stakeholders.
Analysis of the second research question (What school level efforts
facilitated the implementation of the district design?) generated one conceptual
framework (Conceptual Framework B) focusing on the school level efforts in
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implementing the district design including the site level plan and provision for
resources in the areas of human resources, fiscal resources, and physical resources,
as well as professional development, and the support offered to the staff members.
Analysis of the third research question (To what extent has the district design
been implemented at the school and classroom levels?) (Conceptual Framework C)
emphasized the implementation of the district design and strategy in practice. In this
instance, “extent” refers to district wide implementation versus a specific content
area or grade level. In addition, the levels of implementation were established as:
just getting started, partially implemented, and fully implemented. The definition of
the levels of implementation, the teachers’ awareness of the design, and the comfort
level with the implementation were addressed in this conceptual framework.
Analysis of the fourth research question (How effective were the design and
implementation strategies at the site and classroom levels?) (Conceptual Framework
D) examined the effectiveness of the district design and implementation strategies.
Effectiveness is established in relationship to an individual’s perceptions of
effectiveness, cost effectiveness, and time efficiency.
The answer to the first research question (What is district design for
improving teaching and learning?) was collected through interviews with the
Principal, leadership team members, lead teachers, classroom teachers, school level
survey, and district document review guide. The findings to the second research
question (What school level efforts facilitated the implementation of district design?)
were also gathered through interviews of the Principal, leadership team members,
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lead teachers, classroom teachers, school level survey, and district document review.
The results to third research question (To what extent has the district design been
implemented at the school and classroom levels?) was composed by interviewing
classroom teachers, the innovation configuration, school level survey, teacher
questionnaire, and district document review. The conclusion to the fourth research
question (How effective were the design and implementation strategies at the site
and classroom level?) were collated from interviews with the Principal, leadership
team members, lead teachers, classroom teachers, school level survey, and district
document review.
The innovation configuration defined the levels of implementation and
allowed the classroom teachers to reflect by themselves on the levels of
implementation at each design component ranging from just getting started, partially
implemented, to fully implemented.
The school level survey consists of 44 questions that address all four research
questions, the district design, the school level efforts, the extent of implementation,
and the effectiveness of the district design. It requires a likert-scale response on a
four point scale ranging from 0: don’t know, 1: strongly disagree, 2: somewhat
disagree, 3: somewhat agree, to 4: strongly agree.
The teacher questionnaire was 36 questions which were based upon the
Stages of Concern Model developed by Hall, Wallace and Dorsett in 1973. It was
intended to understand the extent of the teacher’s knowledge of the district design
and the teacher’s comfort level with implementing the reform strategies. Hall,
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Wallace and Dorsett proposed that as persons experience change in their
environment, they move through seven unique Stages of Concern (Marsh & Jordan-
Marsh, 1986). Thus, the questionnaire was intended to demonstrate teacher
knowledge about the district design and comfort level with implementing reform
strategies.
The Stages of Concern Teacher Questionnaire also revealed the extent to
which teachers implemented the district design in their classrooms. One of the
questions on the questionnaire is repeated twice intentionally, to provide a check for
the attention given to the questions by the teacher completing the instrument. The
participant responds to all of the questions using a Likert-type scale with seven
options ranging from zero to six. The net result of a sample completing the Stages of
Concern evaluation range from 0) Awareness, 1) Informational, 2) Personal, 3)
Management, 4) Consequence, 5) Collaboration, and 6) Refocusing. Awareness
indicates knowledge of the topic, Personal indicates concern about one’s ability to
deal with the topic, Management indicates implementing the topic, Consequence
indicates the perception of the relevance of the change and its impact upon students,
while Collaboration refers to working with others to implement the change, and
Refocusing indicates consideration of enhancing the scale of change or moving on to
another effective innovation.
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Data Collection Instruments
The conceptual frameworks provided both the foundation for and guided the
development of data collection instruments that would address the issues posed in
the four research questions. The primary instrument was the Case Study Guide,
which provided the researchers general and specific directions for collecting and for
presenting data.
Instrumentation derived from the directions of the case study guide includes staff
interviews, the innovation configuration, surveys and questionnaires, and the
document review guide. It was important to conduct interviews with both principal-
selected staff and randomly selected teaching staff. The principal-selected samples
ensured that the persons being interviewed wold have direct knowledge of the
district design, including the site and classroom implementation strategies. The
interviews with the randomly selected staff allowed for the possibility of discovering
either confirming data relative to the responses of the staff selected by the principal,
data contrary to that found in the principal-selected staff interviews, or both. In any
event, such variation in interviewee selection provides the opportunity for more
effective triangulation of data. Similarly, the use of surveys and questionnaires
provided a source of anonymous data that also may prove valuable in analysis of
data, through both triangulation and statistical evidence.
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Case Study Guide
The purpose of the Case Study Guide was to provide general and specific
directions to the researchers for collecting data according to the methodologies
presented in Chapter 3 and for presenting data as part of the findings in Chapter 4.
In addition, the case study guide provided lists of questions suitable for each of the
four different types of interviews: principal, leadership team member, lead teacher
and regular teacher. These interview questions were meant to serve as a guide only,
not to be asked in rote format. The questions would accomplish at least two major
objectives. First, the interviewer, using the guide, could be certain of not omitting
essential areas during the interview and secondly, the general reference list of
questions used by all researchers at every site, would help maintain consistency and
alignment among all members of the research team. During the interview sessions,
initial questions would generally come from the appropriate interview guide, with
the interviewer following up with more probing questions in response, seeking
elaboration or alternative interpretations. Each of the four interview guides is
arranged in sections that directly reflect the research questions of the study.
The case study guide is in accordance with the conceptual frameworks of this
study, which describes the examination of the design and implementation of district-
led reform efforts at the site and classroom levels. When collecting data, the
conceptual frameworks and the guiding questions should serve as the focus both
when conducting formal interviews and while administering surveys at the site and
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classroom level. It was not necessary to ask each of the guiding questions during
any given interview, but rather use the guiding questions and conceptual frameworks
to be certain of getting the pertinent information as specified in the data collection
chart.
Survey Questionnaire
Two sets of survey questionnaires were used for this study. All certificated
personnel were asked to complete the School Level Survey. The survey includes a
cover letter, brief introduction, directions for completing the survey, an assurance of
anonymity, eleven demographic data questions and forty-four survey questions. The
responses were based upon a five-point Likert –type scale, ranging from 0) Don’t
Know, 1) Strongly Disagree, 2) Somewhat Disagree, 3) Somewhat Agree, to 4)
Strongly Agree. The School Level Survey was intended to measure the degree of
awareness about the district design for improving teaching and learning. The survey
questions focus on the perceptions of the participants about the district design and
implementation strategies, the school level efforts in implementing the design, the
extent of implementation, and the effectiveness of the implementation.
The School Level Survey was pre-tested on two separate samples both
similar to the target sample, and revised where the pre-test results indicated lack of
clarity or a tendency for participants to misunderstand the intent of the question.
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All teachers were asked to complete a second survey referred to as the
Teacher Questionnaire. The Teacher Questionnaire consists of 36 items based on the
Stages of Concern Model developed by Hall, Wallace and Dorsett in 1973. They
proposed that as persons experience change in their environment, they move through
seven unique Stages of Concern (Marsh & Jordan-Marsh, 1986). Thus, the
questionnaire was intended to demonstrate teacher knowledge about the district
design and comfort level with implementing reform strategies.
The Stages of Concern Teacher Questionnaire also revealed the teacher’s
knowledge of the extent to which the district design was being implemented in their
classrooms. One of the questions on the questionnaire is repeated twice
intentionally, to provide a check for the attention level being paid to the
questionnaire. The participants responded to all of the questions using a Likert-type
scale with seven options ranging from zero to six. The net result of a sample
completing the Stages of Concern evaluation range from 0) Awareness, 1)
Informational, 2) Personal, 3) Management, 4) Consequence, 5) Collaboration, and
6) Refocusing. Awareness indicates knowledge of the topic, Personal indicates
concern about one’s ability to deal with the topic, Management indicates
implementing the topic, Consequence indicates the perception of the relevance of the
change and its impact upon students, while Collaboration refers to working with
others to implement the change, and Refocusing indicates consideration of enhancing
the scale of change or moving on to another effective innovation.
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Data Collection
The data for the study was collected in November and December 2004 by the
researcher during several rounds of data collection. Prior to any data collection, the
researcher waited for IRB clearance from the University of Southern California and
approval from the Superintendent of Los Coyotes High School District for
conducting this research with an explanation for the purpose of the study, the
conceptual frameworks, instrumentations, and the format of data collection. A
meeting was arranged with the site Principal to provide a similar executive summary
and explanation. During the first week of data collection, the Principal was
interviewed to discuss a broad overview of the study, the research questions, the data
that needed to be collected, and to identify leadership team members and lead
teachers for purposeful sampling to gather information.
During the second week of data collection, the researcher was introduced at
the staff meeting by the Principal. All staff members were informed about the
district’s participation in the research. With the permission of the Principal, the
researcher placed school level survey and teacher questionnaires in the mailboxes of
the certificated personnel with a cover letter further explaining the purpose of the
research, the group of researchers, methods of returning the surveys, the
confidentiality of their responses, and their potential risks and contributions they
might make by voluntarily participating in the surveys.
Each teacher was given a big envelope containing the questionnaires, a candy
bar, and a self-stamped regular envelope, which he/she could seal and drop in the
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mail or return to the researcher’s special USC tray in the office. The researcher sent
out e-mails to contact those Principal-select samples for interview appointments. At
the same time, the researcher used the staff department roster to draw strategic
random sampling with one random name from each of the core subjects in English,
Mathematics, Science, Social Science, Foreign Language, and Fine Arts department.
The researcher also sent out e-mails to these strategic random-select samples for
interview appointments.
During the third week of research, there were only two responses to the
researcher’s interview request, one from the leadership team member and one from
the random-select teacher. The researcher was able to interview both of them
independently. In the meantime, about 20 questionnaires out of the 80 that had been
disseminated were returned to the researcher through mails. A friendly reminder
with another candy bar was sent to the classroom teachers’ mailboxes to impress
upon them the importance of their participation and requesting their immediate
return of the questionnaires.
At this point in the research process, the researcher did not have a good return
rate on the questionnaires, or with scheduling interviews. The Principal advised the
researcher that even though every teacher has an e-mail address, some people don’t
have computers in their classrooms and some were sporadic or negligent in checking
their e-mail. The researcher requested a telephone roster and called those who had
not responded to e-mails; this yielded much better results. Thus, the researcher was
able to schedule interview appointments with everyone involved in the study before
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winter break, except for one random-select teacher who just did not have the time for
an interview. The researcher then contacted another randomly-select teacher from
the same department for a substitute interview appointment.
During the fourth week, the researcher made six trips to Beach High School
to interview one leadership team member, three lead teachers, and four classroom
teachers. About 30 additional questionnaires were returned to the researcher by this
time. During the fifth week, the researcher made two additional trips to interview
one lead teacher, the last random-selected teacher, and a second interview with the
Principal. Documents were collected from the Principal and leadership team
members.
Data Analysis
The purpose of this study was to document the perception of district design
for improving teaching and learning, the school level efforts in facilitating the
implementation, the extent of implementation, and the effectiveness of the design
from the site Principal, leadership team members, lead teachers, and classroom
teachers.
The data was analyzed to identify the answers to the four research questions
each addressing the purpose of the study. A structure for categorizing the data
according to the four research questions was created to use with the interview notes,
school level survey, teacher questionnaires, and teacher self-report of innovation
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configuration. All data were broken down into descriptors, categorized, compared,
contrasted and summarized. The similarities and differences from different levels of
interviewees were addressed. The information gathered from the interview was used
to compare and contrast with information gathered from the other data collection
instruments.
Reliability analysis with alpha scale was used for school level survey.
Percentage was used to determine the level of disagree or agree with the
questionnaires. Questions 1 through 8 responded to the first research question: What
was the perception of district design for improving teaching and learning? Questions
9 through 21 responded to the second research question: What did school level
efforts facilitate the implementation of the district design? Questions 22 through 33
responded to the third research question: To what extent was the district design
implemented at the school and classroom level? Finally, questions 34 through 44
addressed the fourth research question: How effective were the design and
implementation strategies at the site and classroom level?
Information from the Stages of Concern Questionnaire was scored using a
spreadsheet. Question 3, 12, 21, 23 and 30 represented Stage 0: Awareness.
Question 6, 14, 15, 26, and 35 represented Stage 1: Informational. Question 7, 13,
17, 28, and 33 represented Stage 2: Personal. Question 4, 8, 16, 25, and 34
represented Stage 3: Management. Question 1, 11, 19, 24, 32, and 36 represented
Stage 4: Consequence. Question 5, 10, 18, 27, and 29 represented Stage 5:
Collaboration. Question 2, 9, 20, 22, and 31 represented Stage 6: Refocusing. The
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raw scores, the sum of the responses to the five questions, were used to interpret the
participants’ Stages of Concerns. The higher the raw score is, the more concerns the
participants are toward this particular stage. The individual mean score reveals the
highest Stage of Concern of each participant. Different Stages of Concerns were
tallied to indicate the number of participants at each stage level and the majority
participants’ Stage of Concerns.
The Innovation Configuration was intended for the interviewees to self-report
the extent of implementation in their individual classrooms. Even though there were
three levels of responses: Just getting started, partially implemented, and fully
implemented, the responses in the innovation configuration were intentionally mixed
to ensure that the participants read them closely. The responses will be analyzed to
address the third research question and compare the responses from other
instruments. Findings were then determined.
Summary
This chapter discussed the research methods used in this study, including a
schema for the research design, the sample population, the instruments for data
collection, the procedures, analysis and the methodology. The instruments consisted
of a series of interviews, surveys, self-reports, and document review. The
procedures included receiving permission from the Superintendent to do study in this
district, receiving permission to conduct the study from the school principal,
distributing and collecting questionnaires, conducting interviews, and collecting
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documents. The findings and results of the research will be presented in the next
chapter.
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CHAPTER FOUR
DATA FINDINGS, ANALYSIS and INTERPRETATIONS
Introduction
The purpose of this study was to investigate and document the process and
experiences related to a district-wide instructional improvement effort which was in
place at one high school. This study also examined the actual implementation of
instructional improvement at both the school and classroom levels. Finally, the
adequacy of the District’s design for instructional improvement was evaluated in
terms of how well the program was designed and executed.
An analysis and discussion of the data collected and research findings for
each of the research questions are included in this chapter. The data consisted of
interviews with the site Principal, two Assistant Principals as the leadership team
members, four Department Chairs as the lead teachers, and six classroom teachers.
In addition to interviews, the data collected also consisted of 57 responses to School
Level Surveys from certificated personnel, and 53 responses to Teacher
Questionnaires from classroom teachers. Additional data was also collected from
school site documents and artifacts. The data were organized and presented
specifically as responses to the research questions which both guided and established
the parameters for this research study.
The four research questions addressed in this study were:
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1. What was the district design for improving teaching & learning?
2. What school level efforts facilitated the implementation of the district’s
design?
3. To what extent was the district’s design implemented at the school and
classroom levels?
4. How effective were the design and implementation strategies at the
school and classroom levels?
Research Question #1
The first research question was “What was the District design for improving
teaching & learning?”
Conceptual Framework A was utilized to guide the data analysis of the
District’s design for improving teaching and learning. Interviews based upon
Conceptual Framework A (CFA) provided the primary data for evaluation as part of
the Case Study Guide (Appendix A). The Principal Interview Guide, Leadership
Team Member Interview Guide, Lead Teacher Interview Guide, Teacher Interview
Guide, and School Level Survey were the instruments aligned to Conceptual
Framework A. The Document Review Guide and quantitative data collected from the
School Level Survey were utilized to analyze the data and provided triangulation for
data validity. The data gathered to address the first research question was organized
as follows: purpose of the District design, creation of the District design, key
elements and strategies of the District design, fundamental pedagogy of the design,
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District change strategy, communication of the District design, interpretation of the
District design, the District’s definition of quality instruction, Principal’s perception
of the District design, interviewees’ perceptions of the District design, concluding
with the respondents’ answers to the School Level Survey (questions 1 to 8) and the
reliability of the School Level Survey results.
Purpose of the District Design
The purpose of the Los Coyote Hills High School District’s design was to
improve student achievement. According to the former Superintendent of the Los
Coyote Hills High School District, the District’s design focused on improving
instruction by utilizing research proven instructional methods in order to increase the
teachers’ knowledge and their ability to reflect on their classroom pedagogy. (Perry
& McDermott, 2003) The adoption of the reform was initiated at the District level
and the principals were expected to build a professional learning community by
offering on-going and job-embedded professional development at the site level. The
District wanted to create a culture which recognized that teachers are learners as
well. This reform was based on the district’s belief that effective teaching enabled
students to be more productive and thus, make significant gains in achievement.
(Schmoker, 2004).
While the 13 interviewees did not provide consistent answers or offer
consistent assessment regarding the District design for improving teaching and
learning, the feeling that the District was committed to student achievement was
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nevertheless consistent in all of the responses. “The District and board members are
willing to do whatever it takes to make the professional learning community concept
[work] at each site and as a result improve student learning” was a sentiment that all
interviewees shared.
Creation of the District Design
Approximately three years ago, the former Superintendent of Los Coyotes
High School District wanted to have a district-wide plan for improving teaching in
the classroom and thus, student learning. The former Assistant Superintendent of
Educational Services was assigned to develop the district-wide plan. It just so
happened that she had conducted a survey on certified staff professional
development needs during spring 2002. The results of this survey had indicated that
the teachers were searching for ways to improve their instruction and instructional
strategies.
Thus the timing of the district’s reform efforts could not have been better.
Hence, she adopted the nine research-based instructional strategies found in
Classroom Instruction that Works (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollack, 2001) as the
district-wide plan. Consequently, this district-wide design to improve teaching and
learning came to be referred to as Classroom Instruction that Works, or CITW. It
should be noted, that interviews with the principal, leadership team members, lead
teachers, and classroom teachers confirmed that none of them were involved in the
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creation of the District design plan rather it was a district-led design that was
imported to the schools.
Key Elements and Strategies of the District Design
Based on their research, Marzano et al. (2001) have identified nine
instructional strategies that radically affect student achievement: (1) Identifying
Similarities and Differences: making comparisons, classifications, metaphors, and
analogies. (2) Summarizing and Note Taking: using summarizing techniques and
note taking strategies. (3) Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition: tracking
student effort and achievements and providing personalized recognition.
(4) Homework and Practice: establishing homework policies and engaging practice
of complex concepts and skills. (5) Non-Linguistic Representation: using graphic
organizers in explanation and instruction. (6) Cooperative Learning: using grouping
strategies and group learning activities to stimulate student learning from each other.
(7) Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback: establishing goals for students to
achieve and providing rubrics as reference and giving feedback.
(8) Generating and Testing Hypotheses: using scientific methods by soliciting
hypotheses, testing, and discovering conclusion. (9) Questions, Cues, and Advance
Organizers: using cue cards, asking questions, and using advance graphic organizer
in the lessons.
The District divided these nine research-based strategies for increasing
student achievement into a three-year program during which the teachers were
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expected to learn and practice three strategies each year and eventually implement all
nine strategies in their classrooms. On this schedule, each year 30 teachers from
each school site were expected to learn three different research-based instructional
strategies in District workshops. Subsequent to these workshops, these district
trained teachers were expected to return to their school site to train other teachers.
All teachers were expected to implement these instructional strategies in the
classrooms.
The objectives for the first year included: “Identifying Similarities &
Differences”, “Summarizing and Note-taking”, and “Non-Linguistic
Representation”. Second year objectives were “Reinforcing Effort and Providing
Recognition”, “Homework and Practice”, and “Setting Objectives and Providing
Feedback”. And finally, the third year objectives were “Cooperative Learning”,
“Generating and Testing Hypotheses”, and “Cues, Questions and Advanced
Organizers”. Once they had learned these units, the teachers were expected to apply
the strategies in their classroom teaching.
In addition to District workshop and school training, the District also provided
the Classroom Instruction that Works (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollack, 2001) book
for all administrators and lead teachers to read and learn about the above nine
research based strategies.
The administrators were expected to monitor and to ensure that these
strategies were being practiced in all the classrooms. The Principal was expected to
report the implementation results to the District.
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Fundamental Pedagogy of the Design
The former Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services shared that the
District design was premised on the work of Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock who
believe that teaching is a “science” rather than an “art”. In their conceptualizations,
the “art” of teaching connotes a more subjective approach as to what constitutes
effective or ineffective teaching methods. Conversely, they believe the “science” of
teaching is more research driven, based on methods that have proven to be effective.
Their research has shown that individual teachers can have a profound influence on
student learning even in schools that are relatively ineffective, and that effective
teachers use highly efficient teaching strategies to produce student achievement.
District Change Strategy
The former Superintendent indicated that in the past years, each school had
developed its own design and worked as a reform unit based upon the individual
school’s needs and the community’s input while the District acted to provide
resources and support. The former Superintendent of Los Coyotes School District
intended to change the culture and shifted the reform efforts from school to district.
A top-down approach was used to ensure the reform happened in a timely and
efficient manner. The former Superintendent and former Assistant Superintendent of
Educational Services intended to present, implement, and sustain the CITW
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strategies in all the schools to improve student learning. Previously, it had been a
challenge when the District culture was that of each school working independently.
The interviewees confirmed that the District reform plan took a top down
approach from the District office which the schools were expected to implement.
The District offered staff development to 30 teachers from each school each year to
learn three instructional strategies from Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock’s
“Classroom Instruction That Works”. In turn, those 30 teachers were then expected
to return to the school site to teach their colleagues. The school would arrange their
staff development day after the district workshop so that the knowledge could be
passed on. However, the district workshop was two days while the school only
offered one day of staff development along with departmental meetings and other
miscellaneous agendas.
During the past three years, 30 teachers from Beach High School have
attended District sponsored workshops each year where they received training in the
use of the research-proven instructional strategies, found in CITW. In turn, these
teachers became trainers when they returned to their individual campuses and
presented these strategies to other staff members. The first year, they trained the
other staff during a staff development day. In the second year, they adopted two or
three people with whom they had had the most contact to share what they had
learned. In the third year of implementation, Beach High School shared the
strategies within departments.
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The former Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services indicated that the
CITW book explained the nine instructional strategies clearly and was easy to
comprehend. She gave all administrators and lead teachers the CITW book and
expected them to grasp the critical concepts in the book.
In addition to offering administrators and lead teachers the CITW books, the
District expected the administrators to visit classrooms weekly to monitor that the
CITW strategies were being implemented in the classrooms. The administrators
were required to report the classroom implementation results to the district monthly.
Communication of the District Design
The communication of the District design was through many layers and
processed in several different meetings. As a result, the communication appeared to
be unclear and some leadership team members were handed the Classroom
Instruction that Works books to read independently.
The Principal expressed that the Los Coyote Hills High School District had
many layers of leadership team meetings available for the purposes of
communication and information dissemination. The weekly administrative council
meetings were for the principals, the superintendent and the assistant superintendents
of human resources, education services, and the business department. The monthly
management team meetings were for the principals and assistant principals and the
superintendent and the three assistant superintendents. The weekly administrative
team meetings were held at each school site for the principal and the assistant
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principals. The bi-weekly leadership team meetings were also held at the school site
for the department chairs and the principal and assistant principals. The monthly
assistant principals’ meetings were held at the district for the assistant principals to
meet with one assistant superintendent. Each department also held monthly
department meetings within the department at each school site.
The Principal of Beach High School first heard about the District plan during
her job interview. After she joined the District, she learned about the District plan
through administrative council meetings, workshops, and the summer retreat.
The leadership team members were informed of the District plan through the
management team meetings. They were told that there would be a series of
workshops over a three-year period. They were handed the Classroom Instruction
That Works books and presented an overview of the District design during their
summer retreat in 2002. The leadership team members were encouraged by the
former Assistant Superintendent of Education to attend all the workshops so that
they could familiarize themselves with the District design and show support for the
District.
Interpretation of the District Design
Despite this wide network of scheduled meetings, the researcher learned
through interviews that the principal’s and one leadership team member’s
understanding of the District design was the Single School Plan, which was very
broad and covered many areas of goals and objectives. Even though they knew
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about the CITW strategies, their understanding was that the CITW strategies were
only a part of the overall District design.
Similarly, the four lead teachers were puzzled as well about the District
design for improving teaching and learning. Their understanding of the District
design was broad-based as well covering everything from standard-based instruction,
technology implementation, data analysis, teacher effectiveness, parent
communication, professional learning community, as well as the CITW strategies.
The Science Department Chair stated that all teachers within the District
understood the District’s priority as being focused on improving teacher teaching and
student learning. The six high schools within the District all used a common
language and common strategies. The same departments within the different schools
in the District worked together as a group to create a test bank of questions that
would be utilized in District wide testing. Their department got together once a
month as a District on their own time on Saturday to develop standards-based
midterms and finals. They shared materials and aligned curriculum to the targeted
standards. The students could attend any of the six high schools in the District and
still receive instruction on the same materials and expect to take the same tests.
The teachers expressed to the researcher that it felt great to have been able to
share their experiences and strategies with someone who teaches the same subject,
and to be able to collaborate with each other on their pedagogical strategies. The
teachers were no longer working in isolation, and everyone could aim for the same
goals and standards as established by the reform framework. With the pre-
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established standards, and the structured framework, students were no longer reliant
on luck to get a good teacher and have a positive learning experience. In effect, the
students were learning the same materials but from different teachers in the different
schools of the District; in short, there was a commonality. Everyone used the same
language, had the same goal and focus for improvement. Each teacher had different
strengths and a unit they focused on. When they shared their interests and strengths
in certain themes, all the students were exposed to a consistent quality of learning.
The peer pressure generated by the collaborative efforts helped the staff to stay in
line with the established standards.
Even though the teachers had known or heard about CITW strategies, many
teachers were not aware that CITW was the district design. They all spoke very
highly of the District and the District’s intension of improving teaching and learning.
One teacher mentioned that the District’s goal and objective was to appear regularly
at different places and in a variety of capacities, through different forms and formats
to all staff members so that they had a constant reminder of their mission. However,
their understanding of the mission was to provide academic excellence, though not
