Final Missing Link Grant Project Report:

1. Academy School District 20 Power Initiative Grant: “The Missing Link”

Academy School District 20’s Power Initiative Grant is titled The Missing Link grant. The “missing link” refers to collaboration. Teams of librarians, technology specialists, and teachers from participating schools received training during the summer from Dr. Jamie McKenzie on a type of inquiry and web-based instruction called “Slam Dunk Digital Lessons.” Throughout the year, grant participants were provided release time to collaborate within their schools to create inquiry-based lessons infused with technology that integrated information literacy. District Twenty content standards, with an emphasis on the information literacy standards and benchmarks were the starting point for all lesson and unit designs. Participants received additional staff development during the year, including an online learning community that offered readings and discussions on inquiry-based learning, information literacy, information literacy assessment, technology integration, and more. The resulting Web based lessons and instructional design documents for inquiry-based instruction created and taught by participating collaborative teams can be found on the Missing Link Web site: http://grant.d20.co.edu/index.html, along with other information from the Missing Link Grant and Power Classroom grants in the district.

Contact: Nancy White
email: nwhite@d20.co.edu
School District: Academy School District 20, Colorado Springs

2. Evaluation

Grant participants met in May to share lessons, lesson design documents, and student work and to discuss the grant project in terms of what went well, what they would change and what is still needed to continue collaborating to teach inquiry-based lessons that integrate information literacy and technology. This was a celebration of great lessons and learning experiences for students. The stories our educators shared are evidence that we are on the right path to providing students with the kind of learning experiences that will help them with the critical thinking and information literacy skills they need to thrive in the 21st century. Grant participants were asked “What is the most important thing you learned from this experience?” Here are some excerpts:

• The Missing Link Grant reinforced what 4th graders are capable of doing. The children were so excited about their learning.
• The energy/satisfaction of working with others at my school and the exciting results
• The importance of having time to collaborate with teachers. It made an incredible difference.
• That is was possible to add this content/concept to our school when many were resistant!
• Focusing on the essential question and how important it is to have collaboration time
• Students enjoyed the challenge of the lessons
• Students were totally engaged, because of the structure, uniqueness and requirements
• An alternative to what’s been done or how something has been taught for so long

The list goes on. Our educators were unanimous in recognizing the importance and potential impact of this type of collaborative instructional design.

Evaluating student achievement has been more difficult to pinpoint. Grant participants were asked to assess information literacy in lessons taught in the fall and spring – and provide information – formal or informal – regarding how they believe students have progressed in their information literacy skills. It is evident that more staff development is needed to help teachers with the task of evaluating information literacy. This will be addressed with potential future funding of the Missing Link Grant. Meanwhile, we feel that the emphasis of information literacy instruction and collaborative instructional design and team teaching that included the librarian and technology specialist had some impact on students' information literacy skills. We will gather data on groups of student CSAP scores –including students of educators who participated in the Missing Link Grant to see if this group shows any increase in CSAP reading standard 5 scores – which measures information literacy. We think we will see some improvement, although we recognize that this cannot be considered a scientific study. Results should be available by December, 2005.

3. Narrative

The Missing Link Grant was a successful initiative that brought teachers, librarians and technology specialists together to create meaningful inquiry-based lessons for students while addressing information literacy skills. The collaboration that occurred as a result of this grant was phenomenal! This was the most common comment from grant participants themselves. Educators who previously were not comfortable with integrating technology and information literacy learned and demonstrated that through collaboration, they could create and teach these kinds of lessons. Another positive aspect was the use of inquiry-based instruction. Although this has been a district-wide initiative, many had not had the chance to participate in training that showed how to implement this in the classroom. Jamie McKenzie’s Slam Dunk Digital lessons provided them with a concise formula to create meaningful and engaging lessons through technology that were inquiry-based. Common feedback from grant participants indicated that these lessons were very successful with students. Collaborative teams that were more comfortable with the inquiry-based instruction were given the option of creating other types of inquiry-based units for students, and these, too, were very successful in terms of student engagement.

There are a few modifications we would make in continuing this initiative in future years. Grant participants felt that more structure was needed to maintain the momentum and excitement created early in the year following the workshops with Dr. McKenzie. Our grant participants were supported through an online learning community, but few were active participants. The concept of online professional learning is still very new. Until their comfort level with this increases significantly, more face-to-face meetings and direct staff development would be ideal, though finding the time to accomplish this will continue to be a challenge. Increasing administrator involvement and understanding of the grant project would also help maintain momentum and involvement of the participants. This would also help to raise awareness and educate our administrators to the concept of ET-IL, and the importance of integrating ET-IL into the curriculum for student achievement.

There were a few surprises during the implementation of this grant project. The most frequently mentioned by our grant participants was how frustrating it is to find quality Web sites for students to use that are linked to standards and provide appropriate content –and are not blocked by the district’s Internet filter! This was particularly frustrating for our primary grades teachers. On the flip side, this provided a “teachable moment” for our teachers –allowing them to experience the frustrations that our students experience when they are “turned loose” to research on the Internet. Another surprise was the low participation in the online learning community. We thought this would be ideal –providing information to support them whenever and wherever they were. As stated above, the concept of online learning is still very new, and we hope to see more use in future years. Finally, we were very surprised that some collaborative teams did not take full advantage of their release time to plan lessons and evaluate student work. A lack of time to collaborate and plan meaningful learning experiences has been cited over and over again in the research as the number one reason that collaboration does not occur more regularly in schools. Apparently, simply providing the time for our district educators is not enough. Based on participant feedback, we think that providing more structure, staff development and administrative support along with collaboration time will enhance this initiative in future years.

The impact on student achievement may not be immediately evident (see evaluation section above), however informal observations and conversations with grant participants indicates that student attention to information literacy is increasing. One librarian commented, “When I asked kids in the library why internet information wasn’t always reliable, students looked at me like I was from another planet. They had no idea why. After this [Slam Dunk] lesson, students who had experienced the class all knew why internet information was not reliable…Students would say ‘Anybody can put anything on the internet,’ and ‘You don't always know who wrote what’s on the internet.’ I think it was a very helpful lesson for opening their eyes and for opening up discussion about how to be a smarter user of internet information.” Another teacher commented “these lessons helped students to see what quality web sites feature so they could recognize the good sites when they were researching more independently. When we researched poetry web sites, I observed the students being much more careful consumers of the available web resources.” Throughout the year, teacher participants in the Missing Link project gained a much deeper understanding of what information literacy is, through the staff development activities and focusing on this in their lesson designs. We believe that this will have permeated their teaching throughout the year –even when it wasn’t the focus. For that reason, we will evaluate the CSAP scores of their students – specifically Reading Standard 5 – to determine if there was any increase for the students of the participating teachers between last year’s scores and this year’s scores. Results should be available in December.

We are seeing an impact on the culture of teaching and learning in schools due in part to the success of this grant program. It is evident that teachers, as well as librarians and technology specialists understand the value of collaboration. And the value of this type of collaborative instructional design and team teaching is spreading beyond the specific group of grant participants in some schools. Here are some comments:

• The idea of getting together outside of specific departments, especially at the high school level, has always been rather difficult. This grant has shown us that many minds are often better (and more creative) than one. – High School Teacher
• Our team worked well together to develop the slam dunk lessons. As the school year began, I was able to engage an English teacher, not participating in Missing Link, to develop two slam dunk lessons. Also, one of our social studies teachers heard about the grant and helped me brainstorm another lesson. –High School Library Media Specialist
• Students can get a quality research- and inquiry-based lesson as a result of true collaboration in a very short time. One class period really can be enough, depending on the lesson objective. I think this makes it a better "sell" to teachers who might be resistant. –Middle School Library Media Specialist
• Collaboration makes working on projects so much fun for the teacher because you have the input of others and the use of their knowledge. –Middle School Teacher
• I personally will take away from this experience that we as educators have a lot of learning and changing to do. We cannot stay in the industrialized method of instruction. In addition, it is going to be a struggle to make these changes. People in general don't like change. ET/IL calls for change, requires new ways of thinking and these skills can make a difference. –Elementary Technology Specialist
• Sometimes I'm overwhelmed at how much I have to learn, but [I am inspired] to continue doing what I can and to keep learning and trying new things. Even baby steps get me closer to the goal than if I took no steps at all! – Elementary Teacher
• These comments speak volumes on the impact of the Missing Link Grant in our schools. Thank you, CDE for giving us the opportunity and funding to implement this program.

Samples of Student Work

Samples of student work are included at the end of the following Web-based Lessons posted online at http://matrix10.d20.co.edu/missing_link/results.php?lesson_type=s :

• Utopia2 - Timberview Middle School
• Essential Question: African-American Influence -Academy Endeavour Elementary School
• Safe Surfing – Mountain Ridge Middle School
• Clouds – Pioneer Elementary School
• Leadership Traits of Presidents - Pioneer Elementary School
• Photographs of the 1920s and The Great Gatsby – Rampart High School
• Noh and Greek Theater – Rampart High School
• Mass Extinctions – Aspen Valley High School
• Physical Geology: Igneous Rock Extrusive Features - Aspen Valley High School

Samples of student work are included as downloadable documents with the following inquiry-based units posted online at http://matrix10.d20.co.edu/missing_link/iu_search.html

• The Right to Read Freely – Liberty High School
• Solar System Research Project – Liberty High School
• Cultural Studies – Frontier Elementary School
  

Power Educators Mid-Year Review Survey:

Briefly explain what activities you have done so far.

Our Power Initiative Grant, called “The Missing Link” primarily provides funding for training and time for collaboration between the librarian, technology specialist and a few classroom teachers in each participating school. Each collaborative team will design, teach, and evaluate inquiry-based lessons that begin with content standards, and integrate educational technology and information literacy (ET/IL). There are 114 educators that have been participating in the grant.

In late July, Missing Link Educators participated in a two day, hands-on workshop with Dr. Jamie McKenzie learning how to create “Slam Dunk Digital Lessons.” These lessons emphasize all of the elements that we wanted our grant participants to incorporate into their lesson construction. Slam Dunk Digital Lessons are standards-based, require inquiry, and integrate technology and information literacy. School groups worked collaboratively and most produced one or two of these Web-based lessons that were ready to use with students.

In September, we launched the Missing Link Online Learning Community using the Blackboard interface. Each month, a new topic is introduced with information to support grant participants in the form of articles, web sites, and discussion. Topics include inquiry-based learning, collaboration, information literacy, information literacy assessment, technology integration, the Achievement MAP and standards-based learning. Grant participants met in feeder-school groups to learn how to access this online community via Blackboard, and to continue collaborating on Slam-Dunk Digital lesson construction or other inquiry based lessons. We invited a group of educators from Cherry Creek School District to join us in the Online Learning Community, and Cherry Creek’s district teacher-librarian, assisted in facilitating the topic of “collaboration.”

Missing Link Grant participants are now working collaboratively in their schools, using the rest of the 3 half-day release times funded through the grant for planning more lessons and/or collaboratively evaluating student work. A variety of lessons have been prepared, and we are in the process of posting them in a searchable database on our district web site. Some titles/topics include:

• What Asian City Would You Move To?
• Mass Extinctions
• The Bill of Rights
• Election Statistics
• Treasure Island
• “Why Do I Have to Read THIS?!”
• “Netizenship”
• The Pledge of Allegiance
• The Great Gatsby
• Tsunami
• Colorado History
• Characteristics of living things

How, specifically, has your Power Educator grant impacted the learning and teaching culture?

The Missing Link Grant appears to be having a positive impact on the learning and teaching culture. Nancy White posed this question to grant participants. Here are some of their responses:

• “I feel that participation in the Missing Link grant has impacted the learning and teaching culture at Challenger in that the collaboration among teachers, library staff, and technology staff has increased. I also see other teachers in the building using the essential question in their classes after seeing the results of our classes.” –Middle School Teacher
• “I think just in our team’s experience, having half of a day to sit down and focus on our missing link activities really helped us brainstorm other ideas and was very valuable. Finding this time in a regular school day is just too difficult because everyone already has so many meetings during the week.” –Elementary School Teacher
• “Working collaboratively with our librarian on these units and integrating technology is a wonderful way to teach the students. They know exactly how to proceed through the steps involved and typically perform at a high level due to the rubrics created for each lesson. –High School teacher
• “I believe the Missing Link project has started a change in my school. First, it has brought together a team of individuals who understand better what it means to collaborate. Having to work together on this project has already started getting us thinking about how we can work together in the future.” –Middle School Library Media Specialist
• “The participation has enhanced what we had set as a goal at school for the integration of technology into academic areas. It has bee a successful way to integrate lessons.” –Elementary School Technology Specialist

What evidence have you collected to date that shows successful implementation of effective instructional strategies?

Missing Link grant participants were asked to assess the information literacy skills used in the research process, with the score for this amounting to a minimum of 10% of the student’s grade for the entire project. Currently, participants have collected some baseline data – and after they teach a second lesson or unit to students in the spring, we will compare the results from the two efforts. Various assessment strategies have been employed, ranging from summative assessments, to a specific “technology test that uses CSAP based research standards to measure improvement and define problem areas.” (Connie Buckner, CMS) Examples of student work have been collected and will be available at the regional Power Educator meeting on February 23.