Participants:

Kay Bible

Technology specialist with three elementary schools; 33 years experience

Kathy Ehle

Fourth grade teacher at Alton Darby Elementary; 20 years experience

Kelly Gorby

Fifth grade teacher at Alton Darby Elementary; 15 years experience

Julie Johnson

Third grade teacher at Avery Elementary; 20 years experience

Kathy Parker-Jones

Technology specialist with three elementary schools; 18 years experience

Meghan Richter

Sixth grade language arts teacher at Hilliard Station; 10 years experience

Structure:

We started the focus group by asking a series of questions about how students collaborate, and how they, as teachers, foster a collaborative environment in their classrooms. I was also interested in storytelling and how that fits into students’ lives and the classroom. We asked about individual relationships they form with students and how they work to build those relationships in such large classrooms, as well as how and when they use technology in the classroom and the outcomes of that technology use.

Outcome:

With the current economic struggles it is infeasible for students to have access to technology on a daily basis. Most classrooms have 4 or 5 computers set up that students can use, but teachers have to reserve laptops if they want every student to have individual access, or other devices if they want something specialized, like cameras or iPods.

Teachers are also unwilling to spend the time to teach new technology, be it hardware or software, if it will not save them time in the long run or have a measurable impact on student work. It is not only the students who have to invest time to learn; teachers have to take the time outside of class to prepare themselves to understand the program well enough to be able to address the students’ questions.

Despite the challenges of utilizing technology in their classrooms, the teachers reported that students are instantly more engaged when they get to use technology in the classroom. Multiple teachers reported that using blogs in their writer’s workshop period has increased the amount of writing students do inside and outside the classroom. They like that they can publish their work for students, parents and teachers to see. Students also love leaving and receiving comments on their posts. One teacher reported that she liked having the ability to post a comment on a student’s writing that all of his or her classmates can see. She uses this to point out positive aspects of student’s writing to encourage the class to emulate that specific trait.

When asked about storytelling and their writing instruction, the teachers had some enlightening insight. They explained that students have a lot of trouble in 3rd and 4th grade generating ideas for narratives. Because of this, teachers focus more on nonfiction or personal narratives in their classrooms. Currently students are taught to use techniques such as building story webs or storyboards to help organize their thoughts before writing. They also explained the importance of a social connection in their writing classrooms. Students loved using blogs because they are able to give and receive comments from their teachers and peers. They also use the blog platform to corroboratively brainstorm; ask questions of their peers and get answers in the comments. Students also were engaged by the digital medium of blogs, students who found hand writing difficult were able to type responses, easing both the barrier to the student and the teacher who often struggled to read said responses.

We spoke briefly about how the internet has countless resources to help generate ideas or research topics. One teacher explained that it is very difficult to let students use the internet for this sort of research; not only because it needs to be censored for content, but because it is often above students’ reading level, and they quickly get frustrated when they can not find the information they need.

Overall, this was a hugely helpful exercise that help me gain invaluable insight into how teachers run their classrooms and how writing and storytelling are currently taught.