Carla Fox Study 1

Carla Fox Case Study

Felicia Poole

University of Phoenix
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Thompson Run Elementary School has numerous characteristics that could possibly

impact efforts to initiate and sustain change. The characteristics are both negative and positive.

The first positive characteristics would be the school’s principal. She is the leader of the

school and most of the change will most likely require her approval. Luckily, this principal is all

for changes that revolve around promoting and facilitating constructivist teaching and learning

strategies and interdisciplinary approaches. The principal also sees the potential in a teacher that

possesses the skills to help implement this change as well as teachers who have expressed

interest in change. This leads me to the next characteristic of the school and that is the teachers.

There is one teacher in particular who may possibly be the leader of this change. This teacher is

an innovative teacher who embraces constructivist philosophies and can model for, and work

with, current faculty members to promote change. She is a master teacher, has been recognized

as “Teacher of the Year” and Innovative Instructor for Region 10”, and has expertise in teaching

and instructional design. The last positive characteristic is district that the school is in. The

district has been investing heavily on many hands-on activities and technology based resources,

all which will lead to change.

Although there are not as many negative characteristics as there are positive ones, they

still important and can impact the change that is to take place. Some of the veteran teachers are

set in their ways and don’t see a reason to change the way things are done. They would like to

continue to focus on rote memorization and teaching to statewide standardized tests. New

teachers are overwhelmed with the demands of a first year teacher and don’t feel as if they can

handle taking on their responsibilities.

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Reactions to what Carla observed in the classrooms of her fellow teachers, I could see the

relationship between how the teachers felt about the change, rather it was a negative or positive

feeling, and their teaching styles and classroom management issues. The teacher who has

vehemently opposed to the change obviously did not believe in collaboration, technology, or

hands on work. She had her students in sitting individually and doing piles of worksheets. They

were quiet and working, so based on the workings of her classroom, she had no reason to want

change. The first year teacher was yelling and trying to get control of his rowdy classroom.

Even if he wanted to change, he had so many other issues he had to work out before he could

even fathom changing his instructional methods. Carla should be excited about what she and

Mrs. Lynn are doing with their students. They have achieved successful classroom management

as well as collaboration techniques that keep the students engaged in their learning.

The members of the committee should obviously be any teacher that is will to work

towards the change that the principal and the district is trying to move towards. I don’t think that

those teachers who are opposed to the change should be a part of the committee because they

might not put their best efforts towards working toward the change.

During the committee’s first meeting, Carla and the committee should put out in the open

what goals they want to accomplish. They then need to determine the possible ways to reach

these goals as well as the factors and issues that might hinder them from reaching these goals.

They also need to discuss ways to present their information to those teachers who oppose the

change as well as addressing their concerns (compensation, time, and incentives). They should

also assign each member a topic to research regarding the change such as costs, success and

failure rates, training, etc. This research should be presented to the committee at the nest

meeting. The committee should also set a time frame to put their plan to work and meet again to
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look at their work and determine how the attempt to change is going after a certain period of

time.

Indicators of progress the committee should look for more collaboration in the

classrooms, alternative assessment options, technology infused lessons, and hands on learning.

When students work together, they help teach each other and they learn more than we could

teach them alone. Collaborative groups also help with social skills and help to shape leadership

skills. The students participate in scaffolding and this will eventually allow them complete tasks

alone that they could not do before the collaborative groups.

Paper and pencil assessments don’t always determine a child’s ability or their level of

understanding of a topic or concept. Alternative assessments give students the opportunities to

truly showcase what they have learned. Whenever possible, students should be given a choice of

assessment options. Technology is very important today in regards to education. Not just

because of the date and age that we are in, but also because of the students that we are teaching.

Gone are the days were a child can read a chapter from a book and answer questions on a

worksheet. Students today are surrounded by technology in their everyday lives and that

includes education. We have to keep up with the changing times and in order to do that; our

lessons must have an element of technology in them, one way or another. Hands on learning

involves a little bit of all the above indicators of process. It is not just using manipulatives in

math or making a fossil by pressing a leaf into clay. Students can collaborate on hands on

assignments, hands on learning can be used as performance assessments, and students can work

with technology to complete assignments. When students actually use their hands to work, that

learning will stick with them much longer than anything they have learned from a worksheet.
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Culture will definitely influence the implementation of instructional design

processes because technology is a huge part of the culture today. There is almost nothing that we

do today that doesn’t involve some sort of technology. We are a culture who likes to see how

things work and instructional design processes allow us to break things down and see how they

work, why they don’t work, and what we can do improve them.

The change agents may face criticism and uncooperativeness from teachers who don’t

want to be a part of the change, monetary issues, and possibly failure of the implementation.