Human Performance Technology

The performance problem that I chose to tackle is one that affects every part of our lives, not just our effectiveness in our profession.  The problem we all face is that there never seems to be enough time to get everything done that needs to get done. We know that as much as we would like to, we simply cannot create more time.  The question to address then is how do we make better use of the time constraints we have to work within?  

In the teaching profession, this issue impacts us in so many ways.  One specific area that I see us missing the mark particularly because of lack of time is that we have amazingly talented teachers who don't have time to support other teachers across curriculum areas and across grade levels.  The teachers on our campus and in our district are one of our most valuable resources and yet for the most part these resources remain untapped or, at best, just barely tapped.

Teachers' days are crammed full with trying to juggle all of their responsibilities: take care of their students; write lesson plans; attend the plethora of meetings that come up; grade papers and post grades; and have a little time to actually teach.  There isn't much spare time to effectively collaborate or mentor other teachers.  I wonder how much better we would all be at what we do if we were able to make some headway toward better use of our human resources.

I believe that many teachers fear sharing their knowledge, skills, talents, and creativity, not because they are stingy, but because they don't want to have more responsibility added to their proverbial plate that is already overflowing by being asked to head up a team, teach a staff development, etc.   Instead of sharing, we have teachers all over our building recreating the wheel for units when a teacher down the hall already has a phenomenal way of teaching that unit.  Herein lies the problem!

If we spent less time recreating the wheel, could we spend more time building a network of resources to draw from?  If we share into the pool of resources with the things that work well for us and were able to dip into that same pool when we need it, would we be more effective in our time management as well as in our teaching?  Of course the answer is yes, and we all already know that, but then how to we make this a reality on our campus?  This is where an Electronic Performance Support System (a computer software program or component designed to improve user performance on a given task) could help ease the frustration caused by our problem.  By utilizing a database of resources, we save time on the creating side of the equation and free time on the sharing side of the equation.   However, since this isn't a particularly novel idea, how can we implement it on our campus in a way that it will be embraced rather than ignored?

I see the snowball effect coming into play in resolving this problem.  Once the snowball begins rolling and gaining momentum, more and more teachers will see the benefit of participating.  Consider these two websites: Teachers Pay Teachers and Pinterest are two practical examples of sites that have experienced unbelievable growth as people share and draw from each other's ideas.  Could we create a similar pool of resources on our campus or within our district?  What if a website was created for each content area to post to across grade levels?  This would allow for resource sharing on many levels! 

I would certainly see this as a huge benefit.  I could look vertically at what ideas my colleagues are using to present a concept and draw on the schema that my students have from their previous teachers.  I could draw on those same ideas if my students were struggling with a concept by using the ideas that were taught at the grade level below mine to remediate with familiar materials and lessons.  I could search for ideas on a particular unit while I'm in the planning phase to see what ideas are working for my colleagues.  All of this would be a much more effective use of my time rather than spinning my wheels dreaming up new ideas for every single lesson I need to teach.

A database of this magnitude could quickly get out of control unless some very strong organizational backbones are put in place from its inception.  Simple instructions for adding resources to the database would need to be created and disseminated so teachers are comfortable with this process, including adding applicable search terms.   The database would need to be searchable by unit concepts, TEKS, grade level, etc. so that as it is accessed the appropriate materials are found.  With so many places that teachers use to gather information from, just getting it all organized in one place could be a huge time-saver on its own. 

I have participated in several informal learning opportunities on my campus both as the learner and as the teacher.  As the learner, I have gone to a fellow teacher for a quick how-to demonstration in a number of areas, such as working with the report card generating system or importing a video into a student accessible directory.  As the teacher, I have helped explain some of the intricacies of flipping a lesson including all of the different ways to record a video lesson or create a digital presentation, digital media apps for student-use, uploading the lesson for student delivery, and assessing student knowledge of the materials.  

These informal conversations provide just a few examples of the resources that we have on our campus that everyone could benefit from.  In a perfect world, some ways to capture that information and share it campus-wide would be in place.  If the information on flipping a lesson was broadcast to all of our teachers, we would probably find that there were many teachers interested in the information or ones who would be willing to give it a shot if they knew how to do it quickly and efficiently as well as who they could go to if they have additional questions.  But, it is impractical to think that we can capture every important conversation on our campus.  We could, however, carve out ten minutes to record a quick video explanation of a topic that we are comfortable with and upload it into our database or type up instructions when someone comes to us with a question and populate that document to our database.  

An interesting video about Electronic Performance Support Systems and Informal Learning opportunities explains how these two ideas work well together to facilitate the "Learning Just In Time" concept particularly in the field of education.  This "Learning Just In Time" idea means that users have the opportunity to locate the information they need at the moment it is needed making a more effective way for all of us to work and learn!  This video supports the idea that we all want the ability to work efficiently and effectively and with the tools available to enable that, we are much more productive!

If teachers knew that sharing knowledge wouldn't overwhelm them with more to-do's, would they then be willing to let themselves be a resources for different areas on our campus?  Could administrators create a list of teachers who are available to answer questions on a certain topic?   With a change in mindset about sharing our resources, we could create a vast database to draw on and hopefully relieve just a little bit of the time crunch that we all feel.