necessarily through the CITW strategies.
District’s Definition of Quality Instruction
Besides learning the nine instructional strategies, the administrators at the
school site were instructed to visit the classrooms every week to check if the teachers
were implementing quality instruction by observing to see that: (1) A specific
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content standard was clearly displayed in the classroom and the students were able to
articulate the standard for the day. (2) Students were actively engaged in the
learning process and the teacher was actively checking for the students’
comprehension. (3) The learning was aimed at a specific performance target and that
the students were aware of the expected outcome. (4) A specific “Classroom
Instruction That Works” strategy was used to engage students. (5) Bell to bell
instruction was observed.
Principal’s Perception of the District Design
According to the Principal of Beach High School, the teachers were required
to have bell-to-bell instruction while the students were expected to be on task for the
entire instructional period. Every teacher and classified employee was evaluated to
reinforce standards-based instruction and professional growth. Both parents and
students were educated on effective test-taking strategies. The District supported
staff development to ensure highly qualified professionals. Each school was
required to design and implement a Single School Plan for Student Achievement at
each school to determine student progress and set goals for student growth.
The Principal of Beach High School stated, “It is difficult for one person to
provide all the resources and support for everyone. Using teachers to train other
teachers [is] the best way. The consultants can be great; however, teachers take
better from practitioners than others because they share with real experience.” Given
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this belief, the teachers who learned from the District workshops were expected in
turn to teach other teachers of the instructional strategies.
The goal for teachers was to reflect and analyze on their own pedagogical
practices and share those reflections with the other teachers. It gave the teachers an
opportunity to learn better ways of instruction in order to yield better results.
Interviewees’ Perceptions of the District Design
During 13 interviews conducted by the researcher, only one leadership team
member and one classroom teacher were able to specify the CITW strategies as the
principal element in the District design for improving teaching and learning. Other
interviews yielded responses that were scattered and went in many directions, often
pursuing their own interpretations of the District design without really focusing on
anything in particular. Some teachers paused and replied, “I don’t know”, when
asked about their perception of the District design.
There seemed to be some consensus among the interviewees that the District
wanted every teacher to think outside the box to help students learn and that test
scores were the deciding factor in assessing the success of the District design and
teacher teaching. At Beach High School, senior teachers were exempt from
attending District workshops. The mentality was that only the new and junior
teachers needed to attend workshops to learn teaching skills because they did not
have many years of experiences. One junior teacher was chosen by the department
chair to attend the District workshop. It turned out that he actually knew the District
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design was CITW and he was familiar with the three strategies he learned at the
District because he needed to teach other teachers.
Even though the teachers were not sure as to the specifics of the District
design, they were in agreement that the District and the School expected every
teacher to utilize the CITW strategies in their teaching on a regular basis and the
consequent expectation was that every student would make improvements in the
standardized testing in all subject areas.
School Level Survey Questions 1 to 8
Given the sometimes confused, and often uneven perceptions of teachers
regarding the district attempts at reform, teacher attitudes can be examined more
specifically by looking at results from the School Level Survey. The School Level
Survey was voluntarily completed by certified personnel, including the principal,
leadership team members, lead teachers, and classroom teachers. Fifty-seven
surveys were returned to the researcher and compiled into the results shown in Table
2, which provides a cumulative percentage for the eight questions aligned to research
question one: “What was the District design for improving teaching and learning?”
The first eight questions of the School Level Survey addressed the participants’
awareness of the District’s design. The respondents had 5 different options to
choose from: (0) Don’t Know, (1) Strongly Disagree, (2) Somewhat Disagree, (3)
Somewhat Agree, (4) Strongly Agree. The responses of all 57 participants are
summarized in Table 2.
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Table 2: School Level Survey Results by Percentage for Research Question 1
RQ1: What was the District Design for
Improving Teaching and Learning? (N=57)
Don’t Know
Strongly
Disagree
Somewhat
Disagree
Somewhat
Agree
Strongly Agree
1. I am aware of the Classroom Instruction
that Works strategies for improving
teaching and learning.
5% 0% 4% 33% 58%
2. The district supports standard-based
instruction.
0% 0% 0% 7% 93%
3. The Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies are centered on improving
student learning.
7% 0% 0% 23% 70%
4. The Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies call for the use of multiple
measures to assess student performance.
16% 0% 0% 30% 54%
5. The Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies include ways to identify
acceptable levels of student performance.
21% 2% 4% 30% 44%
6. The district believes that all students can
meet high standards.
2% 0% 2% 32% 65%
7. The Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies foster a collaborative approach
to improving student performance.
14% 2% 0% 30% 54%
8. Leaders in the district want everyone to
use the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies.
11% 0% 2% 35% 53%
The survey results suggested that 100% of the respondents agreed that the
Los Coyotes High School District supported standard-based instruction. More than
90% of respondents agreed that the District believed that all students could meet the
higher standards, that they were aware of the CITW strategies for improving
teaching and learning, and that the CITW strategies were centered on improving
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student learning. Approximately 84% of respondents agreed that the CITW strategies
called for the use of multiple measures to assess student performance, that the CITW
strategies fostered a collaborative approach to improve student performance, and that
the leaders in the District want everyone to use the CITW strategies. It was noted
that in item #5, only 74% of respondents agreed that the CITW strategies included
ways to identify acceptable levels of student performance, with 21% of respondents
stating that they did not know whether they agreed or disagreed with it.
Overall, the results indicated that the majority of participants were aware of
and felt positive about the district’s CITW reform effort. The respondents strongly
agreed that the district supported standard-based instruction and believed that all
students could meet the higher standards and that the District expected them to
implement CITW strategies in the classrooms.
Reliability of School Level Survey Results
To ensure reliability of survey responses, statistical analysis of the data was
done. Table 3 shows the results of this analysis with the total item correlation.
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Table 3: School Level Survey Reliability Coefficient (Alpha) for Research Question
1: What was the District design for improving teaching and learning?
Questions
Scale Mean
if item
deleted
Scale Variance
if item deleted
Corrected
Item-Total
Correlation
Cronbach’s Alpha
if item deleted
V1 23.09 29.117 .772 .787
V2 22.54 37.824 .103 .847
V3 22.98 29.482 .666 .798
V4 23.40 26.924 .634 .802
V5 23.74 24.555 .731 .786
V6 22.89 36.596 .132 .850
V7 23.39 25.634 .765 .779
V8 23.28 29.598 .539 .814
Due to the low total correlation of question number 2 and question number 6,
the researcher decided to remove the above two questions for better reliability. After
the two questions were removed, the Cronbach’s Alpha jumped from .831 to .874.
The alpha score indicated how consistent the above questions were as a group. The
score .874 demonstrated that the answers to the research question one, “What’s the
District design for improving teaching and learning from the School Level Surveys”
were consistent and reliable.
Research Question #2:
The second research question was “What school level efforts facilitated the
implementation of the district design?”
Conceptual Framework B (CFB) was utilized to guide the data analysis of the
school’s efforts in facilitating the implementation of the District design for
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improving teaching and learning. The Principal Interview Guide, Leadership Team
Member Interview Guide, Lead Teacher Interview Guide, Teacher Interview Guide,
and School Level Survey were the instruments used to align to Conceptual
Framework B. Interviews based upon the Conceptual Framework B provided the
primary data for evaluation as part of the Case Study Guide. Document Review
Guide and quantitative data were tabulated to analyze data and provided
triangulation of data validity.
The data gathered to address the second research question was organized as
follows: site level plan that pertains to CITW strategies, additional site level plan,
District’s leadership vs. school’s leadership, District workshop vs. school workshop,
the principal’s role, the leadership team members’ role, department chair’s role, staff
involvement, communication, site resources, monitoring and supporting activities,
School Level Survey questions 9 to 21, and reliability of School Level Survey
results.
Site Level Plan That Pertains to CITW Strategies
Beach High School basically followed the District’s command by sending 30
teachers to attend the District’s workshop. Each department was responsible for
sending 5 teachers to come up with the total of 30 teachers. There was a general
sentiment that the veteran teachers were exempt from the District workshop and that
the new and junior teachers were to be selected instead.
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In addition, Beach High School decided that the delivery method of teacher-
training-teacher was going to be executed through formal workshops offered at the
site during staff development day of the first year that the reform efforts were
initiated. However, the staff development day was not designated for CITW
workshops only. The majority of the staff development day was used for meetings.
For the second and third years, there was no formal structure or arrangement in place
for teacher training. It was up to the trained teachers to informally train two to three
teachers within the same department.
Even though the Principal and Leadership Team Members at Beach High
School did not make additional efforts in implementing the District’s design, they
did follow the District’s demand that classrooms be visited, the quality instruction
list be checked off, and that this data on the implementation of the CITW strategies
be reported to the District.
Additional Site Level Plan
Due to the misconception of the District’s design, the Principal of Beach High
School made many other efforts in improving student achievement. She affirmed
that the four goals specified in the Beach High School single school plan were the
impetus behind the strategies for site implementation. The first three goals dealt
with improving student test scores while goal 4 was to motivate all students to give
their best efforts in taking the district and state assessment exams.
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The Principal declared that based upon the data analysis, the school
discovered that the students did not take the state testing process seriously. Many
gifted and talented students who were able to pass the Advanced Placement tests did
not pass the state tests. This did not make sense to the administrators since the
Advanced Placements tests were far more difficult than the California Assessment
Test. The school administrators expected the students to perform at their best,
especially on all the state examinations, such as the California Standards Test (CST),
California English Language Development Test (CELDT), the California High
School Exit Exam (CAHSEE), and California Assessment Test (CAT); however, the
students responded quite differently than expected. The Principal and leadership
team members believed that the lack of motivation on the students’ part played a
huge part in their poor results.
The Principal acknowledged that the students did not recognize the
importance of those tests, or think they were important. She surmised that from the
students’ perception, the test results were only a way for the school to “look good”.
Additionally, since these exams did not affect their individual report cards, GPA,
personal goals, or college admissions in any direct way, they did not take the
assessment exams seriously. As a consequence, many of the Gifted and Talented
Students (GATE) had not passed the proficiency levels on the state examinations
when they apparently had no problem passing the advance placement and
international baccalaureate tests.
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In order to boost the students’ motivation towards doing their best on the
state tests, the Principal made a marketing plan and spoke to all the students as well
as to the parent group. She went to every English class to talk to the students and let
them know the ways in which the school was judged by their test scores, and the
important consequences of those scores. According to the extant scores, Beach High
School was rated as an underperforming school. The principal explained to the
students, how a 4.0 GPA from an underperforming school did not give them the
same opportunities or advantages for getting into competitive colleges as a
comparative GPA from a high performing school. In short, the principal explained
to the students, that unless the students were able to do well on the state
examinations, the school’s reputation would be their burden to bear as well.
For the underachievers, the Principal used a different approach. She shared
with the researcher that she told them that the state examinations were not about
knowing all the answers, but to know a little more than they did last year. She
believed that all the students knew more this year than last year. If they gave their
best shot, they would show improvement and the school would show improvement.
The Principal also asked the parent group to check with their own children
and explained the benefits for their children. “No matter what kind of school we are,
we are judged by the test score. Compared to similar schools, we were rated 4 in our
comparison band. I told my students that I believe they could do better than the
similar schools.” Sure enough, with the Principal’s inspirational speech, Beach High
School’s rating jumped to 7 as compared to similar schools.
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The administrators also worked with the school site council to communicate
the goal to the parents. They addressed the specific needs to the parents and received
feedback from them. One leadership team member indicated that the leadership
council at the school site level communicated the importance of the examinations to
the students and other parents with the emphasis that the students were also
implicated in their school’s reputation and it was every student’s responsibility to try
their very best on the state examinations so that the school would not be considered
as an underachieving school.
It appears that Beach High School utilized many strategies to improve
students’ test scores, such as adding a department chair to ELD (English Language
Department) and a pilot ELD 4 class to enhance the English learners’ transition from
ELD 3 to a regular English class, offering lunch time and after school tutoring and
instructional aides for additional support, and implementing the CITW strategies was
one of the many strategies that were used.
District’s Leadership vs. the School’s Leadership
The Principal of Beach High School came to this school because of the
District’s plan for improving teaching and learning, since she wanted to grow
professionally. “The plan was already in place before I got here.” she told the
researcher. “It was attractive for me so that I can grow. It is difficult for one person
to provide all the resources and support for everyone.” The District believed that
using teachers to train other teachers was the best way. The Principal stated that “the
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consultants could be great; however, teachers took instruction better from
practitioners than others because they shared from an experiential perspective that
was real for the teachers.” The District design expected that the teachers who
learned from the District workshops would in turn teach other teachers of the
instructional strategies.
However, the approach was much more flexible at Beach High School. Even
though the reform efforts at the District level took a top down approach, the Principal
at Beach High School did not implement the reform with the same leadership style at
the school site. She did not demand that any leadership team members, lead
teachers, or teachers attend the workshop. She left it up to the department chairs to
decide which teachers were to be sent to the District’s workshops. As it turned out,
the department chairs would send the newer teachers, as those with seniority often
did not want to go.
District Workshops vs. School workshops
Those who attended the District workshop stated that the District invited
reputable, experienced teachers to host the workshops with practical applications. It
was content specific in such a way that all the attending teachers walked away from
the workshops with good knowledge and enthusiasm. However, that was not the
case at Beach High School. The difference between the quality of the district
workshops and site-based training was best expressed by one teacher who
commented:
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I benefited more by attending the district training. The district training was
two whole days while the school site training was only two hours. There was
not enough time [spent] to get into depth. Also, the presenters had different
knowledge and experiences. I received the district training in the first year
and had to teach other teachers at our school. Everything I taught other
teachers, I actually used [them] in my classroom all the time. Lessons that I
learned from other teachers, I could not remember what they were and there
was no follow up.
The District asked Beach High School to send 30 teachers to attend the
District workshop. The Principal of Beach High School asked each of the
department chairs to send 5 teachers to attend the District workshop to fulfill the
District’s attendance requirement. The teachers perceived the District workshops
were more of an invitation for junior teachers to learn teaching strategies; hence, the
senior teachers did not feel obliged to attend the workshops. This mentality created
difficulties when it was time for those junior teachers to share and give workshops to
the senior teachers at the school site. As a consequence, the school workshops went
from formal workshop during the first year to informal during the second and third
years.
The Principal’s Role
As a new Principal to the District, after the District had adopted the reform
strategies, the Principal of Beach High School saw her role as that of a cheerleader
rather than that of a dictator. She was aware the District’s intention of implementing
CITW strategies in all schools and classrooms; she did not feel that unduly imposing
on the teachers would serve the expected results. She informed the leadership team
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members and lead teachers of the District workshops at the leadership team meeting
and delegate the responsibilities to the lead teachers/department chairs.
The Leadership Team Members’ Role
Along with the Principal, the leadership team members were responsible for
monitoring the implementation of CITW in the classroom as they visited classrooms
weekly. Unfortunately, these leadership team members received the same or less
training than the classroom teachers as they were not required to attend the District
workshops. They were given the CITW books to learn on their own. Whether they
thoroughly read the book and made themselves familiar with all nine CITW
strategies and able to identify the specific strategy being used as they visited the
classrooms was questionable. Some teachers raised concerns about the validity of
the leadership team members’ weekly evaluation check list as they were only
observed for 2 to 3 minutes.
The Department Chairs’ Role
The culture and leadership strength varied in each department. The
department chairpersons worked as the middle management. They channeled the
voices of the department for the administration and were responsible for
disseminating the District design to their department teachers and attempted to create
a professional learning community where the teachers would be able to develop
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curriculum, create common assessment criteria, share materials, and stay focused on
student learning.
The department chairpersons teach as many periods as other teachers. In
addition, they were responsible for offering support, knowledge, finding materials,
ordering textbooks, and leading the teachers in the right direction. They did not
evaluate teachers; instead, they inspired teachers and provided success stories to
keep them motivated. As a result, some department chairs felt overwhelmed by the
amount of work they were expected to do on top of their teaching responsibilities.
Thus, the general concern was time availability.
One department chair stated:
Time is not working well for us. The teachers felt overwhelmed. We just
finished WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) accreditation
process and we are now applying for California Distinguished School. There
is no time to sit and think about how to make graphic organizer without
specific time to think through and be able to apply. People wear out their
enthusiasm and fall back to where they used to be.
Despite assessments which were not the most optimistic, others felt better
about the reform efforts. One department chair, for example, felt that the
professional learning community aspects of the reform efforts were in fact working
very well. They would get together as a district within the same subject to meet
outside the school on their own time one Saturday a month to develop standards
based mid-term and finals. She felt it was great to align the standards, by teaching
the same materials and taking the same tests at any high school within the district.
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The majority of the departments met at lunch time once a week to share ideas and
discuss problems.
Basically, the department chairs were responsible for selecting teachers to
attend the District workshops and ensure that those teachers would in turn provide
quality workshops or instructions to other teachers within the department. At the
same time, the department chairs were not responsible for monitoring the
implementations of the District design. They could only encourage the teachers to
utilize CITW strategies; they would not know how the CITW strategies were
implemented in the classrooms or if they were implemented at all. The department
chairs shared that it was challenging for them to organize, provide materials, and
support the workshops without release time.
Staff Involvement
None of the Beach High School staff members were involved in the creation
of the District plan; however, everyone was expected to implement the plan.
Through various communication methods and weekly administrators’ visits, the
teachers were made aware that the District and School supported and expected the
implementation of CITW in all content areas. However, due to very busy schedules
and voluntary participation, not all the teachers were involved in the workshops of
the CITW strategies. Some teachers did not receive any training at all while others
received training that was qualitatively inconsistent. Depending upon the
department, some teachers received training at the staff development day at the
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school site and others received training at the department meetings, during individual
instruction, or no training at all.
Communication
The researcher discovered that there had been no internal structure developed
to facilitate communication of the District’s design. The Principal learned of the
District’s intention of implementing the CITW strategies formally from the
administrative council meeting. The other layers of communication from the
Principal to the leadership team members and lead teachers and from the lead
teachers to classroom teachers were vertical and informal. The leadership team
members learned about the CITW strategies at the monthly Assistant Principals’
meetings from the former Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services. The
department chairs realized their responsibilities of disseminating the CITW strategies
to their teachers in the bi-weekly leadership team meetings. The classroom teachers
were informed about the District training and CITW strategies from their department
chairs at the department meetings; however, the messages were necessarily filtered
through several layers of communication by the time it reached the teachers.
A teacher affirmed that the District’s goal and objective was to appear
regularly at different places and in a variety of capacities, through different forms
and formats to all staff members, thus providing a constant reminder of their mission.
However, his understanding of the District design was that it was aimed at achieving
academic excellence by building a professional learning community.
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Even though all staff members understood academic excellence was the
District’s goal, there was a lapse between connecting academic excellence with the
implementation of the CITW strategies.
Site Resources
Beach High School did not allocate physical or fiscal resources in
implementing the CITW strategies. All the fiscal resources in supporting the CITW
strategies came from the District. However, due to the Principal’s misunderstanding
of the District design, Beach High School arranged site funding to support the single
school plan. As the Assistant Principal of Instruction and Operation stated, “We
work closely with the department chairs to support the plan. If we are going to
support Latino students and English learners, we would use money available to
provide additional classes to offer the support they need to grow academically.”
This was confirmed by another randomly selected teacher who stated, “The district
and board members always support student learning. They would put the money
where their mouth was. If we showed the district what was the good material, they
would spend money immediately in buying those materials.”
Beach High School qualified for many federal programs, such as Title I for
helping educationally disadvantaged students achieve grade level proficiency, Title
II for offering teacher training and improving teacher quality, Title III for helping
English learners to reach English proficiency, Title V for supporting educational
improvement, library, media, and at-risk students. These categorical funds were
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distributed based upon its specifically designed purpose and towards the goal of
improving student performance.
Even though the money was utilized to improve student learning, the
researcher discovered that it was not specifically assigned to assist in the CITW
implementation. All the fiscal resources in supporting the CITW strategies came
from the District. The District paid for substitutes for the teachers to attend District
workshops. The School did not provide release time to lead teachers nor classroom
teachers for providing or receiving the CITW training.
The District provided resources needed to implement the CITW strategies.
The individual schools did not need to allocate from their own budgets to implement
the District plan. The district spent a considerable amount of money to pay for
workshops, substitutes, and instructional materials. However, what the district could
not provide was scheduled collaborative time among teachers. Most teachers used
their lunch breaks to have department meetings in which to share and exchange
ideas.
Monitoring and Supporting Activities
The administrators at Beach High School basically followed the District’s
command and divided the classrooms evenly for weekly observation. The District’s
plan was to have each administrator visited one-fourth of the classrooms every week.
This allowed every administrator to have contact with every classroom on a monthly
basis. Each teacher was seen by one administrator once a week and by every
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administrator once a month. One leadership team member expressed that the
administrators also engaged the teachers in conversation about not only on posting
the pre-established and expected standards, but also articulating those standards
clearly to the students. They observed to see if the teachers were implementing the
strategies as outlined in “Classroom Instruction That Works”. All the teachers were
expected to provide bell to bell instruction with no down time.
Even though the teachers agreed that the Principal and Leadership Team
Members did indeed visit classrooms every week, their assessment of the value of
these visits was markedly different from the administrators. While the
administrators felt that during these visits they looked for specific strategies being
implemented in the classroom, the teachers felt that the time spent during these visits
was very short and not adequate to make any meaningful observations, and
consequently these visits did not provide any meaningful feedback from the
administrators’ post-visit.
School Level Survey Questions 9 to 21
Question number 9 through 21 of the School Level Survey addressed the
school site efforts in facilitating the district’s design for improving teaching and
learning. The respondents had 5 different choices to select from: (0) Don’t Know,
(1) Strongly Disagree, (2) Somewhat Disagree, (3) Somewhat Agree, (4) Strongly
Agree. The responses of all 57 participants are listed in Table 4.
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Table 4: School Level Survey Results by Percentage for Research Question 2
RQ2: What school level efforts facilitated the implementation
of the district design?
(N=57)
Don’t
Know
Strongly
Disagree
Somewhat
Disagree
Somewhat
Agree
Strongly
Agree
9. The school is supportive in implementing the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
4% 0% 12% 37% 47%
10. The school offers frequent professional development to
raise knowledge of the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies.
5% 0% 21% 47% 26%
11. Systematic efforts to implement the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies were communicated.
7% 7% 14% 40% 32%
12. Teacher training and assistance were provided and
conducted in a timely manner.
4% 5% 25% 39% 28%
13. I have attended professional development training on the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies in the past 6
months.
4% 39% 2% 11% 46%
14. I know a great deal about the Classroom Instruction that
Works strategies.
2% 16% 19% 46% 18%
15. Teachers have opportunities to provide input on how to
implement the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies at my school.
11% 11% 19% 39% 21%
16. I would like to modify the way my school uses the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies based on the
experiences of my students.
28% 5% 21% 33% 12%
17. Teachers are involved in the change process and
development/selection of suitable materials to support
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
21% 9% 18% 42% 11%
18. I am developing mastery of the Classroom Instruction
that Works strategies.
9% 18% 21% 47% 5%
19. School leadership support was a key element in assisting
this site in the implementation of the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
9% 12% 11% 46% 23%
20. Financial, staff, and material resources are allocated to
facilitate the implementation of the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
19% 12% 21% 33% 14%
21. My school’s vision, mission and goals are aligned with
the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
19% 4% 16% 33% 28%
The strongest score was indicated in the responses to question 9, which
indicated that 84% of the respondents agreed that Beach High School was supportive
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in implementing the “Classroom Instruction That Works” strategies. About 70% of
the respondents agreed that Beach High School offered frequent professional
development to raise knowledge of CITW strategies, that systematic efforts to
implement the CITW strategies were communicated, and that school leadership
support was a key element in assisting this site in the implementation of the CITW
strategies.
About 63% or less than two-thirds of the respondents, agreed that teacher
training and assistance were provided and conducted in a timely manner, that they
knew a great deal about the CITW strategies, that teachers had opportunities to
provide input on how to implement the CITW strategies at Beach High School, and
that the school’s vision, mission, and goals were aligned with the CITW strategies.
Only a little over half of the respondents agreed that they had attended professional
development training on CITW strategies in the past six months, that teachers were
involved in the change process and development/selection of suitable materials to
support CITW strategies, and that they were developing mastery of the CITW
strategies.
More importantly, less than half of the respondents agreed that they would
like to modify the way Beach High School used the CITW strategies based upon the
experiences of their students, and that fiscal, staff, and material resources were being
allocated to facilitate the implementation of the CITW strategies. Many respondents
indicated that they did not know if they would like to modify the way Beach High
School used the CITW strategies based upon the experiences of their students.
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About 40% of respondents indicated that they had not attended professional
development on CITW strategies in the past six months and that they were not
developing mastery of the CITW strategies.
Moreover, more than one-third of respondents indicated that they did not
know a great deal about the CITW strategies, and more than half of respondents
either did not know or disagree that fiscal, staff, and material resources were being
allocated to facilitate the implementation of CITW strategies.
Reliability of School Level Survey Results
To ensure reliability of survey responses, statistical analysis of the data was
done. Table 5 showed the results of this analysis with the total item correlation.
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Table 5: School Level Survey Reliability Coefficient (Alpha) for Research Question
2: What school level efforts facilitated the implementation of the District design?
Questions
Scale Mean
if item
deleted
Scale Variance
if item deleted
Corrected
Item-Total
Correlation
Cronbach’s Alpha
if item deleted
V9 29.72 84.170 .644 .851
V10 30.07 83.031 .677 .849
V11 30.14 78.766 .768 .842
V12 30.14 86.480 .449 .860
V13 30.40 83.424 .387 .866
V14 30.35 83.018 .649 .850
V15 30.47 80.147 .646 .849
V16 31.00 88.857 .191 .878
V17 30.84 77.957 .690 .845
V18 30.74 85.840 .448 .860
V19 30.35 82.660 .535 .855
V20 30.86 82.373 .485 .859
V21 30.49 79.004 .584 .852
The correlation of question number 16 stands out as not significantly
correlated to the other questions. It appeared to the researcher that question number
16, “I would like to modify the way my school uses the classroom Instruction That
Works strategies based on the experiences of my students”, was more related to the
dynamics of the teacher’s individual involvement with the reform efforts, rather than
the efforts of the school. The highly individualized response evidenced in question
16 would suggest that if the respondents liked the pedagogical strategies in
Classroom Instructions that Works, they were reluctant to modify it; and the
response to the question would suggest, that the converse would also hold true.
Therefore, the researcher decided to remove question number 16 for better reliability.
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After question 16 was removed, the Cronbach’s Alpha went up from .865 to .878.
This demonstrated that the answers to research question two, “What school level
efforts facilitate the implementation of the district design” were consistent and
reliable.
Research Question #3:
The third research question was “To what extent was the district design being
implemented at the school and classroom levels?”
Conceptual Framework C (CFC) was utilized to guide the data analysis of the
extent of implementation of the District’s design for improving teaching and
learning. The Teacher Interview Guide, Innovation Configuration, School Level
Survey, and Teacher Questionnaire were the instruments used to align to Conceptual
Framework C. Interviews based upon Conceptual Framework C provided the
primary data for evaluation as part of the Case Study Guide. Document Review
Guide and quantitative data were tabulated to analyze data and provided
triangulation of data validity.
The data gathered to address the third research question was organized as
follows: classroom implementation of CITW, obstacles to implementation, monitor
for extent of implementation, data reporting, innovation configuration, school level
survey question 22 to 33, reliability of school level survey results, teacher
questionnaire (Stage of Concern), the respondents’ raw score and individual’s mean
score.
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Classroom Implementation of CITW
Based upon interview responses, there was a fair amount of implementation
of the CITW strategies in the classrooms. A leadership team member stated that the
classroom instruction looked very different now compared to that of a few years ago.
The teachers were applying various strategies to engage students and enhance their
learning. It was no longer the traditional practice of standing in front of the class and
lecturing to students.
When the researcher asked the classroom teachers what did the
implementation effort look like in the classroom itself, everyone talked about the
strategies they used and those they privileged in their classrooms. For example, a
science teacher mentioned that she used “Non-Linguistic Representation” and “Note
Taking” strategies often in her science class and constantly used the principles from
“Cooperative Learning” at the science laboratory.
The social science teacher used a variety of strategies in the classroom as
well. She stated, “I don’t believe in straight lectures anyway. I have audio, visual
and language learners. I apply many different techniques in my teaching. I use
video clips, graphing, non-linguistic materials, writing, poetry, Power Point
presentation, and making the students work in pairs on projects. I also attended
national conferences for staff development. I feel I constantly use many strategies in
my classroom with or without [a] District plan.”
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The foreign language teacher related that she oftentimes paired strong
students with weak students. She liked the “Cooperative Learning” strategy, and
pairing students in groups of four worked very well in her class. Within these
groups, she found that her students were comfortable with participating and readily
contributed within their groups. She found that the “Reinforcing Effort and
Providing Recognition” strategy was very successful in her class. She took advice
from another teacher and made use of a “homework calendar” and gave free
homework coupons for home work completion. This method truly motivated her
students to do their homework. She stated, “The students love to see [that] their
homework calendar got stamped everyday. They wanted to earn free homework
stickers. It is a very good motivator. It is working so well. I even gave [tickets] for
[a] raffle ticket drawing at the end of school year for those who [volunteered]
answers in class.”
The English teacher responded that he used “Setting Objectives and
Providing Feedback” strategies in the classroom. He had specific personal goals for
students and had students sign an individual contract. He made the students
understand the California standards as their rubrics for learning. He also emphasized
the importance of communication with the parents. His students were required to
have their parents sign their assessments and portfolios.
However, some teachers pointed out the inconsistencies inherent to the
implementation of the instructional strategies. The math teacher stated, “Right after
the training, everyone tries to implement the strategies immediately. Everyone was
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using the “Non-Linguistic Representation and graphic design” two years ago, but it
went down. The usage goes up and down, not consistent.”
The music teacher expressed that the teaching strategies were not applicable
in her department; however, they were very much aware of the district’s desire of
having higher test scores. Thus, they even implemented reading and writing in the
music programs and encouraged the students to do their best.
Obstacles to Implementation
Overall, finding time remained the most challenging issue among the
teachers. They all seemed to agree that it was extremely difficult to find time to
attend the work shops, make plans to implement the strategies, and to brainstorm
with other teachers. The math teacher made the remark,
“It’s very difficult to find available time for everyone. Teachers don’t like to
give up their own time to meet. Most of us are not available before and after
school. We coach after school and several teachers teach zero period in the
morning. The only time everyone is available is lunch, but most people don’t
want to give up their lunch to have a meeting. In reality, the time
commitment is not there. In addition, the teachers don’t like to be pulled out
of the classroom. It is more work to be out than just coming in. The detail
list of lesson is more complicated. Most substitute teachers cannot come in
to do a limited lesson. It is easier to do it yourself than writing everything
down for the substitute. We hate to see students waste a day.”
A leadership team member expressed that another obstacle to implementing
the CITW strategies was teacher buy-in. She acknowledged that the administrators
had much higher turn over than the classroom teachers at Los Coyotes High School
District. Beach High School was the oldest school at the District with many veteran
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teachers who had taught at Beach High School for more than ten or twenty years.
Thus the teachers were used to seeing the administrators come and go and so it was
difficult for them to fully commit to the ideas and strategies the new administrators
brought in with them. Some teachers had the attitude that “this too shall pass” and
thus could not commit seriously enough to the proposed changes.
Many teachers agreed that it would be impossible for all of the teachers to
implement the changes simultaneously. A teacher declared that there would always
be some that would not make the requested changes until they could actually see the
benefits. She explained that when teachers did not buy-in to the ideas related to the
proposed change, they would lose interest in attending the workshops, or fully
implementing the strategies in their classrooms; hence, the extent to which the CITW
strategies were utilized was directly affected.
Monitor for Extent of Implementation
There was a discrepancy with monitoring the extent of the implementations in
the classrooms. The principal and leadership team members felt that they had visited
every classroom for five minutes to observe both the teaching and student learning
that was going on, and filled out the forms accordingly to tally the percentage of
compliance in the areas of posting content standard, actively engaging in learning
and assessing, leading to performance target, applying Classroom Instruction that
Works strategies, and observing bell to bell instruction.
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Teachers on the other hand felt that the observation was very minimal, lasting
more like 30 seconds, and they did not see how the areas for observation could be
adequately observed and identified in so short a time. The administrators indicated
that they had communication with the teachers and held conferences to discuss their
visits and the subsequent reflection process. The teachers seemed to feel that there
was no follow up or useful consequences as a result of these classroom visits.
One teacher expressed that the administrators’ hearts were at the right place
and that the administrators were very supportive of teachers using the strategies;
however, the teachers felt that the administrators were so busy dealing with daily
problems and issues, that the time to really follow up and examine what was actually
happening in the classrooms was very limited.
One leadership team member admitted that the drop-in visit was meant for a
short appearance for supporting teachers and their implementation of the CITW
strategies. She felt that the teachers practiced the CITW strategies with regularity
because they knew the administrators were visiting the classrooms and looking for
specific strategies being used.
Data Reporting
The plan of action from the Board of Trustees of Los Coyotes High School
District was that every administrator visit classrooms every week and every teacher
was observed by one administrator every week and all the administrators every
month. The Board of Trustees requested that the schools to send in their tally sheets
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monthly for data report. This data report was used as an instrument to make sure that
all the administrators visited classrooms weekly and that the teachers implemented
the CITW strategies regularly.
Innovation Configuration
The innovation configuration was a check list used to monitor and gauge
implementations using the teacher’s self-assessment reporting (Hall et al., 1998).
During her interview with the stratified randomly selected six teachers, the
researcher asked them to report their level of implementation with each teaching
strategy in the Innovation Configuration, which offered a random matrix of
implementation levels, such as Fully Implemented (3), Partially Implemented (2),
and Just Getting Started (1). The responses are listed in table 6 (see following page):
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Table 6: Summary of Innovation Configuration Teacher Self-Report
Strategies
N = 6
Teacher
A
Teacher
B
Teacher
C
Teacher
D
Teacher
E
Teacher
F
Identifying
Similarities &
Differences
2 2 3 3 3 3
Summarizing
and Note-
taking
2 3 3 2 3 1
Reinforcing
Effort &
Providing
Recognition
3 2 3 3 3 3
Homework &
Practice
3 3 2 2 3 3
Non-Linguistic
Representation
3 2 3 2 3 3
Cooperative
Learning
3 3 3 2 2 2
Setting
Objective &
Providing
Feedback
2 3 3 3 3 1
Generating &
Testing
Hypotheses
1 1 1 2 2 2
Cues,
Questions &
Advanced
Organizers
3 2 3 2 3 3
For easy reading and interpretation, this same table was rearranged to place
“Just Getting Started (1)” on the left-hand side, “Partially Implemented (2)” in the
middle, and “Fully Implemented (3)” on the right-hand side in Table 7.
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Table 7: Innovation Configuration - Random Teacher Implementation of CITW
Reform Revision
Strategies
N = 6
Teacher
A
Teacher
B
Teacher
C
Teacher
D
Teacher
E
Teacher
F
Identifying
Similarities &
Differences
2 2 3 3 3 3
Summarizing
and Note-
taking
1 2 2 3 3 3
Reinforcing
Effort &
Providing
Recognition
2 3 3 3 3 3
Homework &
Practice
2 2 3 3 3 3
Non-Linguistic
Representation
2 2 3 3 3 3
Cooperative
Learning
2 2 2 3 3 3
Setting
Objective &
Providing
Feedback
1 2 3 3 3 3
Generating &
Testing
Hypotheses
1 1 1 2 2 2
Cues,
Questions &
Advanced
Organizers
2 2 3 3 3 3
The results indicated that the teachers were regularly implementing the nine
instructional strategies in their classrooms with “Reinforcing Efforts & Providing
Recognition” having the highest responses of being fully implemented. Five out of
the six interviewees responded that they regularly educated their students to the
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importance of making an effort and continuously tracked students’ efforts and
achievements, provided students with personalized recognition, made use of pause,
prompt, and praise strategies as well as using concrete symbols or tokens of
recognition on a recurring basis.
The results were the same for implementing the strategies of “Identifying
Similarities & Differences”, “Homework & Practice”, “Non-Linguistic
Representation”, and “Cues, Questions & Advanced Organizers” with four teachers
responding “fully implemented” and two teachers responding “partially
implemented”.
Three teachers responded fully implemented to the “Cooperative Learning”
strategy, while the other three teachers responded, “partially implemented”. With
regards to the “Setting Objectives & Providing Feedback” strategy, four teachers
responded that they “fully implemented” the strategy, while one teacher reported
“implemented partially” and another teacher noted “just started implementing” it.
“Generating & Testing Hypotheses” achieved the lowest score. None of the
teachers frequently used a variety of structured tasks to guide students through
generating and testing hypotheses, to ensure that all students could explain
hypotheses and conclusions. Three teachers responded that they occasionally made
use of activities that engaged students in generating and testing hypotheses while the
other three teachers were in the beginning stages of using strategies that incorporated
the generation and testing of hypotheses.
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School Level Survey Questions 22 to 33
Question number 22 through 33 of the School Level Survey addressed the
extent of implementation of the “Classroom Instruction that Works” strategies
related to improving teaching and learning. The respondents again had 5 different
choices to choose from: (0) Don’t Know, (1) Strongly Disagree, (2) Somewhat
Disagree, (3) Somewhat Agree, (4) Strongly Agree. The results from all 57
participants were listed in table 8:
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Table 8: School Level Survey Results by Percentage for Research Question 3
RQ3:
To what extent was the district design being implemented at
the school and classroom levels?
N = 57
Don’t Know
Strongly Disagree
Somewhat Disagree
Somewhat Agree
Strongly Agree
All teachers are committed to the implementation of the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
23% 16% 39% 23% 0%
The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies are
consistently used to improve student learning.
23% 5% 23% 42% 7%
The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies are used to
help students who perform below grade level.
21% 5% 16% 44% 14%
The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies assist
students to meet state performance standards.
14% 2% 11% 42% 32%
The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies are used by
other departments in my school.
28% 0% 7% 40% 25%
I connect the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies to
the curriculum.
7% 4% 7% 54% 28%
I connect and use the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies to teach my students the standards.
9% 5% 14% 46% 26%
I use the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies to help
students understand textbook content.
9% 11% 7% 53% 21%
Students are aware of and use the Classroom Instruction that
Works strategies to improve their academic achievement
level.
23% 11% 32% 26% 9%
I use the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies to
improve my instruction.
7% 9% 9% 53% 23%
I am comfortable using the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies in my classroom.
9% 5% 7% 49% 30%
Using the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies has
improved my teaching.
14% 7% 9% 51% 19%
Although resistance to attending the training workshops, as well as the
inherent value of the CITW workshops have been cited earlier, about 80% of the
respondents agreed that they connected the CITW strategies to the curriculum and
that they were comfortable in using the CITW strategies in their classrooms. About
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70-76% of respondents agreed that the CITW strategies assisted students to meet
state performance standards, that they connected and used the CITW strategies to
teach their students the standards, that they used the CITW strategies to help students
understand textbook content, that they used the CITW strategies to improve their
instruction, and that using the CITW strategies had improved their teaching.
About two-thirds of respondents agreed that the CITW strategies were used
to help students who performed below grade level and that the CITW strategies were
used by other departments at Beach High School. About half (49%) of the
respondents agreed that the CITW strategies were constantly used to improve student
learning while the other half (51%) indicated that they did not know or disagreed.
The responses to questions number 22 and number 30 were quite different
compared to other questions in this group. For question number 22, 55% of
respondents disagreed that all teachers were committed to the implementation of
CITW strategies while 23% responded “Don’t Know” and only 23% agreed. For
question number 30, 43% of respondents disagreed that students were aware of and
used CITW strategies to improve their academic achievement level while 23%
responded “Don’t Know” and only 35% agreed.
The research results showed that the teachers were connecting the CITW
strategies to the curriculum and they were comfortable using those strategies in the
classrooms. In addition, the respondents agreed that their teaching skills were
improved due to using the CITW strategies, and other departments were using the
CITW strategies. However, the respondents did not believe that all teachers were
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committed to the implementation of CITW strategies. They also did not believe that
the students were aware of and used the “Classroom Instruction that Works”
strategies to improve their academic achievement.
Additionally, only half of the respondents agreed that CITW strategies were
constantly used to improve student learning while the other half indicated that they
disagreed or did not know. Even though many teachers during the interviews
indicated that with or without the workshops, they were already using the strategies
that were being advocated by the District, majority of the teachers responded
positively that they used the CITW strategies to improve instruction and that using
the CITW strategies had improved their teaching.
Reliability of School Level Survey Results
Table 9 reveals the results of the statistical analysis used to validate the
reliability of the respondents’ answers. (See following page):
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Table 9: School Level Survey Reliability Coefficient (Alpha) for Research Question
3: To what extent had the District design been implemented at the school and
classroom levels?
Questions
Scale Mean
if item
deleted
Scale Variance
if item deleted
Corrected
Item-Total
Correlation
Cronbach’s Alpha
if item deleted
V22 27.81 97.373 .384 .902
V23 27.35 88.946 .653 .890
V24 27.18 90.719 .544 .896
V25 26.67 90.548 .579 .894
V26 27.09 95.546 .287 .913
V27 26.49 90.433 .748 .887
V28 26.65 88.946 .772 .885
V29 26.75 90.724 .647 .891
V30 27.54 89.895 .625 .892
V31 26.67 89.226 .767 .885
V32 26.56 87.751 .803 .883
V33 26.88 86.038 .801 .882
The Cronbach’s Alpha was .900 from the statistical analysis. The alpha score
was used to determine the consistency of the above questions. With alpha score
.9000, it demonstrated that the answers to the research question three, “To what
extent was the district’s design implemented at the school and classroom levels?”
were very reliable and that there was a strong relationship among question 22
through question 33.
Teacher Questionnaire (Stage of Concern)
The Teacher Questionnaire was administered to the teachers at Beach High
School. It was intended to estimate the extent of the teachers’ knowledge of the
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district design and the teachers’ comfort level with implementing the reform
strategies. The Stages of Concerns (SOC) model was developed by Hall et al., 1998
to assess an individual’s process of change during the adoption of innovations within
formal organizations. A description of the seven stages is presented in the Table 10
(see following page):
134
Table 10: Stage of Concern about the Innovation (Hall et al., 1998, p.7)
0 Awareness Little concern about or involvement with the innovation is
indicated.
1 Informational A general awareness of the innovation and interest in learning
more detail about it is indicated. The person seems not to be
worried about himself/herself in relation to the innovation.
He/she is interested in substantive aspects of the innovation in
a selfless manner such as general characteristics, effects, and
requirements for use.
2 Personal Individual is uncertain about the demands of the innovation,
his/her inadequacy to meet those demands, and his/her role
with the innovation. This includes analysis of his/her role in
relation to the reward structure of the organization, decision
making, and consideration of potential conflicts with existing
structures or personal commitment. Financial or status
implications of the program for self and colleagues may also
be reflected.
3 Management Attention is focused on the processes and tasks of using the
innovation and the best use of information and resources.
Issues related to efficiency, organizing, managing, scheduling,
and time demands are utmost.
4 Consequence Attention focuses on impact of the innovation on students in
his/her immediate sphere of influence. The focus is on
relevance of the innovation for students, evaluation of student
outcomes including performance and competencies, and
changes needed to increase student outcomes.
5 Collaboration The focus is on coordination and cooperation with others
regarding use of innovation.
6 Refocusing The focus is on exploration of more universal benefits from
the innovation including the possibility of major changes or
replacement with a more powerful alternative. Individual has
definite ideas about alternatives to the proposed or existing
form of the innovation.
The participants responded to all of the questions using a Liker-type scale
with seven options ranging from zero to seven. Zero means “irrelevant”. One means
“not true of me”. Two to four means “somewhat true of me”. Five to seven means
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“very true of me now”. The higher the score, the more intense the concerns were at
that stage. The lower the score, the less intense the concerns were at that stage. The
net result of a sample completing the Stages of Concern evaluation ranges from 0)
Awareness, 1) Informational, 2) Personal, 3) Management, 4) Consequence, 5)
Collaboration, to 6) Refocusing.
“Awareness” indicates little concern or involvement for the innovation,
“Information” indicates an interest in the knowledge of the topic, “Personal”
indicates concern about one’s ability to deal with the topic, “Management” indicates
implementing the topic, “Consequence” indicates the perception of the relevance of
the change and its impact upon students, while “Collaboration” refers to working
with others to implement the change, and “Refocusing” indicates consideration of
enhancing the scale of change or moving on to another effective innovation.
There were five questions each to address the level of concerns. Table 11
demonstrates the question numbers and statements arranged by the Stage of
Concerns. (See following page):
136
Table 11: Statement on Stages of Concern Questionnaire by Stages and Question
Numbers
Question
#
Statement
Stage 0 – Awareness
3 I don’t know what the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies are.
12 I am not concerned about the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies.
21 I am completely occupied with other things besides the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
23 Although I am not familiar with the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies, I am concerned about aspects of the Classroom Instruction
that Works strategies.
30 At this time, I am not interested in learning about the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
Stage 1 – Informational
6 I have a very limited knowledge of the Classroom Instruction that
Works strategies.
14 I would like to discuss the possibility of using the Classroom Instruction
that Works strategies.
15 I would like to know what resources are available to support the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
26 I would like to know what the use of the Classroom Instruction that
Works strategies will require in the immediate future.
35 I would like to know how the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies are better than what we have had in the past.
Stage 2 – Personal
7 I would like to know how the use of the Classroom Instruction that
Works strategies affects my classroom, my position at my school, and
my professional status.
13 I would like to know who will make the decisions on how I use the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
17 I would like to know how my teaching skills is supposed to change with
the use of the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
28 I would like to have more information on time and energy commitments
required by the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
33 I would like to know how my role as a teacher will change when I am
using the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
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Table 11, continued
Stage 3 – Management
4 I am concerned about not having enough time to organize myself each day in
relation to using the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
8 I am concerned about conflict between my interests and my responsibilities
when using the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
16 I am concerned about my inability to manage all that the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies require.
25 I am concerned about time spent working with nonacademic problems related
to the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
34 Coordination of tasks and people in relation to using the Classroom Instruction
that Works strategies is taking too much of my time.
Stage 4 – Consequence
1 I am concerned about student’s attitude towards the use of the nine strategies
from Classroom Instruction that Works.
11 I am concerned about how the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies
affect students.
19 I am concerned about evaluating my impact on students in relation to the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
24 I would like to excite my students about their part in the Classroom Instruction
that Works strategies.
32 I would like to use feedback from students to change the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
Stage 5 – Collaboration
5 I would like to help other faculty in their use of the Classroom Instruction that
Works strategies.
10 I would like to develop working relationships with both our faculty and
outside faculty who use the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
18 I would like to familiarize other departments or persons with the progress of
using the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
27 I would like to coordinate my effort with others to maximize the effects of the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
29 I would like to know what other faculty are doing as they use the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
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Table 11, continued
Stage 6 – Refocusing
2 I now know of some other approaches that might work better than the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
9 I am concerned about revising my lesson plans to use the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
20 I would like to revise the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies
instructional approach.
22 I would like to modify the school’s use of the Classroom Instruction that
Works strategies based on the experiences of my students.
31 I would like to determine how to supplement, enhance, or replace the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
Respondents’ Raw Score
The respondents’ raw score was calculated by adding the sum of all 53
respondents’ answers for each of the five questions that were applicable to the
individual level of concerns and divided by 53. Table 12 lists the summary of the
Teacher Questionnaire based upon concern level and the respondents’ raw score.
Table 12: Respondents’ Stage of Concern Questionnaire Raw Score
Strength of Concern Level
N = 53
Raw Score Intensity Ranking of Concerns
0: Awareness 10.962 Low 7
1: Informational 17.094 Highest 1
2: Personal 16.340 High 2
3: Management 11.830 Low 6
4: Consequence 14.906 Medium 4
5: Collaboration 16.226 High 3
6: Refocusing 12.736 Low 5
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Figure 1: Graphic Representation of the Stage of Concern Raw Score
10.962
17.094
16.34
11.83
14.906
16.226
12.736
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
Awareness
Informational
Personal
Management
Consequence
Collaboration
Refocusing
Raw Score
With the responses from all 53 participants, the raw score derived from the
sum of the responses to the five questions associated with “Awareness” level (0)
divided by 53 was 10.962, which was the lowest among all the levels. This meant
that the teachers were aware and had little concerns about the “Classroom Instruction
that Works” strategies.
The raw score developed from the five questions associated with
“Informational” level (1) was 17.094, which was the highest for the group. This
meant that as a group, the teachers had intense concerns about what the “Classroom
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Instruction that Works” strategies were and what use of the “Classroom Instruction
that Works” strategies would entail. They indicated that they would like to have
more descriptive information about the “Classroom Instruction that Works”
strategies; this was validated by the interviews. The teachers heard about CITW
strategies and were using the strategies; however, many of them did not receive the
District workshops or school trainings. Hence, they were interested in receiving
more information about CITW.
The raw score received from the five questions focused on “Personal” level
(2) was 16.340, which was the second highest. A high personal concern was an
indication of self consciousness and an uncertainty about the reform innovations.
The respondents were highly concerned about the status, effect and impact of the
“Classroom Instruction that Works” on them as teachers.
The raw score obtained from the five questions that dealt with “Management”
level (3) was 11.830, which was the second lowest among all levels of concerns.
This indicated that the teachers were not too concerned about coordination, time
management, or the logistical aspect of the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies. This response seemed to be contradictory to the responses from
interviews.
As previously reported by the researcher, during the interviews, many of the
teachers expressed serious concerns about time availability. Nevertheless, the time
availability included not only attending workshops, but also analyzing data, creating
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assessments, collaboration with other teachers, along with implementing Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
The teachers were learning about the CITW strategies and their practical
application within the specific departments during staff development day or during
other informal opportunities. They could easily apply some of the instructional
strategies in their classrooms without much time commitment or preparation since
many of them felt that they were already utilizing the pedagogical principles
contained in the strategies in their teaching practices. However, the teachers were
used to doing lesson plans and preparations in isolation. It appeared to the researcher
that it was the necessary collaboration that caused the time difficulty and raised
concerns among the participants, because now they had to accommodate the
schedules of other teachers.
The raw score drawn from the five questions related to “Consequence” level
(4) was 14.906, which was the fourth highest of the teachers’ concerns. It appeared
that the teachers as a group were not as concerned about the effect of “Classroom
Instruction that Works” on the students as learning about the information, and the
effect on themselves, and collaborating with other teachers.
The raw score gained from the five questions which addressed
“Collaboration” level (5) was 16.226, which indicated the third highest concerns
level after Informational concern and Personal concern. This pointed out that the
teachers were concerned about how to coordinate and cooperate with other teachers.
They were interested in finding out how other teachers implemented the CITW
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strategies. This was confirmed by the interviews. Even though many teachers were
not aware of the District design nor were they trained by the schools, they
appreciated the concept of a professional learning community. Time availability
concerns were affirmed during the interview process, in that teachers were concerned
about finding mutual time to collaborate with other teachers. In addition, they did
not believe that other teachers were committed to the implementation of CITW
strategies.
The raw score obtained from the five questions addressing the “Refocusing”
level (6) was 12.736, which was the third lowest after the Awareness and
Management concerns. This indicated that the teachers were not concerned about
refocusing or revising the “Classroom Instruction that Works” strategies. This result
could possibly be explained by the fact that the teachers had the freedom to utilize
the strategies in their own way, thus their concerns in this area were less as compared
to other areas.
The Respondents’ Raw Score indicated that as a group, the teachers at Beach
High School were mostly concerned about having an operant knowledge of
“Classroom Instruction that Works”, how these instructional strategies affected them
personally especially with regards to the expenditure of personal time commitment
required by the CITW strategies, and what they could do to collaborate with other
teachers regarding the implementation of these strategies including time required to
collaborate with other teachers.
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Individual Mean Score
Another way to analyze the Stages of Concerns data was to tally the number
of individuals that were high on each stage. This gave a clear picture of the range of
peak stage scores within the group. The individual respondent’s scores in all stages
of concerns from the teacher questionnaire are displayed in table 13. The
individual’s highest score was highlighted.
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Table 13: Individual Teacher’s Highest Score on the Stage of Concern
Questionnaire (N=53)
Respondent
Stage 0
Awareness
Stage 1
Informational
Stage 2
Personal
Stage 3
Management
Stage 4
Consequence
Stage 5
Collaboration
Stage 6
Refocusing
1 3.0 7.0 5.6 0.0 1.4 2.8 2.8
2 1.4 3.2 4.4 3.0 4.8 4.4 3.4
3 1.6 0.8 0.6 0.4 2.8 1.6 1.0
4 2.4 3.4 1.0 0.2 0.6 1.6 0.8
5 3.2 3.6 4.0 3.2 3.6 3.4 3.0
6 0.2 3.6 2.8 1.4 2.8 6.6 1.0
7 1.0 3.2 3.0 1.0 4.8 2.6 1.8
8 2.2 5.8 6.0 3.8 4.4 5.0 2.6
9 5.8 5.4 2.8 0.0 0.6 2.2 3.6
10 2.0 1.2 1.0 1.0 2.0 3.2 1.0
11 4.4 5.2 3.8 2.4 2.6 2.4 1.6
12 1.2 2.8 1.0 0.0 2.6 1.0 0.8
13 1.6 0.4 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.0 0.2
14 2.0 4.6 4.2 4.0 2.0 2.2 2.0
15 1.4 4.0 3.4 1.8 4.4 4.6 3.8
16 2.4 3.4 4.2 2.6 2.4 4.0 3.2
17 1.8 4.2 4.6 1.4 2.8 3.2 2.4
18 0.8 2.0 1.4 1.0 2.6 3.4 1.4
19 0.8 2.2 2.6 2.2 5.4 5.2 3.4
20 3.4 1.6 1.2 1.2 2.2 3.2 2.0
21 1.0 4.0 1.4 1.8 4.2 4.0 2.8
22 4.0 3.8 3.0 3.0 1.2 2.4 2.8
23 1.0 3.8 4.2 1.6 3.6 4.2 2.6
24 3.0 4.6 4.4 4.6 3.0 1.6 3.6
25 0.4 3.6 4.0 2.4 4.8 4.4 2.6
26 1.4 3.6 5.2 4.4 3.8 3.2 3.8
27 2.8 2.4 2.6 1.0 1.0 1.6 1.6
28 1.2 1.8 2.2 1.6 3.0 2.0 1.8
29 1.4 2.0 3.2 1.8 2.4 3.6 2.0
30 5.0 4.4 5.2 3.6 4.0 4.6 4.0
31 3.4 4.2 5.8 4.0 3.8 2.4 5.6
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Table 13, continued
32 2.0 2.4 3.4 3.6 3.0 1.8 3.6
33 0.6 2.2 3.4 1.8 3.4 3.4 2.8
34 0.8 3.2 1.8 2.8 3.6 2.0 3.6
35 2.4 4.6 5.4 5.6 5.6 5.2 4.4
36 5.8 2.6 2.6 3.8 3.6 1.0 2.2
37 4.8 4.4 4.6 4.0 2.4 2.6 1.4
38 2.6 3.4 3.6 2.8 2.6 2.6 2.6
39 1.0 0.4 1.8 3.6 1.8 2.8 3.0
40 2.8 5.0 5.2 5.0 2.4 3.2 2.6
41 1.2 3.8 4.2 3.2 2.4 3.4 2.0
42 5.4 5.6 5.2 5.4 1.8 3.2 4.0
43 0.8 5.2 1.6 2.0 5.6 5.4 2.8
44 2.2 7.0 7.0 0.6 1.4 5.6 2.8
45 2.0 1.0 1.2 1.0 2.6 2.0 2.4
46 1.6 2.0 2.2 1.8 1.6 3.0 1.2
47 1.6 4.6 4.2 3.2 3.0 2.0 2.4
48 2.4 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.6 4.6 2.0
49 2.0 4.6 5.4 6.4 5.0 5.6 4.0
50 2.4 2.4 0.0 0.0 1.6 5.4 3.4
51 1.4 2.0 3.6 2.8 3.8 3.8 1.0
52 1.6 4.0 3.6 1.6 4.2 3.2 2.8
53 1.6 3.6 3.0 2.6 5.0 3.6 3.0
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The results of the frequency of the Highest Concerns Stage(s) for the
individuals are displayed in Table 14.
Table 14: Distribution of Individual Teacher’s Strongest Concern
Highest Stage of
Concern
Number
of
Peaks
% of
Peaks
Highest
Individual Mean
Score
Ranking
of
Concerns
Average
of
Intensity
0: Awareness 7 11.3
1.6 2.8 3.4 4.0
4.8 5.8 5.8
5 4.03
1: Informational 9 14.5
2.8 3.4 4.6 4.6
4.6 5.2 5.6 7.0
7.0
4 4.98
2: Personal 13 21.0
3.4 3.6 4.0 4.2
4.2 4.2 4.6 5.2
5.2 5.2 5.8 6.0
7.0
2 4.82
3: Management 5 8.0
3.6 3.6 4.6 5.6
6.4
6 4.76
4: Consequence 15 24.2
2.6 2.8 3.0 3.4
3.6 3.8 4.2 4.2
4.8 4.8 4.8 5.0
5.4 5.6 5.6
1 4.24
5: Collaboration 11 17.7
3.0 3.2 3.4 3.4
3.6 3.8 4.2 4.6
4.6 5.4 6.6
3 4.16
6: Refocusing 2 3.2 3.6 3.6 7 3.60
The total tally was more than 53 due to the fact that many respondents had the
same highest score on more than one stage of concern. Some respondents even had
three equal highest scores with the same concern among three different stages. This
indicated that several teachers had a wide range of concerns. Based on this analysis,
the individual teachers at Beach High School were concerned about how the
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implementation of “Classroom Instruction that Works” would impact their students
(Consequence), themselves (Personal), and the methods of collaboration with other
teachers (Collaboration). The field interviews appeared to confirm the results that
there was a wide variety of perceptions, attitudes, and concerns about the district
design and the impact on the students and teachers and how to conduct the
collaborative aspect of the district design with other teachers.
The Respondents’ Raw Score method of analyzing the Stage of Concerns gave
heavier weight to those who had intensive concerns by answering 5, 6 or 7 for “very
true of me now” while the individual tally method gave heavier weight to those
answering equally to three stages as having their highest concern even when the
responses were only 2, 3, or 4 for “somewhat true of me”. This explains the
difference in the results of ranking the concerns. The researcher added the highest
individual mean score and divided by the number of peaks to show the average
intensity at each stage of concern and confirmed that the concern for Informational
and Personal were more intense than concern for Consequence and Collaboration.
Out of 53 respondents, 15 respondents marked Consequence as their highest concern
even though the intensity of the concern was moderate. Even though only 9
respondents marked Informational as their highest concern, their intensity of concern
remained high. These results confirm that some teachers did not receive any training
on the CITW strategies and wanted to have more knowledge. Based upon the
Respondents’ Raw Scores, the ranking of concerns were Informational, Personal,
Collaboration, Consequence, Refocusing, Management, and Awareness while based
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on the individual teacher responses, the ranking of concerns were Consequence,
Personal, Collaboration, Informational, Awareness, Management, and Refocusing.
The comparison of ranking of concerns from the Respondents’ Raw Score and
the individual’s mean score is listed in Table 15.
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Table 15: Comparison of Ranking of Concerns
Stage of Concerns
Ranking of Concerns
from Respondents’ Raw
Scores
Ranking of Concerns
from Individual Mean
Scores
0: Awareness 7 5
1: Informational 1 4
2: Personal 2 2
3: Management 6 6
4: Consequence 4 1
5: Collaboration 3 3
6: Refocusing 5 7
The researcher reviewed the data and concluded that those who responded to
concerns about how the Classroom Instruction that Works would affect their students
answered with 2, 3, or 4 “somewhat true of me” instead of 5, 6, or 7 “very true of me
now”. That is the reason why the concern of the “Consequence” level was not high
in the raw score calculation and was the highest in the individual tally.
Conversely, the same theory applies to the “Information” level responses.
The field interviews validated that communication and training were problems at
Beach High School, not all teachers received training about CITW strategies and
even if they knew about it, they were not very interested in attending the workshops.
This explains why the concern about the “Information” level was the highest as a
group and was only medium by individual teachers.
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Research Question #4:
The fourth research question was “How effective were the district design and
implementation strategies at the school and the classroom levels?”
Conceptual Framework D (CFD) was utilized to guide the data analysis for
the fourth research question. The Principal Interview Guide, Leadership Team
Member Interview Guide, Lead Teacher Interview Guide, Teacher Interview Guide,
and School Level Survey were the instruments aligned to Conceptual Framework D.
Interviews based upon Conceptual Framework D provided the primary data to be
evaluated as part of the Case Study Guide. Document Review Guide and quantitative
data were tabulated to analyze the data and provided triangulation to establish data
validity. The data gathered to address the fourth research question was organized as
follows: principal’s and leadership team members’ perception, Beach High School’s
API, lead teachers’ perception, perception of teachers’ attitude toward the district
design, effectiveness of professional development, effectiveness of classroom
monitoring, was the design cost effective, what promoted the intended outcome,
what inhibited the intended outcome, and the school level survey questions 34 to 44.
Principal’s and Leadership Team Members’ Perception
There was general consensus from the interviews that the effectiveness of the
district design and implementation was evaluated by the students’ test scores even
though each interviewee had a personal interpretation of what the District design
was. The principal and leadership team members were extremely pleased and proud
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of their Academic Performance Index (API) improvement and believed that the
District design had been effective. Over the past two years, they had a total increase
of 82 points on the API. The Principal and Leadership Team Members firmly
believed that such a big jump could not have been random. They contributed the
improvement to hard work by all the staff members involved, beginning with the
district administrators who designed and supported the reform, to the school site
administrators who monitored and reinforced the reform, to the lead teachers who
organized, disseminated, and supported the change, and to the classroom teachers
who learned the reform strategies and implemented them in their classrooms on a
daily basis.
Assuming that the Single School Plan was the District design, the Principal felt
that they were headed in the right direction particularly in comparison to where they
had been previously. She celebrated the desirable test results with all the staff
members and students by bringing everyone to the quad for a sustained celebration
and praised everyone’s hard work and success. The Principal commented, “The
teachers believe they make the difference in their students’ learning and testing
scores. They want to be [the] stars. The energy comes from the teachers. They
come in with new ideas. I want the teachers to get excited and collaborate.”
The Principal alleged that the nine instructional strategies improved the
teacher’s instructional abilities and resulted in better learning for their students, and
thus in achieving better test scores. She mentioned that she felt very lucky because
the first year everyone worked very hard, but their scores had dropped slightly. It
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was only because of their drastic improvement in their API, that the teachers were
convinced of efficacy of the CITW strategies. She believed that the teachers needed
to see the difference to buy-in to the idea of reform.
The leadership team members emphasized their seriousness in supporting the
District’s plan in spite of having various understandings of the District design. They
walked around the classrooms on a weekly basis and felt they had often seen
evidence of the strategies being used. They had paid special attention to look for the
implementation of the strategies. The leadership team members also stated that the
data analysis sponsored by the district had a tremendous impact on the school,
teachers and students. The school and teachers analyzed the data and pin pointed
areas and subgroups for improvement. According to one leadership team member,
the teachers made efforts to improve weak areas, thus, the students’ learning was
improved.
Beach High School’s API
Beach High School not only improved their school-wide API, but they also
made notable improvements within the racial/ethnic and socio-economically
disadvantaged subgroups. Their API data is presented in Table 16.
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Table 16: Beach High School’s API
Year 2001 2002 2003 2004
Total Growth
2003 & 2004
School-wide API Base Score 600 611 609 660
School-wide API Growth Score 610 601 660 691
School-wide Actual Growth 10 -10 51 31 82
Hispanic API Base Score 495 498 519 586
Hispanic API Growth Score 493 513 589 622
Hispanic API Actual Growth -2 15 70 36 106
Socio-economically
disadvantaged API Base Score
461 477 478 542
Socio-economically
disadvantaged API Growth Score
473 464 547 610
Socio-economically
disadvantaged API Actual
Growth
12 -13 69 68 137
A leadership team member shared with the researcher that the improvement of
Beach High School was fairly impressive, especially with the target group of Latino
students, which shows an improved API by 106 points and the socio-economically
disadvantaged students by an improved API of 137 points. The test results
accelerated the administrators’ belief that the District design and implementation had
been very effective.
Lead Teachers’ Perception
Besides using the test scores for assessing the district design, lead teachers
also mentioned that the feedback they received from both teachers and students was
invaluable. However, the lead teachers had mixed feelings toward the design. The
Social Science Department Chair complimented the implementation of the
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professional learning community. He felt that the design was working very well.
Due to the District design, their department met on a regular basis to brainstorm and
learn from each other. They even looked through the test problems question by
question to discover why the students in some classes did better than others and
attempted to decipher the successful teaching methods of that teacher.
The English Department Chair was in favor of the District design. He stated
that the CITW strategies assisted the teachers and students to tackle higher thinking
skills and visualize difficult concepts and inferences. His main concerns were time
commitment requirement and what he perceived as some teachers’ resistance to the
changes. He wished that all the teachers had been open-minded and willing to learn.
However, not everyone was as passionate about the District design or the
results. The Science Department Chair, for example, was cynical about the district
led reform efforts. She was a firm believer in the notion that ultimately effective
student learning come from the students’ own efforts and their families. She stated,
“Sadly, sometimes the student achievement has nothing to do with what we do at
school. There are about 10% of students absent two to three times a week. Our
Dean of Attendance needs to go after the students. The instructional strategies are
used as our personal teaching style.” In other words, she felt that ultimately the
instructional strategies were not the primary factors in student achievement, and by
no means could they affect all aspects of student learning.
The Math Department Chair was also disappointed that even though the
School’s API jumped impressively, the math scores did not reveal corresponding
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progress. Thus, she did not feel that the District plan had been effective overall. Her
teachers were very excited in the beginning of the implementation, but their
enthusiasm waned with time and often they fell back to their old ways of instruction.
Perception of Teachers’ Attitude toward the District Design
The perception regarding teachers’ attitudes towards the district’s plan varied
quite a bit. The Principal believed that all the teachers responded very positively
with a sense of trust and support. She did not feel that any teacher was resentful of
the district’s plans and focus. She felt that she had to partially function as a
cheerleader in order to get everyone excited about the plan, praise staff members for
their hard work, make them feel good about themselves so that in return they would
want to work harder and do better.
During an on site interview, one leadership team member thought the teachers’
attitudes varied, but overall they were supportive. Another leadership team member
thought the teachers felt some reservations in the beginning, and they did not like
having to leave their classrooms for conferences. However, once the teachers
attended the workshops and saw the subject specific strategies, they were able to
develop what worked for them in the classroom and felt more confident about the
strategies.
Among the four chairpersons, the responses to the teachers’ attitude toward the
district’s plan were evenly divided. Two of them thought the teachers’ responses
were very positive. One made the remark, “It was a great idea and everyone was
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willing to try and make it work. It was a voluntary plan that the department chair
would make the new teachers attend the workshops, while the [tenured] teachers
would have the choices of attending or not. It was revisiting many ideas.”
Conversely, the other two chairpersons stated that the reform strategies were not
something everyone was equally excited about. They expressed that some of the
teachers felt that they knew what to do in their classrooms and the district would not
necessarily have new or better ideas to offer them that they were not already
utilizing.
Interestingly, even though all six teachers interviewed for this study responded
favorably to the District’s plan, three of them did not think that everyone at the
District was thoroughly familiar with the District’s plan. One teacher said that she
would like to see more people being involved in the plan and involved for more than
one year. Another teacher stated with some vehemence that, “The communication
has not been good. We have a day set aside for staff development, but we don’t
know what it is when we go in. It will be much nicer if they [would] give us an
agenda a couple of days before through our mailboxes so we know what to expect
ahead of time.” One teacher commented, “Some teachers were grading papers
during the workshops.”
Most teachers being interviewed enjoyed learning the instructional strategies
and implementing them in the classrooms. Some felt the strategies were not
thoroughly presented to them while some others felt that they were implementing the
strategies anyway without the special district workshops. Some teachers felt the
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students were better motivated to learn because the teachers praised them more and
made learning more interesting for them. Other teachers felt very disappointed that
even though they tried very hard, sometimes the students just did not care, nor did
the parents.
Generally speaking, the teachers were proud of their dramatic improvement in
the API. And as mentioned earlier, the school made a point of celebrating their
success publicly to instill their pride.
Effectiveness of Professional Development
The District offered the same workshops to school leaders and teachers in
spite of the different roles they had to play once trained. The school leaders learned
the CITW strategies from the same District workshops or the CITW book, but not
the monitoring and supporting techniques. Not all school leaders attended all the
workshops. Some were given the CITW books to learn on their own.
The Principal thought the professional development was successful. It
offered commonality across the District. She stated,
“Everyone uses the same language, the same goal. The focus brings us
together for improvement. Some teachers are stronger and are more
interested in certain themes. When the teachers share with each other, these
themes will be exposed to all the students. The pet unit may need to be given
up for [those that are more] standards [driven]. The peer pressure helps the
staff to stay in line. Some teachers are uncomfortable with comparing scores.
What did you do to get your children to do so well? The goal is for teachers
to reflect and analyze their own practice and share with others.”
One leadership team members felt that the staff development had assisted
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everyone to focus on the standards so that the teachers did not get side tracked.
Another leadership team member thought the data analysis was the most important
part of staff development, since it allowed everyone to pin point areas for
improvement. It helped them to create better test results. He thought the staff
development created a positive energy on campus.
The teachers’ responses to the district’s professional development efforts
varied quite a bit. One of the teachers who attended the District training and was
also responsible for teaching others at the school site truly enjoyed the staff
development aspects of the district design. He felt the training made a difference in
his teaching. He was able to apply the CITW strategies successfully in his
classroom.
Another teacher who also attended the District workshop and returned to
school to teach the strategies to other teachers in the same department (because she
was relatively new and assigned to go to the workshops by the department chair), felt
the training was similar to what she learned at the teaching credential programs. She
did not feel her time was well spent at the workshops, since she felt she was already
familiar with the material presented at the workshops. In addition, she felt that there
was no follow up, feed back, consequence, or accountability imposed on the teachers
once they had been trained in the strategies, either through attending the workshops,
or through on site training at the school.
One teacher who had volunteered to attend the District workshop, definitely
found it to be helpful. Since the workshops revisited many things she already knew,
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but had pushed aside over the years, she felt the staff development refreshed her
memory, and helped her to understand anew why teachers did what they did.
Another teacher attending the District workshop thought it was helpful to learn
different classroom techniques and collaborate with other teachers.
The other two teachers did not attend the District workshop. One mentioned
that they had monthly department meetings in which they could share pedagogical
insights. Per his recollection, there was no formal professional development
regarding CITW strategies. He referred to the staff development as the one
workshop sponsored by the School about creating a professional learning
community. The other teacher did not attend any sort of formal staff development
either. She expressed the difficulty of getting everyone together to attend the staff
development at the school site. She suggested replacing all day staff development
with shorter and more frequent trainings.
The interview results indicated that those who attended the District staff
development were very positive about the effectiveness of the workshops and those
who did not attend the District workshops did not realize the benefits and
consequently were unaware of what they had missed out on.
Effectiveness of Classroom Monitoring
There was a discrepancy with monitoring the extent of the implementations
in the classrooms. The principal and leadership team members felt that they had
visited every classroom for five minutes to observe both the teaching and student
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learning that was going on, and filled out the forms accordingly to tally the
percentage of compliance in the areas of posting content standard, actively engaging
in learning and assessing, leading to performance target, applying Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies, and observing bell to bell instruction. Teachers on
the other hand felt that the observation was very minimal, lasting more like 30
seconds, and they did not see how the areas for observation could be adequately
observed and identified in so short a time.
The administrators indicated that they had communication with the teachers
and held conferences to discuss their visits and the subsequent reflection process.
The teachers seemed to feel that there was no follow up or useful consequences as a
result of these classroom visits. The administrators believed that the teacher
evaluation was aligned with the California standards of teaching as listed in Table
17.
Table 17: California Standards of Teaching
Itemized California Standards of Teaching
1 Engaging and supporting all students in learning
2 Creating and maintaining effective environments for student learning
3 Understanding and organizing subject matter for student learning
4 Planning instruction and designing learning experiences for all students
5 Assessing student learning
6 Developing as a professional educator
Even though the classroom walk-about observation sheet only listed the first
item “engaging and supporting all students in learning”, the administrators felt that
they were able to summarize what they had seen during their visits and used the
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information as part of the formal teacher evaluation process. Contrary to the
administrators’ thinking, the teachers felt that the walk-about observation had no
relationship to their formal evaluation nor that the observation process was binding
per their contract agreement.
Once again they felt that the duration of the observation was for far too short of
a time to be meaningful or for the observers to have comprehended the lessons with
any depth of meaning, let alone thoroughly. The observation procedures revealed
that the teachers were regularly implementing the district’s design.
Was the Design Cost Effective
Since Beach High School did not allocate funds for the CITW strategies
implementation, many respondents responded “don’t know” to whether the District
design was cost effective. The district paid $120.00 a day for a substitute so that the
teachers were able to attend the workshops. Just for Beach High School, the Los
Coyotes High School District paid $21,600 for two days of workshops a year with 30
teachers participating in the workshops for three years. In addition, the district had
to pay for the presenters, the books and materials needed for teachers to learn and
implement the nine instructional strategies.
The Principal believed that the District plan was cost effective and created
excellent results. She emphasized that the mission of Beach High School is to
provide quality curriculum and instruction through a wide range of academic and
extracurricular opportunities by which all students may discover their interests and
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talents, form connections, and move from being passive to active participants in the
educational community in preparation for a responsible productive adulthood. Her
understanding of the District design was the Single School Plan, which, in her
opinion, matches the mission for quality curriculum and strong academic emphasis.
Can the Design be Sustained
The Principal indicated that so long as the teachers believed that the
instructional strategies improved student learning, they would continue to implement
them.
One leadership team member indicated that even if the district discontinued the
plan, he would like to see the plan being continued at the school site because they
saw the benefits of the plan. Additionally, he commented that he would like to
continue the plan and hoped to integrate it into the school culture so it could be
sustained over time. However, his understanding of the District plan was the Single
School Plan, which included many areas and the CITW strategies were only a part of
this larger plan.
Most teachers were not comfortable when responding to this question. They
seemed to feel that the reform could be sustained over time if adequate monitoring
and support were provided.
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What Promoted Intended Outcome
With various understanding of the District design, the respondents went in
different directions to give due credit. The Principal expressed appreciation to the
Board Members and the District for providing the time and resources needed to
implement the design including offering District workshops to the teachers. The
leadership team members thought the District design was clearly articulated and that
the District’s workshops were effective and persuasive. Furthermore, a leadership
team member commented that the District design was flexible enough for the
teachers to choose the strategies that fit them. More importantly, the leadership team
members indicated that the District design was research-based and had a direct
correlation to student learning.
The lead teachers thought these strategies provided multi-sensory, hands-on
experiences for the students to learn more effectively. The classroom instruction
looked much different from the past. It was no longer teacher centered lecturing.
The lead teachers were expected to facilitate the District design and support the
teachers for materials and implementation of the instructional strategies. They
supposed that working with the teachers collaboratively assisted everyone.
The teachers felt that the professional learning community brought them
together to collaborate and learn from each other, productively moving away from
the traditional concept of working in isolation. The teachers also liked the CITW
strategies. They found the strategies easy to comprehend and to implement. They
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felt comfortable using the CITW strategies in the classrooms to improve their
teaching skills.
What Prohibited Intended Outcome
From the interviews conducted by the researcher, as well as the collected data,
it appeared to the researcher that the teacher-trainer model was not carried out as the
District had intended, which in turn prohibited the intended outcomes in the reform
efforts. For example, the District intended to have the District trained teachers to be
the teacher-trainers at the school site to teach other teachers; however, the District
trained teachers at Beach High School were not able create the intended outcome
because they were inexperienced teachers and the school did not set aside sufficient
time and structure for these teacher-trainers to teach others.
Additionally, there were no formal quality school site workshops arranged.
The extent of implementation would be even much stronger if a mandatory structure
for workshop attendance had been provided.
The other down side was that the administrators and lead teachers took the
same training or less as the teachers, thus their knowledge base was no more
developed than the teachers. The administrators were expected to monitor the
reform implementation without leadership training. As a consequence, the teachers
complained that the administrators provided insufficient feedback or support.
The teachers did not feel there was sufficient support, follow up, and feedbacks
from the administrators. Even though the administrators were required to tally their
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classroom visit and observations, they tallied on a quantifiable level only and not for
quality. There was no formal assessment for the administrators to evaluate the
effectiveness of the implementation of the CITW strategies.
There was general consensus from the teachers that they did not have enough
time to make a commitment to attending the workshops, teach others, plan and
implement the strategies in the classrooms and collaborate with colleagues.
School Level Survey Questions 34 to 44
Question number 34 through 44 of School Level Survey concentrated on the
effectiveness of the “Classroom Instruction that Works” strategies to improve
teaching and learning. The respondents again had 5 different choices to select from:
(0) Don’t Know, (1) Strongly Disagree, (2) Somewhat Disagree, (3) Somewhat
Agree, (4) Strongly Agree. The results of all 57 participants are listed in Table 18.
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Table 18: School Level Survey Results by Percentage for Research Question 4
RQ4:
How effective were the district design and implementation
strategies at the school and classroom levels?
N = 57
Don’t Know
Strongly Disagree
Somewhat Disagree
Somewhat Agree
Strongly Agree
1. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies are
effective in improving student learning.
19% 0% 11% 39% 32%
2. My instructional delivery has changed by using the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
16% 11% 23% 39% 12%
3. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies
have increased student motivation toward learning.
21% 4% 23% 49% 4%
4. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies are
not expensive to implement.
23% 4% 5% 37% 32%
5. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies
were presented to teachers in a timely manner.
7% 11% 19% 40% 23%
6. Training provided to teachers on the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies was useful.
18% 4% 14% 37% 28%
7. On-going support is provided at my school on the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
16% 11% 32% 35% 7%
8. Feedback is provided to teachers on their use of the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
16% 14% 30% 35% 5%
9. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies are
worth keeping.
16% 0% 11% 42% 32%
10. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies
have helped students to be successful in my class.
21% 7% 11% 49% 12%
11. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies are
feasible in improving teaching and learning.
14% 0% 4% 54% 28%
Again, the respondents were positive about CITW strategies. 82% of the
respondents agreed that the CITW strategies were feasible in improving teaching and
leaning. 74% of respondents agreed that the CITW strategies were worth keeping
and 71% of respondents agreed that the CITW strategies were effective in improving
student learning. About 61-69% of respondents agreed that the CITW strategies were
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not expensive to implement, and that the CITW strategies were presented to the
teachers in a timely manner, that training provided to teachers on CITW was useful,
and that the CITW strategies had helped students to be successful.
However, only about half of the respondents agreed that their instructional
delivery had changed by using the CITW strategies, and that the CITW strategies
had increased their students’ motivation in learning. The results toward questions
number 40 and 41 were negative. For question number 40, 43% of the respondents
disagreed and 16% indicated “Don’t Know” that on-going support was provided at
Beach High School on the CITW strategies. As for question number 41, 44% of the
respondents disagreed and 16% indicated “Don’t Know” that feedback was provided
to teachers on their use of the CITW strategies.
Clearly, this quantitative analysis reveals that the respondents felt quite
differently about the effectiveness of Classroom Instruction that Works, and their
responses also reveal inherent contradictions. For example, even though the teachers
felt that the “Classroom Instruction that Works” strategies were feasible in
improving teaching and learning and worth keeping, they did not believe that the
“Classroom Instruction that Works” strategies had increased student motivation in
learning.
Reliability of School Level Survey Results
Statistical analysis of the School Level Survey data was listed in Table 19 to
demonstrate reliability.
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Table 19: School Level Survey Reliability Coefficient (Alpha) for Research Question
4: How effective were the district design and implementation strategies at the school
and classroom levels?
Questions
Scale Mean if
item deleted
Scale Variance
if item deleted
Corrected
Item-Total
Correlation
Cronbach’s
Alpha if item
deleted
V34 23.98 101.696 .613 .929
V35 24.35 103.089 .675 .925
V36 24.51 100.683 .778 .921
V37 24.11 98.846 .664 .927
V38 24.00 103.929 .685 .925
V39 24.07 96.959 .817 .919
V40 24.47 105.504 .607 .928
V41 24.61 104.527 .655 .926
V42 23.88 96.931 .860 .917
V43 24.37 98.880 .763 .921
V44 23.79 101.133 .744 .922
The Cronbach’s Alpha was .930 from the statistical analysis. The alpha score
was used to determine the consistency of above questions. With alpha score .930, it
indicated that the answers to the research question four, “How effective were the
design and implementation strategies at the school and classroom levels?” were very
reliable and that there was a strong relationship among question 34 through question
44.
Based on the interviews with the Principal, Leadership Team Members, Lead
Teachers, and teacher perceptions of student learning, the district design was
effective in spite of poor administration of the teacher-trainer model. The teachers
agreed that the CITW strategies were effective in improving student learning and
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worth keeping. However, in order to make the district design even more effective,
the administrators needed to offer on-going support and feedback to the teachers for
the teachers to be more effectively in implementing the design. According to the
participants, providing time for teachers to learn and collaborate is also essential.
Discussion
Los Coyotes District Design
Given the present climate of accountability in American education, coming
from both the state and federal levels, the Board of Trustees and former
Superintendent at Los Coyotes High School District decided to look into a district-
wide educational reform for improving student achievement.
Since a top-down approach was the most time efficient way of implementing
the intended reforms, the former Superintendent dedicated the district–wide reform
responsibilities to the former Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services.
Realizing that the teachers were interested in improving their instruction, the former
Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services chose to introduce the research-
based instructional strategies “Classroom Instruction That Works” from Marzano et
al. to the District as a district-wide reform to be implemented in every school and
every classroom in the Los Coyotes District.
Educational researchers believe that the quality of teachers and the quality of
instruction are the most important external factors that can influence and raise the
achievements of all students (Darling-Hammond, 1999). The quality of teachers
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refers to teacher training and content of knowledge (Rowan et al., 2002).
Researchers also recommend that increasing investments in teacher training was
positively related to improvement in student achievement (Darling-Hammond,
1999).
Both the former Superintendent and former Assistant Superintendent of
Educational Services had doctoral degrees in education and believed that training the
teachers in utilizing the research-based CITW strategies would improve quality of
instruction; thus, improve student learning. They divided the nine strategies into
three implementation phases. Each year, the District offered workshops to train
teachers in learning and using three CITW strategies. The trained teachers were
expected to return to their school site and teach the rest of teachers who did not
participate in the District training.
In order to improve student learning, the Los Coyote Hills District wanted all
teachers to implement the CITW strategies as a way to improve classroom
instruction. Beach High School was expected to adopt the reform efforts and
practice the reform strategies. Districts have been articulated as active agents of
change while schools can be agents of practice, reform, or resistance (Darling-
Hammond et. al., 2003). Collegiality is the ultimate result of a successful
collaboration between the district and the school.
The District change strategies included using the teacher-trainer model to
help all the teachers learn about the CITW strategies and implementing the CITW
strategies in all the classrooms. The district also provided CITW books and
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necessary classroom materials to support the CITW implementation in the
classrooms. In addition, the District mandated all school administrators to monitor
CITW implementation in the classrooms.
The interviewees at Beach High School agreed that the District workshops
offered them additional tools to deliver instruction, reflect on their own teaching, and
collaborate with other teachers. They were aware of CITW strategies, but they were
not aware that CITW strategies were the District design. A top-down approach
requires intensive communication. The District design was communicated through
various meetings; however, there were still lapses between the layers.
Studies have shown that teachers who have a positive perception of their
district culture, in turn enhanced their school culture. (Marsh, 2000) The results
from the field interviews and School Level Survey validated the theory. One
Hundred percent of respondents from the School Level Survey believed that the
District supported standard-based instruction and 97 percent of respondents agreed
that the District believed all students could meet high standards. Even though the
communication and the administration of teacher-trainer model had gaps, the
teachers at Beach High School were aware of CITW strategies and the fact that the
District and School leaders wanted them to implement the CITW strategies in the
classrooms regularly.
Throughout the interviews, the researcher was convinced that every
interviewee believed that the District’s highest priority was academic excellence.
They also agreed on the perception that the District would do whatever it took to
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improve student achievement. Even though the responses to the District design
varied considerably, there was no doubt that the goal of the District design was to
