Learning from a Project “ Post-mortem”

Background

Our school had not met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as deemed necessary by no child left behind last year and this year there has been a lot of pressure on everyone to find ways of engaging students and improving instruction. Many of the students that came to me this year had failed on last year’s state test; spoke English as an additional language and special educational needs. My students were very diverse and it was very difficult to cater to the needs of everyone. Many of the students were frustrated and for this reason were absent or truant from class. Students were also becoming disruptive in class.

Conceive Phase

In order to engage the students and meet the need, I decided to try a blended learning approach. I was already halfway through my Master’s program with Walden. I had some experience with the districts LMS and a new interactive program the district had purchased which was very much like an LMS.

Define Stage

I created a plan for the administrators so that they could see what I would cover in the 7 weeks leading to the state test. My plan was detailed enough to show which activities would cover which objectives

Recruiting Project Champions

In order to ensure that I received the relevant support and resources the following project champions were recruited: Principal, Assistant Principal of Instruction, Department Specialist, and District Specialist. Project Champions take “necessary actions to help ensure a project is successfully completed (Portny et al, 2008, p.15). It is important to include as many people or groups of people as project champions as may affect the project. The project champions loved the idea; however, they wanted to place students only those students who were in danger of failing the state test. They started pulling out low performing students from other classes, and placing them in the blended learning program. My plan was just one teacher running a blended learning class. They changed this to three teachers running 2 classes (1 teacher in 1 lab, 2 teachers in another)

Start Stage

I explained to the two additional teachers what their role would be. They were given the lesson plans and trained how to use the interactive program and the different features. Since the students had been pulled out from different classes, it was essential that grades and issues about student conduct and participation were communicated to the teachers of the students, Assistant Principals, counselors and the parents. As far as I knew all the procedures were in place.

The Perform Stage

The students came to the new classrooms. What we had not anticipated was the resistance we would face at first. Students felt they had been moved to these classes because they were stupid; however, once the students settled down, they loved it as they realized they were able to control the pace of the learning and also seek help from a plethora of topics if and when they needed it. This boosted the confidence of many of the students and made them feel more prepared for the state test. One of the major problems we ran into is the use of the discussion forum. In my English this year, I couldn’t seem to engage students in a discussion. The students were responding very well to all the other activities and so the next step was the discussion. I created the discussion questions ready for students to post; however, when the student tried to respond they could not. The district had blocked the discussion board. This was an essential part of the goal of the blended learning class and one of the main reasons I had embarked on this project.  The project manager’s role is to “fix problems on the arise” (Portny et al, 2008, p. 80). Unfortunately since the districts’ instructional technology department had not been consulted or recruited as projected champions, they were not on board with the project and so our problem with the discussion board was not resolved. Additionally, since the students had been drawn from different classes, communication was a big issue. Getting the grades to the teachers on time, communicating failures and conduct or issues to parents was also problematic.  There were some problems with the company’s software as well as the computers that were being used. The English department computer labs do not have up new computers and so they are prone to crashing.

The Close Phase

In this stage of the project, the project manager would usually “hold a post project evaluation to recognize project achievements and discuss lessons learned that can be applied to the next project” ( Porny, 2008, p.80). The blended learning class came to an end in early March. The students were engaged throughout the process and there were less disciplinary problems. The results from the state test have not yet come in; however, administrators saw the benefits with the blended learning class and writing samples showed a steady improvement in certain areas. For this reason the administration would like a year long blended learning class for Sophomore English next year. There are a number of issues that need to be addressed before the project can be repeated next year.

Some of these include-

-          Recruiting the district’s instructional technology team project champions would benefit

-          Asking project champions for better resources so that there are less technical problems

-          Getting the discussion board problem acknowledged through the district’s technology department.

References

 Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.

 Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc