Influencer Model and Vital Behaviors

Desired Result: 

By the end of the 2020-2021 year, students will engage authentically in the classroom by creating ePortfolios that showcase passion and creativity.

 

Measure:

This will be measured by weekly student/teacher check ins, self/peer evaluations, and data collection through projects presented on the ePortfolios. 

 

Vital Behaviors:

• The teacher will model the use of ePortfolios, by creating and presenting their own “ePortfolios” to the students. 

• Teachers will collaborate with students on their creation of ePortfolios by focusing on student creativity and passion through reflection

• Teachers and peers will provide positive and constructive “feedforward” to aid the development of students ePortfolios

 

Organizational Influencers: 

In my organization, the influencers are the principals and grade level leaders. For my project I will be addressing the principals and my grade-level leader. If I am successful, I would eventually want to influence all grade levels in my school to participate. 

 

Reflection: 

In order to impact change in my organization, I needed to know where I was going, how I was going to track it, and who I needed to influence. If I want my grade level or campus to participate in my innovation plan, I need to identify who to convince and get on board. I used the 4 key strategies, which are to notice the obvious, find crucial moments, identify positive deviants, spot culture busters to help identify the vital behaviors I wish to change. All of these strategies will aid me in my innovation plan of implementing ePortfolios by helping impact change in my organization. 

 

Notice the Obvious

First, I need to make it clear that most if not all of my students have never used an ePortfolio before.This can be daunting, I know it was for me in the beginning of this program. Not to mention, many teachers have also never used an ePortfolio before. There is a certain level of apprehension and anxiety from teachers who know nothing about ePortfolios and this will hinder their willingness to participate. Curriculum is also a big issue, many teachers have certain assignments on topics they use again and again. What I am doing in promoting ePortfolios is asking them to reconfigure how they have been assigning work for years. This could prove to be an issue in attracting colleagues to my innovation plan. Also, I can understand the overwhelming task of taking on yet another new concept and idea. As educators we are often thrown new things every year that make consistency difficult. 

 

Crucial Moments

In order for me to attract my colleagues and influence them to be a part of what I am doing I need to find those crucial moments to show them why they should join me. I have the opportunity to share and present evidence of the benefits during our PLC meetings as well as our grade level meetings. We come together once a week for PLC and grade level meetings, so I have ample opportunity to present to my coworkers. In these crucial moments, I will present them not only with how it affects data collection through authentic assessments, but I will also be able to provide real tangible examples of students' work. After implementing my plan into my classroom, I can provide a gallery walk to teachers who are skeptical. I want to be as transparent as possible with colleagues because I know how stressful change can seem. It is my hope that in these crucial moments, I can make a big impact by providing that positive evidence.

 

Positive Deviants

In order to move forward with this project and get my colleagues on board I need to identify the positive deviants. By hosting a student ePortfolio showcase, my colleagues can come and see for themselves what we are doing and how it is benefitting the students. Through seeing my data collection, student engagement, and self/peer reflection, hopefully they see that this plan will be beneficial to all. Also, by getting the endorsement of my organizational influencers such as my principal and grade level leader, I would have a better chance of attracting others to join in my plan. My organizational leaders are widely respected and are very social, this will prove helpful if I can convince them that my plan is worthwhile. Their support can encourage others to want to try and implement ePortfolios into their classrooms. 

 

Culture Busters

I think something that other teachers may struggle with in my plan is the ownership of the ePortfolios and projects. It makes a teacher's life easy to hand out the same assignments and only allow certain formats. Grading becomes a breeze and we create uninspired, lack luster students who don’t care. We need to give students the voice to show us what they know. This will give the students responsibility for their work but it will also inspire them to learn and dig deep. As an educator, why wouldn’t you encourage your students to be creative. Not all students fit into the same box and their work shouldn’t either. We also need to have an established environment in our classroom/campus of open communication. Our students need to feel safe in showing us who they are through their work. Not only will this help with student inspiration, but it will make grading and collecting data more enjoyable. It would become less monotonous on the teacher when each assignment looks different.