improve student learning.
In order to ensure that all teachers understand the District design and will
implement and sustain the District reform, a structured method of mandatory training
needs to be installed as part of the implementation efforts. In addition, the trainer
criteria needed to be addressed to ensure that the training being effective. The leaders
will need to have separate leadership training to monitor, reinforce, assess and
support the implementation.
Beach High School’s Effort in Implementing the District Design
The Principal of Beach High School thought the Single School Plan was the
District design and made every effort in following the Single School Plan, which laid
out many strategies to improve student achievement, including implementing the
CITW strategies. She saw herself as the cheerleader motivating the teachers to
implement the District reform strategies.
In order to reach the goals of increasing the number of students scoring at or
above proficiency level in English language, in mathematical problem solving and
computation skills, and passing the District writing examinations, the Principal of
Beach High School laid out the programs and funded the distribution in the Single
School Plan, which identified specific subgroups and found appropriate support to
improve results, such as adding a pilot ELD (English Language Development) 4
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class to help transition from ELD 3 to regular English class, adding supplemental
classes to support English learners and socio-economically disadvantaged students
performing far below basic and below basic levels, using funding for lunch time and
after school tutoring in core subject areas, adding a department chair to ELD to
coordinate department curriculum and support activities, continuously training
teachers in CITW strategies, offering instructional aides for additional support, and
having an open dialogue with the School Site Council in the implementation of
motivational strategies. All these action items including implementing CITW
strategies were to improve student learning and student achievement.
In order to improve test scores, the Principal of Beach High School made a
special effort to talk to every student and to motivate them to do their best in taking
the test. She also met with the school site councils to stress the importance of taking
the test seriously, since the whole school would be evaluated based on those results.
Michael Fullan (2000) has stated that effective schools use their internal
collaborative strength to seek out relationships within the community. They see
parents more as part of the solution than as part of the problem. They pursue
programs and activities that are based on two-way capacity building in order to
mobilize the resources of both the community and the school in the service of
learning. Similarly, the principal’s communications and building a relationship with
the community might have helped the school to achieve an impressive API
improvement.
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It was evident that the Principal, the leadership team members, the lead
teachers, and the teachers were all aware of the District’s determination in improving
student performance and their test scores. They liked the CITW strategies, but they
chose to implement multiple methods to achieve the goal of improving student
achievement. Implementing the CITW strategies was one of the methods used to
improve student learning. With many action items on the School site, the interview
data suggests that teachers were not always able to differentiate the District design
from individual school implementations, thus causing some confusion in the reform
efforts. In addition, with many programs being implemented at Beach High School,
it is difficult to attribute the impressive academic improvement to a single factor.
Successful leaders enhance the capacity of everyone involved in the
educational process and the organization, including site leaders, teacher leaders,
teachers, parents, and students. Leaders also prove that the reform is sustainable,
(Togneri, 2003), and that leadership is potentially a critical factor in deciding the
outcome of standard-based reform. (Elmore, 1999) The Principal of Beach High
School delegated many responsibilities to the Leadership Team Members and Lead
Teachers. The Leadership Team Members shared the responsibilities of visiting
classrooms and supporting the District design while the Lead Teachers were
expected to analyze data, coach teachers, facilitate the District design, and assign
teachers to attend District workshop. Additionally, the Principal made special
marketing efforts to reach out to the parents and students.
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Even though Beach High School followed the District’s demand in sending 30
teachers to attend the District workshops every year, it seems that the Principal of
Beach High School, being a new Principal in the beginning of the District reform,
was not comfortable in demanding teacher-trainer criteria to send these teacher-
trainers to attend the District workshops. She thought the Department Chairs knew
the teachers and school culture better and would do a better job in designating
District workshop attendance. Unfortunately, the Department Chairs sent new and
junior teachers instead of senior teachers to attend the District workshops because
the veteran teachers did not feel the need to attend District workshops. As a
consequence, the school site training was not as effective as the District training.
It appears that the Principal of Beach High School lacked an organized plan to
ensure that all teachers received timely and quality training. She empowered the
lead teachers to fulfill the District’s attendance requirement and the teachers to form
learning communities through random opportunities. However, this type of
leadership requires others to share the same vision, pledge to professionalism, and
behave in a collegial manner. (Sergiovanni, 1992) The Principal let the lead
teachers take the responsibilities before those lead teachers were able to develop the
same understanding of the vision, purpose, and the District design as the District.
The results would have been better if the lead teachers had the same
understanding of the vision as the District and sent senior and reputable teachers to
attend the District workshops and subsequently set aside time for these senior
teacher-trainers to host the school workshops for junior and new teachers so that all
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teachers had the opportunity to learn about the CITW strategies without the training
being random or by chance. The quality and attendance of the training would have
been enhanced. As the data continually revealed, teacher-trainer qualification and
personal time required for teacher to be trained remained consistent concerns
throughout the reform efforts.
The teachers were the ones that actually implemented the CITW strategies in
the classrooms. Their buy-in and training on the CITW were essential factors for the
partial successes of the District design. The District depended on the teachers to
deliver and implement the designs. There remains little doubt that teachers have an
invaluable role in determining the directions of reform in their schools as well as in
education in general. (Urbanski, 2001)
However, this research reveals a different approach. Los Coyotes District took
a top-down approach to demand that all schools in the District send teachers to
attend the District workshops, teach other teachers of the CITW strategies, and
implement the CITW strategies in all the classrooms. There were no teachers
involved in the creation of the District design. The teachers had opportunities to
provide input on how to implement the CITW strategies if they participated in the
workshops.
Even though the survey of teachers in spring of 2002 indicated that the
teachers were looking for innovative instructional strategies to improve their
teaching, the decision of implementing CITW strategies came directly from the
District office without involvement from the teachers or their support. There was no
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organized way to ensure that all teachers received quality training. Comparing
school workshops to District workshops, there was an apparent difference in the
quality and depth of the training. The District workshops were offered by the most
reputable teachers while the school workshops were offered by those that attended
the District workshops, and in most cases department chairs sent new and
inexperienced teachers to the District workshops, primarily for political reasons.
Their knowledge and capability of presenting the CITW strategies with practical
applications were limited by their years of teaching experiences. In addition, they
were only given two hours to present the workshops instead of two days as at the
District level.
In order to monitor the implementation of the District design, the four
administrators were required to visit each classroom on a weekly basis. They
divided the classrooms evenly for weekly observations and tallied the percentage of
CITW implementation and reported the monitoring results to the District. Even
though the teachers could not specify what the District design was and felt there was
no on-going support and feedback provided to them on their use of the CITW
strategies, they agreed that Beach School was supportive in implementing the CITW
strategies.
Although the teachers agreed that the Principal and Leadership Team Members
did walk around every week to visit classrooms, their assessment of these visits was
not the same as the administrators. The administrators felt that they had looked for
specific strategies being implemented in the classroom and provided useful feedback
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to the teachers while the teachers felt that the administrators spent a very short period
of time in the classroom and offered minimum feedback. This was due to lack of
leadership training. The leaders needed to know their precise roles, and learn ways
of supervising and supporting the teachers to ensure quality, accountability and
sustainability.
Beach High School took many well-intentioned actions to improve student
learning and test scores; however, they did not set aside time for the teachers to
formally learn the CITW strategies, to connect the strategies to the standards, and the
individual student’s learning styles, and to collaborate with other teachers. The
trained teachers were expected to find two to three teachers from the same
department and teach them the CITW strategies on their own time. There was no
follow up or monitoring to make sure that this happened and that every teacher at
Beach High School received adequate and proper CITW training. This explains why
41% of respondent disagreed that they had attended the professional development
training on the CITW strategies in the past 6 months. This also explains why 39% of
the respondents disagreed that they developed mastery of the CITW strategies, 35%
respondents disagreed that they knew a great deal about CITW, and that 28% of
respondents did not know if they would like to modify they way Beach High School
used the CITW strategies because they might not have attended the training nor
knew a great deal about CITW.
An interesting fact that emerges is that in spite of only partial attendance of
the workshops, most teachers strongly agreed that the School was supportive in
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implementing the CITW strategies and that they connected the CITW strategies to
the curriculum. Although the teachers felt the administrators’ classroom visit was
brief, they were aware that implementing CITW strategies was one of the items on
the classroom check up list and that the District and the administrators wanted the
teachers to implement the CITW strategies. They were also aware that they were
expected to teach the students based upon the standards utilizing the CITW
strategies.
Even though not all teachers received training, the respondents agreed that
training provided to them was useful and they enjoyed learning and implementing
the CITW strategies in spite of insufficient support and feedback.
Extent of Implementation of District Design at Beach High School
According to the School Level Survey, 82% of respondents agreed that they
connected the CITW strategies to the curriculum, which was consistent with the
interviews. While 82% of respondents agreed that they connected the CITW
strategies to the curriculum, only 72% of respondents agreed that they connected and
used the CITW strategies to teach students to the standards. The difference in the
responses is explained by the fact that not all teachers were teaching to the standards
or the teachers did not know how to connect CITW strategies to standards due to
lacking of proper training. This explains why the first check list on the
administrators’ walkabout was “posting the standards”. The District probably was
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aware that not all the teachers were teaching to the standards and they would like to
ensure that all teachers were teaching based upon the standards.
Question numbers 31, 32, and 33 of the School Level Survey results
indicated that the teachers were comfortable using the CITW strategies, that they
used the CITW strategies to improve their instruction. 70% of the respondents
agreed that using the CITW strategies had improved their teaching. Only 49 % of
respondents agreed that the CITW strategies were consistently used to improve
student learning while 28% of respondents disagreed and 23% respondents indicated
they did not know. This response was the same as the interview. Even though there
was a fair amount of implementation of CITW strategies, the respondents did not
believe that other teachers were fully committed to the implementation of CITW
strategies.
On question number 22 of School Level Survey, only 23% of respondents
somewhat agreed that all teachers were committed to the implementation of the
CITW strategies while 55% of respondents disagreed and 23% did not know. The
response was the same from interviews that all six teachers indicated they used
CITW in their classrooms, but they did not think others did. Similarly, 28% of
respondents indicated that they did not know if the CITW strategies were used by
other departments in the school. The results of question number 22, 23, 26, and 31
explains that the teachers were using the CITW strategies to improve their
instruction but not to the extent of using the CITW strategies consistently to improve
student learning. Even thought the teachers agreed that other departments were
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using the CITW strategies, they did not believe that all teachers were committed to
the implementation of CITW strategies.
The strength of the reform efforts was that it was fairly easy to comprehend
and implement and the teachers were the primary agents of implementation in spite
of their initial resistance. It is interesting to point out that even though the teachers
were implementing the CITW strategies and the administrators believed that their
walks around the classrooms confirmed that the teachers were using the CITW
strategies, the teachers themselves did not believe that other teachers were using the
strategies extensively.
In question number 30 of School Level Survey, only 35% of respondents
agreed that students were aware of and used the CITW strategies to improve their
academic achievement level while 43% disagreed and 23% did not know. The
analysis reveals that it did not matter if the students were aware of the purpose of the
CITW strategies so long as the CITW strategies were utilized by the teachers and
improved student learning.
The Innovation Configuration was used during interviews for the teachers to
self-report their level of implementation with each teaching strategy, such as Fully
Implemented (3), Partially Implemented (2), and Just Getting Started (1). The results
indicated that the teachers were regularly implementing the nine instructional
strategies in their classrooms with “Reinforcing Efforts & Providing Recognition”
being implemented the most. “Identifying Similarities & Differences”, “Homework
& Practice”, “Non-Linguistic Representation”, and “Cues, Questions & Advanced
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Organizers” were tied for the second highest rate of implementation. “Cooperative
Learning” and “Setting Objectives & Providing Feedback” were the third highest in
terms of implementation. Even “Summarizing and Note-taking” had a strong
response with regards to implementation. The results from “Generating & Testing
Hypotheses” were disappointing with three teachers just getting started, three
teachers partially implemented, and no teachers fully implementing the strategy.
With only six samples during interview, there was no real quantity of
representation in the above results. It appeared that the use of strategies was a matter
of personal preference. One teacher stated that the implementation of the
instructional strategies was inconsistent. Right after the training, the teachers tried to
implement the strategies immediately. Everyone was using the strategies they just
learned, but the usage went down with time, and ultimately was not consistent,
which was validated by question number 23 of the School Level Survey.
The results of Innovation Configuration suggest that the implementation of any
specific CITW strategies were due to how complicated each strategy was to
implement and the teacher’s personal preferences. It did not take much effort for the
teachers to praise students and provide them with recognition while guiding students
through generating and testing hypotheses required the teacher’s preparation to tap
into students’ higher thinking skills. The “Generating & Testing Hypotheses”
strategy was much more complicated to implement than “Reinforcing Effort &
Providing Recognition”.
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The Teacher Questionnaire was administered to the teachers at Beach High
School. It was intended to estimate the extent of the teacher’s knowledge of the
district design and the teacher’s comfort level with implementing the reform
strategies. The Stages of Concerns (SOC) model was developed by Hall et al., 1998
to assess an individual’s process of change during the adoption of innovations within
formal organizations.
The results from the Teacher Questionnaire indicated that the teachers had a
wide range of concerns. As a group, the teachers at Beach High School were mostly
concerned about having an operant knowledge of CITW strategies (Informational),
how these instructional strategies affected them personally (Personal), and what they
could do to collaborate with other teachers regarding the implementation of these
strategies (Collaboration). As individuals, they were concerned how the
implementation of CITW strategies would affect their students (Consequence). They
were highly concerned about the status, effect and impact of the CITW on them as
teachers (Personal). Since some teachers were trainers and some teachers were
trainees, they were concerned about the ways of helping and collaborating with other
teachers (Collaboration).
The Teacher Questionnaire also implied that the teachers were not too
concerned about the CITW strategies (Awareness), spending time to organize CITW
strategies (Management); nor were they concerned about revising the CITW
strategies (Refocusing). This could possibly be because of the fact that the teachers
were aware of the CITW strategies, the CITW strategies were simple to implement,
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and they had the freedom of utilizing the strategies in their own way; thus, their
concerns in this area became insignificance in comparison to other areas.
During the interviews, all the interviewees were aware of the CITW strategies
and made no comments about modifying the CITW strategies. However, many
interviewees expressed their concerns about time availability. The time availability
primarily involved attending workshops and collaboration with other teachers. The
District provided substitutes for the teacher-trainers to attend the District workshop;
however, there was no arrangement for the teacher-trainers to teach or collaborate
with other teachers at the school site. It could validate Schmoker’s theory that the
CITW strategies were a feasible plan that could be easily implemented; therefore, the
teachers’ concerns about time availability was not in the actual implementation of
the strategies, but the time needed to attend workshops, to teach other teachers,
aligning the CITW strategies with standards, and finding commonly available time to
collaborate with other teachers. They were not concerned about the time that would
be needed to implement CITW strategies as those strategies were easily implemented
in the classrooms.
Another way to analyze the Stage of Concerns data was to tally the number
of individuals that were high on each stage. This gave a clear picture of the range of
peak stage scores within the group. The results of the frequency of the Highest
Concerns Stage(s) for the individuals indicated that the teachers had a wide variety
of concerns with many different peaks. Some teachers even had three equal highest
scores with the same concern among three different stages. Based on this analysis,
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most teachers at Beach High School were concerned about how the implementation
of CITW would impact their students (Consequence), themselves (Personal), and
methods of collaboration with other teachers (Collaboration).
As explained earlier, those indicated concerns over how the implementation of
CITW strategies would affect their students (Consequence) responded more with
“Somewhat true of me” instead of “Very true of me”. This is why “Consequence”
was ranked number four in the respondents’ group raw score and ranked number one
in the individual respondent’s mean score. In addition, some teachers showed
having a limited knowledge of CITW strategies and their desire in learning more
about CITW strategies (Informational) was “very true of them” while many teachers
expressed concerns about the ways in which the CITW strategies would impact
students (Consequence) as “somewhat true of them”. This explains why
“Information” was the highest concern from the group raw score and “Consequence”
achieved the highest score from the individual count.
The individual mean score demonstrated the same results as the group’s raw
score in a way that the respondents were not too concerned about revising the CITW
strategies (Refocusing), efficiency, organizing, and scheduling the CITW strategies
(Management), and involvement in the CITW strategies (Awareness).
Both the group raw score and individual mean score from the Teacher
Questionnaire indicated that “Personal” and “Collaboration” were teachers’ major
concerns.
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The field interviews appeared to confirm the results that there was a wide
variety of perceptions, attitudes, and concerns about the District design. With the
teachers having all different experiences and background information about the
CITW strategies, it was not surprising that there were a few peaks of concerns. The
teachers who did not attend the District training might not be satisfied with School
training and wanted to learn more about the CITW strategies while the teachers who
attended the District training had a responsibility of training other teachers might
have more concerns regarding collaboration with other teachers. This also explains
the time availability concerns on both “Personal”, personal time commitment
required to learn about the CITW strategies, and “Collaboration”, finding commonly
available time among teachers to collaborate.
The Effectiveness of Implementation at the Beach High School
This research investigated the effectiveness of the District design and
implementation strategies from the participants’ point of view. There was a general
consensus from the interviews that the effectiveness of the district design was
evaluated by the students’ test scores and the effectiveness of the reform
implementation strategies was assessed by the respondents.
The Principal and Leadership Team Members were extremely pleased and
proud of their Academic Performance Index (API) improvement. Over the past two
years, they had a total increase of 82 points on the API. They firmly believe that
such a big jump cannot be random. They contributed the improvement to hard work
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by all the staff members involved, beginning with the district personnel who
designed and supported the reform, to the school site administrators who monitored
and reinforced the reform, to the classroom teachers who learned and implemented
the reform in their classroom on a daily basis. They felt that the nine instructional
strategies improved the teacher’s instructional abilities and resulted in better learning
for their students, and thus resulted in the achievement of better test scores.
Furthermore, Beach High School not only improved their school-wide API, but they
also made notable improvements within the racial/ethnic and socio-economically
disadvantaged subgroups.
However, the lead teachers and teachers had mixed feelings toward the
design. Most teachers being interviewed enjoyed learning the instructional strategies
and implementing them in the classrooms. Some felt the strategies were not
thoroughly presented to them while some others felt that they were implementing the
strategies anyway without the special district workshops. This was confirmed by
question number 35 of the School Level Survey. About half of the respondents
disagreed or did not know that their instructional delivery had changed by using the
CITW strategies. Some teachers felt the students were better motivated to learn
because the teachers praised them more and made learning more interesting for them.
Other teachers felt very disappointed that even though they tried very hard,
sometimes the students just did not care, nor did the parents. They believe that
student learning has to come from the students and their families.
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Barak Rosenshine conducted research on teacher effect to identify the
relationships between teacher behaviors and student achievement gains and
concluded that instructional behaviors were highly associated with student
achievement gain. (Rosenshine, 1996) Question numbers 31 and 34 of the School
Level Survey confirmed that the respondents agreed that they used the CITW
strategies to improve instruction and the CITW strategies were effective in
improving student learning. Furthermore, the responses from question 43 and 44 of
the School Level Survey suggested that the respondents agreed that CITW strategies
helped students to be successful and were feasible in improving teaching and
learning.
However, the results for questions number 40 and 41 were negative. For
question number 40, more respondents disagreed than agreed that on-going support
was provided at Beach High School on the CITW strategies with 16% responded
“Don’t Know”. As for question number 41, again more respondents disagreed than
agreed that feedback was provided to teachers on their use of the CITW strategies
with 16% of respondents indicated “Don’t Know”. Question numbers 42 and 44 of
the School Level Survey indicated that the respondents agreed the CITW strategies
were feasible in improving teaching and learning and was worth keeping.
If the goal of standard-based reform is to improve teaching and learning,
many elements need to be incorporated to ensure a successful reform: (1) strong
leadership to enhance the vision of reform; (2) active support of stakeholders who
share the same outlook as the leader; (3) allowing adequate time for the changes to
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occur; (4) adequate and systematic staff training; (5) allowing flexible strategies for
solving multiple problems; (6) redesigning the organizational structure as necessary
in order to implement reforms; (7) managing or relocating resources as needed to
conform to the reform objectives; (8) and on-going self-assessment to evaluate the
results. (Klein et. Al., 1996)
(1) Strong leadership to enhance the vision of reform: Los Coyote Hills High
School District had strong leadership that initiated and enhanced the
vision of improving student learning. The former Superintendent had the
vision of improving teaching to improve student achievement by
introducing the CITW strategies to be the district-wide reform. Even
though many people were not able to specify that CITW strategies were
the District design, they had no issues with the District’s vision in
improving student learning.
(2) Active support of stakeholders who share the same outlook as the leader:
It appears that the administrators and teachers at Beach High School
understand clearly that the leaders in the District believe that all students
can meet high standards and they want everyone to use the CITW
strategies. Whether the teachers share the same outlook or not, they
understand the District leader’s goal in district-wide implementing CITW
strategies to improve student learning.
(3) Allowing adequate time for the changes to occur: The plan was to take
three years to implement all nine strategies by introducing three strategies
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a year. It was a nice incremental implementation; however, there was no
adequate time allowed for teachers to train other teachers, to comprehend
CITW strategies, to plan lessons by implementing the CITW strategies, to
connect strategies to teaching standards, to reflect on lessons being
taught, to model other teachers, and to collaborate with other teachers.
(4) Adequate and systematic staff training: The training offered by the
District was adequate with an appropriate focus on applications and
hands-on interactions. The teacher-training-teacher was a good strategy,
but not implemented properly and systematically at Beach High School.
The quality of School training was inconsistent due to sending new
teachers for the District training. There was no leadership training for
principals, leadership team members, and lead teachers.
(5) Allowing flexible strategies for solving multiple problems: The CITW
strategies were research proven instructional strategies. The teachers had
complete freedom in applying different strategies in teaching lessons per
their personal preference and interpretations. The problem is that with
multiple levels of intelligence that is necessarily at play in any classroom,
not all students learn the same way and the precise relationship between
CITW strategies and student achievement was unknown.
(6) Redesigning the organizational structure is necessary in order to
implement reforms: With the reform at Los Coyotes Hills District, there
was no redesigning of the organizational structure. However, in the
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Beach High School Single School Plan, they added new classes and
created a chairperson for the ELD department. The redesigning of the
organizational structure indicated the chain of command and the
organization’s determination of changes. By adding the department chair
for the ELD and an ELD 4 class, Beach High School demonstrated their
determination in assisting the English learners.
(7) Managing or relocating resources as needed to conform to the reform
objectives: The Los Coyote Hills District spent $86,000 to implement the
reform by offering District workshops, substitutes, books, and
instructional materials. Its objective was to improve student learning.
Beach High School did not spend money to implement the CITW
strategies; however, it spent $530,000 to assist socio-economically
disadvantaged and English learners to shorten the achievement gap. The
money was spent to achieve the four goals in the Single School Plan. The
resource distribution also explained the District’s determination in
implementing the CITW strategies and the School’s priorities in
improving the achievement test scores, especially toward the socio-
economically disadvantaged students and English learners.
(8) An on-going self-assessment to evaluate the results: The Los Coyote Hills
District did not ask the teachers to engage in a self-assessment to evaluate
the results. It asked the administrators to walk around the classrooms to
check the implementation of CITW strategies and reported these findings
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to the District as a monitoring device indicating implementation from the
School. In addition, the teachers did not feel that there was adequate
feedback from the administrators. The tally of CITW implementation
was more a quantity count for the District and not the quality count for
the individual’s benefit. There was no formal assessment that required
the teachers to be accountable in implementing the CITW strategies.
In the much studied San Diego City School Reform, which has generally
been considered to be successful, the staff development contained leadership
training, workshops, on-site coaching, modeling, literacy instruction, and other
subject areas. In order to improve the Los Coyote Hills High School District reform
at the Beach High School site, it is suggested that they offer leadership training,
valuable on-site coaching by reputable and experienced teachers, and meaningful
monitoring and providing feedback by the administrators.
Research also suggests that it is much more challenging to transform the
quality of teaching and learning in high schools than hitherto imagined. (Darling-
Hammond et. al., 2003). In spite of unclear communication, inconsistent training,
and insufficient feed back and on-going support, Beach High School achieved fair
amount of CITW strategies implementation. Furthermore, the respondents agreed
that CITW strategies were effective in improving student learning and worth
keeping. The vision and efforts of Los Coyotes Hills District and Beach High School
need to be commended.
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Summary
This chapter provides a review of the research findings, analysis, and
interpretation of data. Data provided answers to each of the four research questions.
The discussion included the district’s design for improving teaching and learning, the
district’s strategies for change, and the intended outcomes for improvement. This
chapter also included the site level plan for implementing the district’s design, the
support and the resources offered to effectively implement the design. The
discussion consisted of the extent of implementation at the site level, the teachers’
concerns, and the effectiveness of the innovation. A summary, conclusions, and
implications of this study are presented in the next chapter.
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CHAPTER 5
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS and IMPLICATIONS
Summary of Background
Children are a critically important part of our future. If America wants to
maintain its place of influence in the world, American school children and young
adults need to remain competitive with students in other industrialized countries.
Contemporary attempts at educational reform—including those by the federal
government, state governments, school districts and administrators, teachers, parents
and the students themselves—have focused on enhancing a teacher’s skills in the
classroom, as a way to improve instruction. Research would seem to indicate,
almost conclusively, that quality instruction yields higher levels of student
achievement. The teacher is now expected to ensure the student’s academic
achievement, through an adherence to curricular standards and the maintenance of a
powerful learning environment, and to see that such progress was concurrent with
the district’s established goals (LaRue, 1996).
With the 1999 Public Schools Accountability Act in California and the 2001
No Child Left Behind Act in the nation, the school districts have come to play a
crucial role in instructional improvement. Since districts can utilize resources,
personnel, and finances to train and support instructional leaders at the school site to
create a systematic approach to instructional reform, both the government agencies
and stakeholders have come to expect this.
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Some districts have implemented district-wide reform to improve
instructional strategies and student learning while other districts are just beginning to
look at various approaches to improve student achievement. More needs to be
learned about the district designs for enhancing teaching and learning, the extent of
the implementation, and the effectiveness of the design and implementation in the
classrooms.
Purpose of Study
This study investigates the educational reforms that were enacted towards
improving teaching and learning in one high school district, the school’s efforts
within the district to facilitate and modify this reform, and this study also documents
the actual implementation of the reform design at the school, and classroom levels as
well as the effectiveness of the reform design and implementation strategies from the
perceptions of the school administrators and teachers. Four research questions
defined the problems and guided the research of the studies. These four research
questions were:
5. What was the district design for improving teaching and learning?
6. What school level efforts facilitated the implementation of the district’s
design?
7. To what extent was the district’s design implemented at the school and
classroom levels?
8. How effective were the design and implementation strategies at the school and
classroom levels?
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Methodology
A case study method was selected as the most appropriate way to analyze the
effectiveness of one high school district’s design in improving teaching and learning.
This research intended to utilize both qualitative and quantitative methods to
triangulate the validity of the data.
The qualitative aspects of the research were used to explore in-depth
experiences and viewpoints of the respondents. Personal interviews were
administered with the Principal, Leadership Team Members, Lead Teachers, and
Classroom Teachers to address their personal experiences with the District’s design,
their understanding of the School level efforts, extent of implementation, and the
effectiveness of the design implementation. Documents from the District and the
School were reviewed to enhance the validity of the information collection.
A quantitative research method was used to ensure proper representation of the
sample and population. The quantitative aspect of the research included
instrumentations that enabled the study such as a School Level Survey, Teacher
Questionnaire, and Innovation Configuration to understand the respondents’
perception of the District design, the School’s efforts in implementing the design, the
effectiveness of the design and implementation strategies, the teachers’ concerns in
implementing the design, and especially implementation at the classroom level of the
district design.
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Sample
Purposeful sampling was used in selecting the district and school to obtain a
comprehensive understanding of their district-wide instructional improvement
efforts. The selection criteria for the district included one that was medium sized,
serving 10,000 to 60,000 students, with a diverse population in terms of ethnicity and
socioeconomic status. The sample school had to meet or exceed its API targets for
two out of three years and had to have had the same principal for at least two years
while the API targets were met. Purposeful sampling was utilized to select the
Leadership Team Members and Lead Teachers to gain critical information for the
research. Strategic random sampling was utilized to select Classroom Teachers to
include various content areas.
The instrumentations for this study was developed by the sixteen doctoral
candidates at the University of Southern California’s School of Education during the
summer of 2004 and are included in the appendices of this dissertation. Research
data was collected during November and December of 2004.
Data Collection
The Case Study Guide provided the general and specific instructions for the
data collection procedures. The Data Collection Chart indicated the instruments
used to collect data for each of the four research questions, while the Data Collection
Schedule provided the guidelines of the phases, locations, timelines, and the overall
plan for the data collection.
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Conceptual Frameworks A, B, C, and D listed questions that guided the
research to specifically address each of the four research questions which were the
foundations for this study. Similarly, four interview guides were used to conduct the
interviews which were a critical part of this study, and the interview guides also
aligned the interview questions with the research questions.
Additional documents that guided the data collection procedures were the
Innovation Configuration, which provided the rubric to determine the extent of the
implementation of the district design. The School Level Survey tallied the
certificated employees’ demographic information and their perception of the 44
questions that were related to the four research questions. Correspondingly, the
Teacher Questionnaire was used to understand the classroom teachers’ Stages of
Concern in implementing the reform.
Finally, the Document Review Guide was used to organize the District and the
School documents that were examined, and ultimately aligned with the research
questions.
Summary of Findings
Findings based upon each of the four research questions were revealed
through examination of the collected data in this study. These findings are
summarized below:
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Research Question One
“What was the district design for improving teaching and learning?”
The first research question was guided by Conceptual Framework A
(Appendix C), which analyzed the key elements and the fundamental strategy of the
district design. Interviews, the School Level Survey, and district documents were the
primary sources of data collection.
The initial design was implemented about three years ago. It was a top-down
approach coming from the district level demanding that the schools and classrooms
implement the design. The critical aspect of the district design was that it was based
on Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock’s Classroom Instruction That Works.
The fundamental principle of the design was to use research-based
instructional strategies to improve instruction, and thus, it was theorized, improve
student achievement. The district design was premised on the belief that highly
effective teachers use highly efficient teaching strategies to produce student
achievement. The District divided the nine research-based strategies from
Classroom Instruction that Works, into an extended three-year program that would
enable the teachers to incorporate the instructional strategies for improving student
achievement into their pedagogical practices.
Thirty teachers from each school site were expected to attend the District
workshops every year. These 30 District-trained teachers, in turn, became trainers at
their own school site to train other teachers about the instructional strategies they had
learned from the District workshops. The district did not specify the criteria or
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qualifications of these teacher-trainers, and as evidence by the research data, this
lack of specific criteria became a problem when these teacher-trainers happened to
be new or junior teachers, lacking the experience of their more senior colleagues.
The District provided CITW books to the administrators and lead teachers.
According to the former Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services, the CITW
books were well written and easy to comprehend. During the District workshops, the
District also offered classroom instruction materials that supported the CITW
strategies implementation to the teacher-trainers.
In addition, the District expected the school administrators to visit the
classrooms weekly to monitor the implementation of the CITW strategies in the
classrooms and to report the implementation results to the district monthly.
However, there was no leadership training offered to the administrators to assess the
proper and meaningful implementation of the CITW strategies as well as offer
valuable support and feedback to the teachers. The tally report, which the
administrators were required to fill out, was more of a quantity formality and did not
really provide quality information to the district on the ways that the CITW
implementation could be improved at the school and classroom levels.
The District’s commitment to improving student achievement was reflected
in the participants’ belief that the district firmly supports standard-based instruction
and believes that all students can meet the high standards. The participants
responded favorably about the district’s commitment to student learning, regardless
of the individual and specific ways in which they may have understood the District’s
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design. In spite of the various ways that the district design at all levels may have
been perceived and understood, all participants were aware of the CITW strategies
and very aware that the district and the school wanted them to implement the CITW
strategies in their classrooms regularly.
The Principal and one leadership team member thought the Single School
Plan was the district design and CITW was a part of the Single School Plan. The
four Lead Teachers, at the school site, perceived the District design as being broad-
based including a variety of components such as standards-based instruction,
technology implementation, data analysis, teacher effectiveness, parent
communication, professional learning community, as well as the CITW strategies.
Even though many teachers were not aware that CITW strategies were
specifically the district design, they had heard about the CITW strategies and were
comfortable implementing them in the classrooms. During the interviews that were
part of this study, the teachers had difficulty answering open ended questions when
specifically asked if they could articulate what was the district design for improving
teaching and learning. However, once the researcher brought up the CITW strategies,
the teachers responded that they understood what they were and were also
comfortable explaining aspects of the CITW strategies that they had implemented in
their classrooms.
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Research Question Two
“What school level efforts facilitated the implementation of the district’s
design?”
The second research question was guided by Conceptual Framework B
(Appendix D), which concerned the school level plans and support that facilitated the
implementation of the District’s design, the communication of the district design,
and the professional development offered at the school site. Interviews, the School
Level Survey, and district document were the primary source for data collection for
this question.
Beach High School followed the District’s request and sent 30 teachers to
attend the District’s workshop every year for the past three years. Since the district
had not established any specific criteria for these 30 teacher-trainers, and the veteran
teachers at the school felt that they really did not need to attend the District
workshops, Beach High School wound up sending 30 new or junior teachers to
attend the District’s workshop to fulfill the District’s requirement.
Beach High School also followed the district requirement in asking the
teacher-trainers to train other teachers at the school site. During the first year of
CITW implementation, the District trained teachers taught the entire staff during a
staff development day at the School site. However, the District training (for the
teacher trainers) was two whole days, while the School site training was only two
hours. Some of the participants interviewed by the researcher expressed the concern
that there was not enough time spent during the two-hour School site training to
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explore the strategies with any depth and master the practical application aspect of
the strategies. Additionally, the teacher trainers at Beach High School were new or
inexperienced teachers who had insufficient depth of experience to appropriately
function as teacher trainers. This created an additional difficulty for these
inexperienced teachers to be the teacher-trainers to teach other teachers. During the
second and third year of the implementation process, there was no formal
arrangement for the District trained teachers to train other teachers at the School site.
For the second year, the district trained teachers were asked to train two to three
teachers, who were picked randomly, and at their convenience. For the third year,
the district trained teachers were expected to train other teachers within the same
department. There was no time set aside for the training to happen. The teachers
were expected to find time to train others or to be trained at the school site.
The respondents agreed that the school was supportive in implementing the
CITW strategies and the teacher training was provided in a timely manner. Even
though not all teachers received CITW strategies training, they agreed that training
provided to them at the school site was useful in helping them to understand the
CITW strategies and methods of implementation. During interviews with the
researcher, some respondents indicated that the CITW strategies were easy to
comprehend and to implement in the classrooms with or without training while other
respondents expressed sincere appreciation of receiving training on CITW strategies
implementation. Based upon School Level Survey, 65% of respondents agreed that
the training provided to teachers on the CITW strategies was useful.
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To comply with the District’s request, the Principal and the leadership team
members visited classrooms weekly, checking to see if the CITW strategies were
used in the classroom, and sent the tally sheet to the District office monthly.
However, with regards to these classroom visits to monitor for the implementation of
CITW strategies, there was no special administrator or leadership training offered by
the district. The administrators received the same training and the same CITW
strategies books as teachers. Furthermore, the monthly tally report was designed to
be quantitative in its intent and not qualitative.
Research Question Three
“To what extent was the district’s design implemented at the school and
classroom level?”
The third research question was guided by Conceptual Framework C
(Appendix E), which examined the extent to which the District design was
implemented at the school and classroom levels and as to why the district design was
not fully implemented. Teacher interviews, School Level Survey, Teacher
Questionnaire (Stages of Concern), and district documents were the primary sources
for the data collection.
The data collected from both the qualitative and quantitative methods in this
study indicated that the CITW strategies were being implemented in the classrooms
on a regular basis.
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The School Level Survey indicated that the respondents agreed that they had
connected the CITW strategies to the curriculum and standards, that they were
comfortable using the CITW strategies in the classrooms, that they used the CITW
strategies to improve their instruction, and that using the CITW strategies had
improved their teaching. However, the respondents also disagreed that all the
teachers were committed to the implementation of the CITW strategies. Even
though the teachers were implementing the CITW strategies in the classrooms, there
was widespread belief that not everyone was doing so.
The results from the Innovation Configuration indicated that the teachers
were actively implementing the nine instructional strategies in their classrooms with
“Reinforcing Efforts & Providing Recognition” being implemented the most with
five responses indicating “fully implemented”, one response stating “partially
implemented”, and no responses that stated “just getting started”. The data also
indicated that “Generating & Testing Hypotheses” strategy was being implemented
the least, with no responses stating “fully implemented”, three indicating “partially
implemented” as well as “just getting started”.
The results from the Innovation Configuration indicated that the CITW
strategies were being actively implemented in the classrooms. It was up to the
teachers to decide which strategy they wanted to implement in their own classrooms.
The responses to the Teacher Questionnaire were used as indications of concerns or
hesitations with regards to implementing the strategies in their classrooms.
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With the responses to the Teacher Questionnaire from all 53 participants, both
the group raw score and the individual mean score indicated similar results for the
“Stage of Concern” -- why individual teachers might not have been fully
implementing the CITW strategies. Based on the Stage of Concern analysis, most
teachers at Beach High School were concerned about how the implementation of
CITW strategies would impact them, their roles, and the required personal time
commitment (Personal), the methods of collaboration with other teachers and the
common time required to collaborate (Collaboration), how they could gain more
knowledge about CITW strategies (Informational), and how the implementation of
CITW strategies would affect their students and student learning (Consequence).
The field interviews seemed to confirm the results that there was a wide variety of
perceptions, attitudes, and concerns about the District designs.
The Stage of Concern analysis also indicated that the respondents were not too
concerned about the actual implementation of the CITW strategies (Awareness) in
their classrooms, how to use the CITW strategies efficiently (Management), and
exploring methods of changing the CITW strategies (Refocusing). This was
validated by the School Level Survey that the respondents were comfortable using
the CITW strategies and only less than half of respondents agreed that they would
like to modify the way Beach High School used the CITW strategies.
Even though during interviews time availability was a common concern shared
by many interviewees, “Management” achieved the second lowest level of concern
from the Teacher Questionnaire. Since most teachers were comfortable using the
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CITW strategies and connecting the CITW strategies to the curriculum, their time
availability concerns, based on the collected data, specifically referred to the
personal time required to attend the workshops and find commonly available time to
collaborate with other teachers.
Research Question Four
“How effective were the design and implementation strategies at the school
and classroom levels?”
Research question four was guided by Conceptual Framework D (Appendix
F), which focused on the effectiveness of the district’s design and implementation
strategies from the perceptions of the participants. Interviews, School Level Survey,
and district documents were the primary resources of data for this question.
The respondents favored the CITW strategies. They agreed that the CITW
strategies were effective in improving student learning, that using the CITW
strategies improved their teaching, and that the CITW strategies were worth keeping.
There was general consensus among the participants that the district design was
effective due to the drastically improved test scores. Over the past two years, Beach
High School gained 82 points on the Academic Performance Index (API); this was
almost five times the initial target growth of 17.
The administrators felt that the nine instructional strategies had improved the
teachers’ classroom instruction and resulted in students’ learning more effectively
and hence the better test scores. They stated that they had observed the classrooms
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on a weekly basis and saw evidence of the strategies being used often. They paid
special attention to look for implementation of the strategies.
The administrators continued to believe that the reform strategies will be
sustained due to their proven success, as evidence by the test scores. The
administrators felt that if the teachers believed that the instructional strategies had
indeed improved student learning, they would continue to implement the strategies.
During the interviews, the teachers had mixed feelings toward the district
design. Some felt that the CITW strategies improved student learning while others
did not see any difference. Most teachers being interviewed enjoyed learning the
instructional strategies and implementing them in the classrooms. Some teachers felt
that the students were better motivated to learn because the teachers complimented
them more and made learning more interesting for them while other teachers felt the
strategies were not thoroughly presented to them and they were implementing the
strategies anyway without the special District workshops.
The quantitative analysis from the School Level Survey indicated that a large
majority of the respondents agreed that the CITW strategies were effective in
improving student learning, and that the CITW strategies were worth keeping.
About two-thirds of the respondents agreed that the training provided to teachers on
the CITW strategies was useful. However, only about half of the respondents agreed
that their instructional delivery had changed by using the CITW strategies, and that
the CITW strategies had increased their students’ motivation in learning.
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The perspective between administrators and teachers were contradictory
regarding feedback and support. The administrators felt there was feedback and
support given to the teachers, but the teachers perceived that there was no on-going
support and no feedback was provided to them on their use of the CITW strategies.
This was also consistent with teacher interviews which revealed that the
administrators’ hearts were in the right place, but they were too busy to follow up or
provide useful feedback.
In spite of complains from the respondents regarding insufficient support and
feedback from the administrators, the respondents believed that the CITW strategies
were effective in improving student learning, and teacher teaching, and were worth
keeping.
The district implementation strategies were not administered strongly,
including no specific criteria for teacher-trainers, no sufficient time was set aside for
school site training, very little support was available for teacher-trainers, no
leadership training was provided, not every teacher was trained, and the support from
the administrators was deemed insufficient. However, in spite of the above
challenges in the district reform design change process, this research data indicated
that the actual reform design was implemented to a large extent.
Conclusions
Eleven conclusions were drawn from the research and were organized into two
sections. The first six were positive conclusions to show what had been successful:
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District leaders initiated a district-wide reform to implement the research
based CITW strategies in all the classrooms based upon the belief that
effective teaching creates better learning.
The district planned to utilize teachers as teacher-trainers and provided
district workshops for these teacher-trainers to learn about the CITW
strategies. These teacher-trainers were expected to return to their own
school site to instruct other teachers.
The district provided CITW books to the administrators and classroom
instructional materials to the teachers to support the district-wide
implementation of the CITW strategies.
The administrators were required by the district to visit classrooms weekly to
monitor the CITW strategies implementation and to report the
quantitative implementation results to the district.
The teachers at Beach High School understood that the district’s ultimate
educational goal was to improve student learning. They believed that the
leaders at the Los Coyote Hills High School District cared about student
learning and wanted all students to meet high expectations.
The teachers at Beach High School were aware that the district and the school
leaders wanted them to implement the CITW strategies in the classrooms
and most of them did implement the CITW strategies.
The next five conclusions indicated the aspects of the implementation that did not
prove effective:
211
1) The implementation of the CITW strategies was not executed in a strong
manner. Teacher-trainer selection criteria were not defined. Beach High
School sent new and junior teachers to the District’s workshops to learn
the CITW strategies; however, it is difficult to expect these new or junior
teachers to be effective teacher-trainers at the school site.
2) The teacher training quality was inconsistent. Some teachers received the
district training, some received the school site training from the
inexperienced teacher-trainers, and some received no training at all.
3) The teacher-trainers had little assistance from the school to offer quality
instruction to other teachers. They were only given two hours to teach
the CITW strategies in the first year and there was no time or resource
allocation for them for the second and third year. These teacher-trainers
had to find time and people to teach.
4) There was no leadership training provided for the school administrators to
further understand their responsibilities and develop their leadership skills
in effectively monitoring, assessing, and supporting the teachers and their
CITW strategies implementation. The Los Coyote Hills High School
District did not provide leadership training for the administrators and lead
teachers to gain knowledge of the leadership skills. The teachers at
Beach High School perceived that there was inadequate on-going support
and feedback.
212
5) The administrators’ weekly visits were only to verify and report the
quantity as to how many teachers or percentage of teachers were
implementing the CITW strategies. There was no report on how effective
the instructional strategies were implemented in the classrooms.
Implications and Recommendations
The findings and conclusions found in this study led to the following
implications:
Board of Trustees and District Administrators:
1. Provide adequate professional development and learning resources to
all teachers to create results and sustain the change. Professional
development should include not only teacher training, but also
leadership training. The leadership training should focus on methods
of effective assessment and meaningful on-going support.
2. Establish a meaningful monitoring system to ensure that the
administrators are monitoring both quality and quantity of the design
implementation and the classroom teachers are held accountable to
implement the district reform design.
Site Administrators:
1. Site administrators need to support on-site training by providing
quality training and allocating training time. The district depends on
the site administrators to provide and supervise quality training. In
213
order for the teachers to receive training, the site administrators need
to allocate time for the teachers to receive proper training.
2. Principals need to define teacher-trainer qualifications more exactly,
to ensure these trainers have the knowledge, experience, and expertise
in training other teachers in implementing the district’s design.
3. Administrators should make an effort to provide feedback and support
to the teachers to validate their implementation efforts.
Teachers:
Lead teachers must recognize their crucial roles in being the connection
between school administrators and teachers and support both
administrators and teachers in providing mutual and productive
feedback.
Teachers must take the initiative in helping colleagues to understand the
district reform strategies and implement the reform strategies in the
classrooms to make the reform work.
Recommendations for Future Research
Based upon the conclusion and analysis, further research is recommended as follows:
1. It would be advisable to research the effectiveness of a district-wide
instructional improvement and its relationship to student achievement.
2. While the participants were very positive about these reform strategies, it
would be interesting to go back to the same school a few years later to see if
214
the participants still favor the reform and have continued to practice the
reform initiatives.
3. It would be interesting to study different schools within the same district to
discover the reasons that promote positive outcomes of site efforts.
4. Many reform efforts have used the “top-down” approach while others have
utilized the “bottom-up” method. Different approaches require different
cultures and elements to be successful. It would be important to discover the
cultures and elements that are required for the “top-down” or the “bottom-up”
approaches to be successful and to make a comparison between both
approaches as to which is more effective.
5. Duplicating this study in three to five years would show if the instructional
strategies were effective for more than three years and if the level of growth
is sustained.
6. It would be helpful to investigate the extent of implementation and
effectiveness of the design within a district that provides systemic
professional development to the site administrators and school teachers and
the effect of leadership training.
215
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Appendix A
Case Study Guide
The purpose of the Case Study Guide is to provide general and specific directions to
the researchers for collecting data according to the methodologies presented in
Chapter 3 and for presenting data as part of the findings in Chapter 4. The case
study guide is in accordance with the conceptual frameworks of this study, which
describes the examination of the design and implementation of district-led reform
efforts at the site and classroom levels.
When collecting data, the conceptual frameworks and the guiding questions found
therein should serve as the focus both when conducting formal interviews and while
administering surveys at the site and classroom level. It is not needed to ask each of
the guiding questions during any given interview, but rather use the guiding
questions and conceptual frameworks to be certain of getting the pertinent
information as specified in the data collection chart.
This case study should be included as a major part of Chapter 3 of the dissertation.
The headings and questions from the conceptual frameworks may serve as a guide
for data collection and presentation of findings.
227
Data Collection Chart
Data Collection
Instruments
RQ 1:
District
Design
RQ 2:
School
Level
Effort
RQ 3:
Extent of
Implementation
RQ 4:
Effectiveness of
Implementation
Principal
Interview Guide
X X X
Leadership
Team Member
Interview Guide
X X X
Lead Teacher
Interview Guide
X X X
Teacher
Interview Guide
X X X X
Innovation
Configuration
(self-report)
X
School Level
Survey
X X X X
Teacher
Questionnaire
(SOC)
X
Case Study Guide Components
Document
Review Guide
X X X X
228
Instrumentation Tools
Staff Interviews
Formal interviews will be conducted with the site principal, leadership team
members, lead teachers, and classroom teachers. For each interview, the researcher
will obtain relevant background information about the participant. The research will
include the participant’s title, years of experience, and years at current site.
Researchers will use a corresponding Interview Guide to ensure that the interview
questions are aligned with the research questions. Interviews will be conducted
according to the model as developed in EDPA 612, Qualitative Methods in
Educational Research.
Innovation Configuration
At the close of each teacher interview, the researcher will ask the participant
to self-report his/her individual extent of implementation of the district’s design on a
chart called an innovation configuration. The Innovation Configuration is essentially
an implementation rubric specific to the district’s design which outlines three levels
of implementation; fully implemented, partially implemented, and just getting
started. The Innovation Configuration will enable the researcher to determine the
extent of classroom implementation of each element of the district’s design.
Surveys
229
All certificated personnel will be asked to complete the School Level Survey. The
School Level Survey includes a brief introduction, directions for completing the
survey, an assurance of anonymity, ten demographic data questions and forty-five
survey questions. The School Level Survey is intended to measure the degree of
awareness about the district design for improving teaching and learning. The survey
questions focus on participants’ perceptions about the district’s design &
implementation strategies, school level efforts in implementing the design, the extent
of implementation, and the effectiveness of the implementation.
Teachers will be asked to complete a second survey called the Teacher
Questionnaire. The Teacher Questionnaire is a thirty-six item questionnaire based
on the Stages of Concern. This questionnaire is intended to show teachers’
knowledge about the district design and comfort level with implementing reform
strategies. The Stages of Concern Teacher Questionnaire will also reveal teachers’
extent of implementation.
Document Review Guide
The document review guide will be used to align district documents to the
research questions developed in the study, addressing design, factors supporting
design, extent of implementation and effectiveness of design and implementation.
The Review Guide is essentially an organization tool, which will enable the
researcher to remain focused on the research questions and maintain documents in an
organized fashion.
230
Appendix B
Data Collection Schedule
Phase I: Document Analysis [Initial & Ongoing]
Location: Off-site [internet research & information retrieved from district level
group]
Timeline: Before the first day of interviews and ongoing throughout each phase
of data collection.
The researcher will begin by retrieving and analyzing pertinent information
about the district such as district and school student demographic data (SES status,
ethnicity, language proficiency) and staff data (number of fully credentialed
teachers). This will enable the researcher to obtain a holistic view of the context
being studied. In order to have a comprehensive understanding of the district’s
design for improving teaching and learning, the researcher will study official district
documents describing reform efforts. The Document Review Guide will be utilized
to ensure the information obtained addresses the research questions.
After the initial document analysis, the researcher will contact the principal
of the school to determine the logistics for conducting interviews and administering
surveys. The researcher will also provide the principal with copies of all of the
instruments being used for the study. At this time the researcher will also ask the
principal to identify two leadership team members and four lead teachers who can be
interviewed by the researcher.
Phase II: Conducting the First Round of Interviews
Location: On-site
Timeline: Approximately 7 Hours (1 – 2 days at the school site)
The researcher will conduct approximately seven one-hour interviews:
1 Principal
2 Leadership Team Members (assistant principals, if applicable)
4 Lead Teachers (possibly instructional coaches or department chairs)
231
The researcher will begin by interviewing the principal. The researcher will
then conduct six more interviews (2 -leadership team members & 4 - lead teachers).
The number of interviews may change based on the size and configuration of the
school being studied. The participants of this round of interviews will be
purposefully selected by the principal. Purposeful sampling will be used to ensure
that the participants are directly involved with the site-level implementation of the
district’s design for improving teaching and learning. In preparing to conduct the
interviews, the researcher will study Conceptual Frameworks A, B, & D. During the
interviews the researcher will use the Principal Interview Guide, the Leadership
Team Member Guide and the Lead Teacher Guide, which outline key areas of focus
directly aligned with the research questions.
232
Phase III: Administering Surveys
Location: On-site
Timeline: Distribution and collection – 1 hour, the researcher will administer
two surveys:
School Level Survey – 44 items (administered to all certificated staff)
Teacher Questionnaire – 36 items (administered to teachers only)
The researcher will distribute the surveys through staff mailboxes. All
certificated personnel will receive the appropriate survey(s) along with a cover letter,
briefly describing the study and outlining directions for completing and returning the
surveys, and an envelope for returning the survey(s). The researcher intends to
address the school staff, during a faculty meeting in which the researcher will
introduce himself or herself, describe the study, assure confidentiality and
anonymity, and outline the directions for completing and returning the surveys.
Participants will be given a three day window in which to complete and return the
surveys.
Survey collection procedure may include either a self addressed stamped
envelope to be mailed to the researcher or a collection box in the main office.
Survey envelopes will be pre-numbered to ensure accurate record of the response
rate while maintaining anonymity. After the survey deadline, the researcher will
determine which surveys were not returned and send out friendly reminders. The
researcher will repeat this process until he or she obtains at least a 70% response
rate. The researcher will work directly with the principal or administrative designee
to further develop the logistics of administering the surveys.
Phase IV: Interviews (Principal & teachers) & Innovation Configuration
Location: On-site
Timeline: Approximately 7 Hours (1 – 2 days at the school site)
The researcher will conduct seven more interviews:
1 Principal
6 Teachers
233
The researcher will begin this second round of interviews by interviewing six
classroom teachers. The participants of the teacher interviews will be randomly
selected within the predetermined criteria range to ensure a representative sample.
The interviews will take place during the school day. The researcher will also work
with the principal or administrative designee to develop the logistics for the 2
nd
round of interviews. In preparing for the teacher interviews, the researcher will use
Conceptual Frameworks A,B, C and D. During the teacher interviews the researcher
will use the Teacher Interview Guide to focus the discussion on all four research
questions. At the conclusion of the interview, the researcher will ask each teacher to
self-report his/her extent of implementation on the innovation configuration.
The researcher will also conduct a second interview of the school principal to
ask any questions that weren’t addressed during the first three stages of the data
collection. The principal will also be given an opportunity to provide any final
thoughts.
234
Appendix C
Conceptual Framework A
The district’s design for improving teaching and learning
What is the district’s design for improving teaching and learning?
o What elements are included in the design?
o What is the fundamental pedagogy of the design?
o Does the design include strategies and programs to be used?
o How detailed or prescriptive is the design?
o Does the design take into account subgroup accountability and
closing the achievement gap?
What is the district’s change strategy?
o incremental or major changes
o anchoring reform design to traditional structure or restructuring
district office
o top down approach – collaborative approach
How was the design communicated to the staff, parents, students, and the
public?
o How much detail of the plan was communicated?
o How were the changed policies and strategies actually
disseminated?
How does the district define standards-based instruction?
o How does the district define quality instruction?
o How do district policies coherently support this vision of quality
teaching?
What are the intended outcomes of the instructional improvement?
o What benchmarks demonstrate realization of these outcomes?
o What mechanisms are built into the design to provide feedback on
progress towards goals?
Instruments Aligned to Conceptual Framework A:
Principal Interview Guide
Leadership Team Member Interview Guide
Lead Teacher Interview Guide
Teacher Interview Guide
School Level Survey
235
Document Review Guide
236
Appendix D
Conceptual Framework B
School level efforts to facilitate the implementation of the district’s design
What was the site level plan for implementing the district’s design?
o What choices were made at the district level?
o What decisions were the schools allowed to make?
o Who was involved in implementing the reform efforts (one person or
team approach)
o How was the staff involved?
o What was the level of community and parent involvement?
What site level resources were needed to effectively implement the
reform design?
o Human resources / Fiscal resources / Physical resources
How was the reform design communicated to staff members?
o Were structures developed to facilitate communication of
information?
Formal or informal?
Horizontally or Vertically?
Site-based or District-level?
o How did teachers learn about the reform?
How was the importance of the reform communicated? By
whom?
Did the district foster a shared understanding of goals?
What kind of professional development did the staff receive?
o How has professional development impacted the design?
Content? Opportunities? Delivery? Concepts of Teacher as
Learner?
o Who is involved with providing professional development?
Is professional development general or content specific?
How is professional development funded?
What kind of support is offered to staff members?
o What type of support do you provide for experienced and new
teachers?
o How was data used to signal capacity issues?
237
Instruments Aligned to Conceptual Framework B:
Principal Interview Guide, Leadership Team Member Interview Guide, Lead
Teacher Interview Guide, Teacher Interview Guide, School Level Survey, Document
Review Guide
238
Appendix E
Conceptual Framework C
Extent of implementation of the district’s design
How are the design and strategies monitored for extent of
implementation?
How does the site leadership team obtain feedback from all departments?
What data are generated?
o Where is the data stored?
o What is done with the data?
Is this information reported to the district?
Are the results communicated to the teachers? How?
Is the information disaggregated?
o What decisions are made based upon this information?
How much of the change has permeated throughout the school?
o Is it in every classroom at the level? At the desired level?
What are some of the explanations for why some teachers may not be
fully implementing design?
o How would you get them to change?
o What kinds of support, information, or professional development
do teachers still need to fully implement the design?
Have the strategies been modified? What process was/will be used?
How did fiscal, human, and physical resources promote or inhibit the
extent of implementation?
o How does the capacity of teachers, schools, and the organization
compare to before the reform?
How has the reform affected equity throughout the system?
o Between schools & among student groups?
How has the learning culture changed as a result of the design?
Instruments Aligned to Conceptual Framework C:
Teacher Interview Guide, Innovation Configuration, School Level Survey,
239
Teacher Questionnaire, Document Review Guide
240
Appendix F
Conceptual Framework D
EFFECTIVENESS OF INNOVATION
What was the stakeholders’ perspective about impact of the improvement
effort (schools level, classroom level, student level)?
o Site Leadership Team
o Teacher
o Parents & Community Members
Was the design cost effective?
o How will the reform be sustained over time?
Was the design time efficient?
o Was the roll out of expectations realistic?
Did the impact rise to the intentions of the design?
o What promoted or inhibited the realization of the intended
outcomes?
Instruments Aligned to this Conceptual Framework:
Principal Interview Guide
Leadership Team Member Interview Guide
Lead Teacher Interview Guide
Teacher Interview Guide
School Level Survey
Document Review Guide
241
Appendix G
Principal Interview Guide
Principal background
years of experience
years at the district/site
educational background
recent training
School Data
School configuration
Student population
Demographics
API/AYP
Special programs
Principal’s view of district involvement
(RQ1. What is the district design for improving teaching/learning?)
Describe the district plan
How was the district plan developed?
Who was involved in creating the district plan? (what was the role of the
superintendent and school board? Were site level people involved?)
Were forces inside the district such as the board, the superintendent, or
another person or group the initiator of the plan?
What was there motivation for creating the plan?
What are the components of the district plan?
From your perspective what are the plans strong points?
From your perspective what do you think the plan is missing?
How was the plan communicated to the school site administrators?
What training accompanied the plan for school leaders/teacher leaders?
What district resources were allocated to support the plan?
Who funded the development of the plan?
Who funded the implementation of the plan?
Would your plan have been different if you had more funds?
Were individual school budgets affected by the decisions made by the
developers of the plan?
Did the sites have a say in that?
Who controls the budgeting and funding of the plan?
How does the district assess the success of the plan?
Specific administrator activities at the school site related to student performance
(RQ2. What school level efforts facilitate the implementation of the district
design? )
What was your role in the development of the district plan?
242
How did you implement the district plan at the site level?
What is the timetable?
Does the timetable follow the original plan?
Who monitors the ongoing implementation of the plan?
Describe the evaluation component of the plan?
What measure are used to evaluate success or failure?
Describe how the program is monitored at the site level?
How did you train teachers?
What was the training timeline?
Who paid for the training?
How do you assess the success of the plan?
Principal’s perception of teachers involvement in the district design
(RQ 4. To what extent has the district design and implementation strategies
at the site/district levels?)
What was the teacher’s response to the communication of the district
plan?
What is the teacher’s attitude toward the plan?
How did you know that the teacher’s understood the plan?
How do teachers assess the success of the plan?
What does the implementation look like in the classroom?
What evidence does that teacher give to you that the plan is either
working or not working?
To what extent are teachings actually using it? What do you see in the
classroom?
How much time does the plan take?
Is the teacher evaluation system currently in place support the
implementation of the district design?
Do you feel your school needs are being met by the plan?
243
Appendix H
Leadership Team Member Interview Guide
1. Leadership Team Member background
Job description/role of the leadership team member
years of experience
years at the district/site
professional background
recent training
2. Perceptions of district involvement
Describe the district plan
Were you involved in the creation of the district plan?
What are the elements of the district plan?
How was the plan communicated to the lead teachers and staff?
What training accompanied the plan for school leaders?
How is the success of the plan assessed?
3. Specific Leadership Team Member activities at the school site related to
student performance
What is your role in the implementation of the district plan at the site
level?
Describe how the program is monitored at the site level?
What type of supporting activities do you engage in with the teachers?
What is the training/implementation timeline?
What about the plan do you think is working?
What about the plan do you think needs work?
How do you assess the success of the plan?
4. Leadership Team Member perception of teachers involvement in the district
design
What was the teacher’s response to the communication of the district
plan?
What is the teacher’s attitude toward the plan?
How do teachers assess the success of the plan?
What does the implementation look like in the classroom?
244
Appendix I
Lead Teacher Interview Guide
Lead Teacher background
Job description/role of the lead teacher
years of experience
years at the district/site
professional background
recent training
Perceptions of district involvement
Describe the district plan
Were you involved in the creation of the district plan?
What are the elements of the district plan?
How was the plan communicated to the lead teachers?
What training accompanied the plan for school teacher leaders?
How is the success of the plan assessed?
Specific lead teacher activities at the school site related to student performance
What is your role in the implementation of the district plan at the site
level?
Describe how the program is monitored at the site level?
What type of supporting activities do you engage in with the teachers?
What is the training/implementation timeline?
What about the plan do you think is working?
What about the plan do you think needs work?
How do you assess the success of the plan?
Lead Teacher’s perception of teachers involvement in the district design
What was the teacher’s response to the communication of the district
plan?
What is the teacher’s attitude toward the plan?
How do teachers assess the success of the plan?
What does the implementation look like in the classroom?
245
Appendix J
Teacher Interview Guide
Teacher background
years of experience
years at the district/site
professional background
recent training
2. Perceptions of district involvement
What do you know about the district plan for improving teaching and
learning and how does the plan affect what you do in your classroom?
Was someone from your school, or you, involved in its creation?
What are the elements of the district plan?
How was the plan communicated to the teachers?
What training accompanied the plan for schools and teachers?
How is the success of the plan assessed?
3. Specific teacher activities at the school site related to student performance
What is your role in the implementation of the district plan at the site
level?
Describe how the program is monitored at the site level?
What type of activities do you engage in with the administrator or
lead teachers?
How often do you have training or participate in activities that support
you in the implementation?
What about the plan do you think is working?
What about the plan do you think needs work?
How do you assess the success of the plan?
4. Teacher’s perception of teachers involvement in the district design
What was your response to the communication of the district plan?
Are most employee’s familiar with the district plan?
How do you feel about the plan?
Was the professional development offered helpful? Examples of
positive or negative aspects of the professional development.
How do you assess the success of the plan?
Can you give me examples that highlight either the positive or
negative examples that occurred during the implementation of plan?
What does the implementation look like in the classroom?
246
Appendix K
Innovation Configuration
Teacher Implementation of Classroom Instruction That Works Reform
Components Fully Implemented
Partially
Implemented
Just Getting Started
Identifying
Similarities &
Differences
Students are regularly
engaged in tasks that involve
comparisons, classifications,
metaphors, and analogies.
These tasks, on different
occasions, are directed by
both teacher and students.
Students are
occasionally engaged
in activities that
require identification
of similarities and
differences as teacher
periodically
incorporate their use in
lessons.
Teacher is just
beginning to explore
the use of similarities
and differences as an
instructional strategy.
Summarizing
and Note-
taking
Teacher regularly facilitates
students’ use of summarizing
techniques, including but not
limited to, rule-based,
summary frames, &
reciprocal teaching strategies.
Students also engage in note-
taking strategies, i.e., using
teacher-prepared notes, note-
taking formats, &
combination strategies.
Teacher occasionally
encourages the use of
summarizing
techniques by
students. Some
students occasionally
make use of some
note-taking strategies.
Teacher is just
learning about
summarizing
techniques and there is
little evidence of
note-taking strategies
on the part of students
that is encouraged by
the teacher.
Reinforcing
Effort &
Providing
Recognition
Teacher regularly educates
students about effort and
continuously tracks student
effort and achievement.
Teacher also provides
personalized recognition;
makes use of pause, prompt,
and praise strategies; & uses
concrete symbols or tokens
of recognition on a recurring
basis.
Teacher occasionally
informs students about
their effort and
provides some
tracking of student
effort and
achievement. Teacher
also periodically
recognizes and praises
students.
Teacher is just
becoming aware of
how to inform
students regarding
effort and how to track
their effort and
achievement. Teacher
infrequently engages
in recognition and/or
praise of students.
247
Homework &
Practice
Teacher clearly
communicates an
established homework
policy with parents,
articulating the purpose and
outcome of the
assignments. Teacher uses
a variety of approaches to
provide feedback to
students. Practice
assignments focus on
specific elements of
complex skills & students
are provided with planning
time to increase their
conceptual understanding.
Teacher has a clear
homework policy that
is only occasionally
communicated to
parents. The frequency
and quality of feedback
to students is not
necessarily consistent.
Practice of complex
skills occurs when time
allows.
Teacher either does not
have a clearly
established homework
policy or does not
communicate policy to
parents. Feedback to
students is minimal.
Practice of skills is not
planned to reinforce
complex skills and/or
does not occur in class.
Non-Linguistic
Representation
Teacher frequently uses
graphic organizers, i.e.,
structuring common
patterns, making physical
models, generating mental
pictures, drawing pictures,
& engaging in kinesthetic
activity.
Teacher occasionally
uses of graphic
organizers or non-
linguistic
representations.
There is little evidence
of the use of graphic
organizers or non-
linguistic
representations in the
classroom.
Cooperative
Learning
In the process of regularly
incorporating cooperative
learning strategies into
their lessons, the teacher
uses a variety of criteria for
grouping students; creating
informal, formal and base
groups; managing group
size; and/or combining
cooperative learning with
other classroom structures.
Teacher occasionally
incorporates
cooperative learning
activities into lessons
that incorporate
strategies to make the
efforts particularly
successful.
The use of cooperative
learning techniques
and strategies are at the
beginning stages or
non-existent.
Setting
Objectives &
Providing
Feedback
Teacher has specific but
flexible goals and/or uses
contracts with students.
Teacher also uses criterion-
referenced feedback for
specific types of
knowledge and skills or
facilitates student-led
feedback.
Teacher occasionally
establishes goals or
contracts for students.
Feedback strategies are
used periodically to
inform students.
The establishment of
goals and the use of
feedback strategies are
minimally used.
248
Generating &
Testing
Hypotheses
Teacher frequently uses a variety
of structured tasks to guide
students through generating and
testing hypotheses, making sure
all students can explain their
hypotheses and conclusions.
Teacher occasionally
makes use of
activities that engage
students in generating
and testing
hypotheses.
Teacher is in the
beginning stages of
using strategies that
incorporate the
generation and
testing of
hypotheses.
Cues,
Questions &
Advanced
Organizers
Teacher regularly uses
straightforward, explicit cues, and
uses questions that require
analysis or that elicit inferences
on a recurring basis. Teacher also
uses advance graphic organizers
for expository and narrative texts,
as well as for skimming.
Teacher periodically
makes use of cues
and questions during
their lessons.
Teacher occasionally
uses advance graphic
organizers.
Teacher seldom
uses cues and
questions in their
lessons. There is
little evidence of the
use of advance
graphic organizers.
249
Appendix L
Innovation Configuration:
Teacher Implementation of Classroom Instruction That
Works Reform Questionnaire
Identifying
Similarities &
Differences
Students are regularly
engaged in tasks that
involve comparisons,
classifications, metaphors,
& analogies. These tasks,
on different occasions, are
directed by both teacher
and students.
Students are
occasionally engaged
in activities that
require identification
of similarities and
differences as teacher
periodically
incorporate their use
in lessons.
Teacher is just beginning
to explore the use of
similarities and
differences as an
instructional strategy.
Summarizing
and Note-
taking
Teacher is just learning
about summarizing
techniques, including but
not limited to, rule-based,
summary frames, &
reciprocal teaching
strategies. There is little
evidence of note-taking
strategies on the part of
students that is
encouraged by teacher.
Teacher regularly
facilitates students’
use of summarizing
techniques. Students
also engage in note-
taking strategies, i.e.,
using teacher-prepared
notes, note-taking
formats, &
combination
strategies.
Teacher occasionally
encourages the use of
summarizing techniques
by students. Some
students occasionally
make use of some note-
taking strategies.
Reinforcing
Effort &
Providing
Recognition
Teacher occasionally
informs students about
their effort and provides
some tracking of student
effort and achievement.
Teacher also periodically
recognizes and praises
students.
Teacher is just
becoming aware of
how to inform
students regarding
effort and how to
track their effort and
achievement. Teacher
infrequently engages
in recognition and/or
praise of students.
Teacher regularly
educates students about
effort and continuously
tracks student effort and
achievement. Teacher also
provides personalized
recognition; makes use of
pause, prompt, and praise
strategies; & uses
concrete symbols or
tokens of recognition on a
recurring basis.
250
Homework &
Practice
Teacher either does
not have a clearly
established
homework policy or
does not
communicate policy
to parents. Feedback
to students is
minimal. Practice of
skills is not planned
to reinforce complex
skills and/or does not
occur in class.
Teacher has a clear
homework policy that is
only occasionally
communicated to
parents. The frequency
and quality of feedback
to students is not
necessarily consistent.
Practice of complex
skills occurs when time
allows.
Teacher clearly
communicates an
established homework
policy with parents,
articulating the purpose &
outcome of the
assignments. Teacher uses a
variety of approaches to
provide feedback to
students. Practice
assignments focus on
specific elements of
complex skills & students
are provided with planning
time to increase their
conceptual understanding.
Non-Linguistic
Representation
Teacher frequently
uses graphic
organizers, i.e.,
structuring common
patterns, making
physical models,
generating mental
pictures, drawing
pictures, & engaging
in kinesthetic
activity.
There is little evidence
of the use of graphic
organizers or non-
linguistic representations
in the classroom.
Teacher occasionally uses
of graphic organizers or
non-linguistic
representations.
Cooperative
Learning
Teacher occasionally
incorporates
cooperative learning
activities into lessons
that incorporate
strategies to make
the efforts
particularly
successful.
In the process of
regularly incorporating
cooperative learning
strategies into their
lessons, the teacher uses
a variety of criteria for
grouping students;
creating informal,
formal and base groups;
managing group size;
and/or combining
cooperative learning
with other classroom
structures.
The use of cooperative
learning techniques and
strategies are at the
beginning stages or non-
existent.
Setting
Objectives &
Providing
Feedback
Teacher occasionally
establishes goals or
contracts for
students. Feedback
strategies are used
periodically to
inform students.
The establishment of
goals and the use of
feedback strategies are
minimally used.
Teacher has specific but
flexible goals and/or uses
contracts with students.
Teacher also uses criterion-
referenced feedback for
specific types of knowledge
and skills or facilitates
student-led feedback.
251
Generating
& Testing
Hypotheses
Teacher is in the beginning
stages of using strategies that
incorporate the generation and
testing of hypotheses.
Teacher frequently uses
a variety of structured
tasks to guide students
through generating and
testing hypotheses,
making sure all students
can explain their
hypotheses and
conclusions.
Teacher
occasionally makes
use of activities that
engage students in
generating and
testing hypotheses.
Cues,
Questions &
Advanced
Organizers
Teacher regularly uses
straightforward, explicit cues,
and uses questions that require
analysis or that elicit inferences
on a recurring basis. Teacher
also uses advance graphic
organizers for expository and
narrative texts, as well as for
skimming.
Teacher seldom uses
cues and questions in
their lessons. There is
little evidence of the use
of advance graphic
organizers.
Teacher periodically
makes use of cues
and questions during
their lessons.
Teacher
occasionally uses
advance graphic
organizers.
252
Appendix M
Key to Field Use of Teacher Implementation of Instructional Strategies:
Innovation Configuration
Identifying
Similarities &
Differences
3 2 1
Summarizing and
Note-taking
1 3 2
Reinforcing Effort &
Providing Recognition
2 1 3
Homework & Practice 1 2 3
Non-Linguistic
Representation
3 1 2
Cooperative Learning 2 3 1
Setting Objectives &
Providing Feedback
2 1 3
Generating & Testing
Hypotheses
1 3 2
Cues, Questions &
Advanced Organizers
3 1 2
3 = Fully Implemented 2 = Partially Implemented 1 = Just Getting Started
253
Appendix N
School Level Survey
Classroom Instruction that Works (Nine Strategies)
Thank you very much for agreeing to participate in this study. Your contribution is
valued and your answers are completely confidential. As part of this study, your
responses will provide educators and professional organizations with important
information.
Please mark the following demographic data that best applies to you for purposes of
this study only. Your anonymity will be maintained. The numbers in parenthesis
following each response are for coding purposes only.
1. Your Gender:
Female (1)
Male (2)
2. Highest Educational Degree You
Possess:
Bachelor’s (1)
Master’s (2)
Doctorate (3)
3. Credentials You Possess:
Clear (1)
Preliminary (2)
Intern (3)
Pre-Intern (4)
Emergency (5)
4. Your Current Position:
Administrator (1)
Teacher Leader (Dept. Chair) (2)
Teacher (3)
5. Grade Level Currently Teaching:
K – 6
th
(1)
7
th
-8
th
(2)
9
th
-12
th
(3)
Not teaching (4)
6. Years of Experience in Education:
0-2 Years (1)
3-5 Years (2)
6-10 Years (3)
11-20 Years (4)
20+ Years (5)
7. Years in Current Position:
0-2 Years (1)
3-5 Years (2)
6-10 Years (3)
11-20 Years (4)
20+ Years (5)
8. Ethnicity:
African American (1)
Asian (2)
Hispanic/Latino (3)
Native American (4)
Pacific Islander (5)
White (6)
Other _____________ (7)
254
9. Courses Currently Teaching:
Self-contained (Elementary School) (1)
Fine Arts (2)
Foreign Language (3)
English/Language Arts (4)
Mathematics (5)
Physical Education (6)
Science (7)
Social Science (8)
Elective (9)
Other ______________ (10)
Not Teaching (11)
10. How often do you use the nine strategies from Classroom Instruction That
Works?
Everyday (1)
Most Days (2)
At least twice a week (3)
About once per week (4)
Once per month (5)
Not at all (6)
Not familiar with the nine strategies (7)
11. What type of training have you had in using the nine strategies from Classroom
Instruction That Works?
More than five days (1)
Three to five days (2)
One to two days (3)
Less than one day (4)
No training (5)
255
Classroom Instruction that Works (Nine strategies)
Please take time to read each item carefully and circle the number that best reflects
your response to the item.
Don’t
Know
Strongly
Disagree
Somewhat
Disagree
Somewhat
Agree
Strongly
Agree
9. I am aware of the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies for improving teaching and learning.
00 11 22 33 44
10. The district supports standard-based instruction. 00 11 22 33 44
11. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies are
centered on improving student learning.
00 01 12 33 44
12. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies
call for the use of multiple measures to assess
student performance.
00 01 22 33 44
13. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies
include ways to identify acceptable levels of student
performance.
00 11 22 33 44
14. The district believes that all students can meet high
standards.
00 01 12 33 44
15. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies
foster a collaborative approach to improving student
performance.
00 11 22 33 44
16. Leaders in the district want everyone to use the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
00 01 12 23 44
17. The school is supportive in implementing the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
00 11 22 33 44
18. The school offers frequent professional
development to raise knowledge of the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
00 01 12 23 44
19. Systematic efforts to implement the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies were
communicated.
00 11 22 33 44
20. Teacher training and assistance were provided and
conducted in a timely manner.
00 01 12 23 44
21. I have attended professional development training
on the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies
in the past six months.
00 11 22 33 44
22. I know a great deal about the Classroom Instruction
that Works strategies.
00 01 12 23 44
256
Don’t
Know
Strongly
Disagree
Somewhat
Disagree
Somewhat
Agree
Strongly
Agree
23. Teachers have opportunities to provide input on
how to implement the Classroom Instruction that
Works strategies at my school.
00 11 22 33 44
24. I would like to modify the way my school uses the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies based
on the experiences of my students.
00 01 12 23 44
25. Teachers are involved in the change process and
development/selection of suitable materials to
support Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies.
00 11 22 33 44
26. I am developing mastery of the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
00 01 22 33 44
27. School leadership support was a key element in
assisting this site in the implementation of the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
00 11 22 33 44
28. Financial, staff, and material resources are allocated
to facilitate the implementation of the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
00 01 12 23 44
29. My school’s vision, mission, and goals are aligned
with the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies.
00 11 22 33 44
30. All teachers are committed to the implementation of
the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
00 11 22 23 44
31. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies are
consistently used to improve student learning.
00 11 22 33 44
32. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies are
used to help students who perform below grade
level.
00 11 22 33 44
33. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies
assist students to meet state performance standards.
10 11 22 33 44
34. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies are
used by other departments in my school.
00 11 22 33 44
35. I connect the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies to the curriculum.
00 11 22 33 44
36. I connect and use the Classroom Instruction that
Works strategies to teach my students the standards.
00 11 22 33 44
37. I use the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies to help students understand textbook
content.
00 11 22 33 44
257
Don’t
Know
Strongly
Disagree
Somewhat
Disagree
Somewhat
Agree
Strongly
Agree
38. Students are aware of and use the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies to improve their
academic achievement level.
00 11 22 33 44
39. I use the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies to improve my instruction.
00 11 22 33 44
40. I am comfortable using the Classroom Instruction
that Works strategies in my classroom.
00 11 22 33 44
41. Using the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies has improved my teaching.
00 11 22 33 44
42. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies are
effective in improving student learning.
00 11 22 33 44
43. My instructional delivery has changed by using the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
00 11 22 23 44
44. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies
have increased student motivation toward learning.
00 21 22 33 44
45. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies are
not expensive to implement.
00 11 22 33 44
46. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies
were presented to teachers in a timely manner.
00 11 22 33 44
47. Training provided to teachers on the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies was useful.
00 11 22 23 44
48. On-going support is provided at my school on the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
00 11 22 33 44
49. Feedback is provided to teachers on their use of the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
00 11 22 23 04
50. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies are
worth keeping.
00 11 22 33 44
51. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies
have helped students to be successful in my class.
00 11 22 23 44
52. The Classroom Instruction that Works strategies are
feasible in improving teaching and learning.
00 11 22 33 44
Thank you very much for your time. Please return this survey in the self-addressed
stamped envelope. If you have misplaced the envelope, extra self-addressed
envelopes are available in the front office.
258
Appendix O
Teacher Questionnaire
Classroom Instruction that Works (Nine strategies)
Years of Teaching ___________
The purpose of this questionnaire is to identify concerns regarding use of the nine
strategies from Classroom Instruction That Works. You may find some of the items
on this questionnaire irrelevant. For the completely irrelevant items, please circle
“0” on the scale. Other items will represent those concerns you do have, in varying
degrees of intensity, and should be marked higher on the scale. The results of this
questionnaire are confidential and will only be used for dissertation research in
summative form.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Irrelevant Not true of me Somewhat true of me Very true of me now
1 I am concerned about student’s attitudes
towards the use of the nine strategies from
Classroom Instruction that Works.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
2 I now know of some other approaches that
might work better than the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3 I don’t know what the Classroom Instruction
that Works strategies are.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
4 I am concerned about not having enough time
to organize myself each day in relation to using
the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 I would like to help other faculty in their use of
the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
6 I have a very limited knowledge of the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
7 I would like to know how the use of the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies
affects my classroom, my position at my
school, and my professional status.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
259
8 I am concerned about conflict between my
interests and my responsibilities when using
the Classroom Instruction that Works strategies
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
9 I am concerned about revising my lesson plans
to use the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
10 I would like to develop working relationships
with both our faculty and outside faculty who
use the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
11 I am concerned about how the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies affect
students.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
12 I am not concerned about the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
13 I would like to know who will make the
decisions on how I use the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
14 I would like to discuss the possibility of using
the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
15 I would like to know what resources are
available to support the Classroom Instruction
that Works strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
16 I am concerned about my inability to manage
all that the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies require.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
17 I would like to know how my teaching skills is
supposed to change with the use of the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
18 I would like to familiarize other departments or
persons with the progress of using the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
19 I am concerned about evaluating my impact on
students in relation to the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
20 I would like to revise the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies instructional
approach.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
21 I am completely occupied with other things
besides the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
260
22 I would like to modify the school’s use of the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies
based on the experiences of my students.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
23 Although I am not familiar with the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies, I am
concerned about aspects of the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
24 I would like to excite my students about their
part in the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
25 I am concerned about time spent working with
nonacademic problems related to the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
26 I would like to know what the use of the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies
will require in the immediate future.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
27 I would like to coordinate my effort with others
to maximize the effects of the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
28 I would like to have more information on time
and energy commitments required by the
Classroom Instruction that Works strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
29 I would like to know what other faculty are
doing as they use the Classroom Instruction
that Works strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
30 At this time, I am not interested in learning
about the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
31 I would like to determine how to supplement,
enhance, or replace the Classroom Instruction
that Works strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
32 I would like to use feedback from students to
change the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
33 I would like to know how my role as a teacher
will change when I am using the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
34 Coordination of tasks and people in relation to
using the Classroom Instruction that Works
strategies is taking too much of my time.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
35 I would like to know how the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies are better than
what we have had in the past.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
261
36 I am concerned about how the Classroom
Instruction that Works strategies affect
students.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
262
Appendix P
Document Review Guide
The document review guide will be used to align district documents to the research
questions developed in the study; design, factors shaping design, extent of
implementation and effectiveness of design and implementation.
Document Title: Author & Date:
Description and Purpose:
Research Questions
RQ 1
RQ 2
RQ 3
RQ 4
Elements of
District’s Design
Researcher Notes
RQ1: Design -- RQ2: School Level Effort --- RQ3: Extent of Implementation – RQ4: Effectiveness of the design

Abstract (if available)

Abstract The purpose of this study is to investigate the design for instructional leadership pertaining to student performance that is in place in one high school district. The scope of this case study focuses on one high school in Southern California that actually implemented the district-wide reform effort of instructional leadership at the school, and classroom levels. Four research questions defined the problems and guided the research of the studies. These four research questions were: 1. What was the district design for improving teaching and learning? 2. What school level efforts facilitated the implementation of the district's design? 3. To what extent was the district's design implemented at the school and classroom levels? 4. How effective were the design and implementation strategies at the school and classroom levels?

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Asset Metadata

Creator Chen, Sueling Hsu (author)

Core Title Districtwide instructional improvement: a case study of a high school in the Los Coyotes High School District

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education (Leadership)

Publication Date 09/16/2007

Defense Date 07/26/2007

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag district change strategy,districtwide reform,instructional improvement,OAI-PMH Harvest

Place Name California (states), USA (countries)

Language English

Advisor Marsh, David D. (committee chair), [illegible] (committee member), Bowman, Gay[illegible] (committee member)

Creator Email suelingchen@sbcglobal.net

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m816

Unique identifier UC1202700

Identifier etd-Chen-20070916 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-554583 (legacy record id),usctheses-m816 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Chen-20070916.pdf

Dmrecord 554583

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Chen, Sueling Hsu

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu