Action Research Plan Force Field Mapping

Below is a Force Field Map for my Action Research Plan. I intend to increase participation in the Lakeridge Elementary Technology Club. Per Coghlan and Brannick (81), Force Field analysis consists of the following steps:

1) Describe the change issue and the desired direction of the change.
2) List the political forces driving change and those restraining in a diagram which has the forces in opposition to each other.
3) Give a weighting to the forces, those that are stronger and more powerful than others.
4) Focus on the restraining forces and assess which of the significant ones need to be worked on and those which can be worked on
5) Develop plans for reducing these forces.

Plan for Reducing Forces Against Change

Ideally one works on reducing the forces against change in order to affect a change. In my case I will work to reduce these forces, thereby increasing participation in the Lakeridge Tech Club. In this section I will examine strategies for reducing the forces against change.

Meets during recess twice a week, limiting time spent "outside." Last year I had a fifth grade student whose parents had given him a pedometer. He was expected to walk a certain distance over the course of the day, supplementing this distance during recess or P.E. If he had not made his distance it was expected that he would not go to Tech Club in order to go outside and run around. Physical exercise is very important for children at this age as it forms good habits for later in life. Third grade students at Lakeridge have three recesses, while fifth grade students have two (the second being ten minutes longer than that of the third and fourth grade students). Since attendance at Tech Club is always voluntary I will often send students who are not engaged out to recess. Additionally, my regular position sometimes precludes me from being able to meet on a certain day so some days Tech Club is canceled and I send the students out to enjoy recess. By limiting Tech Club to twice I week I can ensure that students are getting outside and working off some of their excess energy. While a very important consideration, I feel that limiting the disruption of Tech Club to twice a week for twenty minutes to half an hour should allow students to experience plenty of time outside at recess. The library is also open during recess and many students choose not to go outside. I see Tech Club as being a viable alternative to outside recess just as the library is, too.

A few students tend to dominate the club, turning off other students to participating. One or two students in the past have tended to put themselves in charge of the activity in which Tech Club is engaged. This occurs particularly when we are working on a stop-motion Lego film as a few students have made the films in the past and have a good working knowledge of the process. However, being bossed around by their peers is never fun for any student, and oftentimes students feel that they do not need to participate because they perceive that the bossiness indicates that there is nothing for them to do. I am aware of the domination by some students and will oftentimes reassign them to a different position that affords them an opportunity to participate but lessens their ability to command other students. Additionally, I have in the past gone to particular students who I would like to see participate in an activity and personally invited them to come to Tech Club. This empowers them to participate and makes them feel important. I intend this year to continue to monitor the interactions of all Tech Club participants and to ensure that everyone feels that they are participating and feel a part of the process. Additionally, I intend to put the "bossy" students into mentorship roles where they might not be working on the particular activity in which Tech Club is engaged but rather helping other students to gain the same skills of which the mentors have already proven themselves capable. Again, there are several students who have become quite talented with stop-motion film making. By placing them in leadership roles, such as directing a film or working the stop-motion software, they are still able to participate but allow the other students to have the hands-on task of animating or filming. This empowers everyone who is involved in a project and channels the "bossiness" into a positive, cooperative experience.

Area where club meets is often used by other programs. In the past we have used the space occupied by the Occupational Therapy program at Lakeridge. Since we meet during recess there is seldom a conflict with using the space. The room is removed from the classroom areas so excess noise is seldom an issue, and with a white board, television, and plenty of space available it is an ideal location in which to meet. However, when we begin working on stop-motion films, which might require set to be built and left in place because we are unable to complete filming in one session, I have typically moved the location to my tiny office. It is not an ideal location but it serves. Additionally, at the end of the school year I discarded a large shelf of old video tapes no longer used in video production at Lakeridge. This has freed up an area in the computer lab that we can also use to meet. Sometimes kindergarten through second grade classes are scheduled for the lab during the time we meet. If we require use of computers there are mobile laptop carts that can be used. Additionally, I have been able to arrange with the A.M. kindergarten teacher to use her room when the OT room was being used. People at Lakeridge are flexible and for this reason I feel that I can continue to find a place for Tech Club to meet that serves our varied needs.

Limited funding available from the district. Tech Club is a supplementary position with a limited budget used to pay the faculty advisor. For this reason there are no funds available to purchase new software or hardware. All the monies go towards paying for the advisor's time. Last year I wrote a grant proposal to the Lakeridge PTA to fund the purchase of the software and hardware that we needed to produce a comic book for new students. Budgetary shortfalls can be remedied by writing grant proposals to the PTA or to the Mercer Island School's Foundation, a parent organization founded to provide monies for district-approved programs that the district is unable to fund. These two sources should cover any budgetary shortfalls that I might encounter.

School uses a single computer platform, limiting students' exposure to alternate operating systems. The Mercer Island School District uses Macintosh computers and Mac OS for grades kindergarten through eight. The high school is a mixed-platform environment with PCs running Windows XP the dominant installation, with Macs rounding out the journalism, publications, and Chinese departments. Mac OS X is built upon a UNIX core. While elementary students are not yet proficient enough to take full advantage of the UNIX underpinnings, the setup that I have designed and implemented for Lakeridge does take advantage of the power and flexibility offered by a UNIX-based operating system. With much of the software and curriculum support materials migrating away from desktop applications to web-based programs, the operating system of the computer matters less as time progresses. The standard "productivity suite" that students in K-8 use is Microsoft Office, whose counterpart on the PC platform functions identically and with which documents can be exchanged with no translation issues. By exposing elementary students to the fundamental operation of the computer and making them aware of the desktop metaphor; how to open documents stored on a server and save the same document back to a server; and how to complete such tasks web browsing and copying and pasting text, students are well prepared to use any operating system as their basic uses are almost identical at this point in time. Instead of worrying that students are not using Microsoft's operating system, by far the dominant operating system for now, I would prefer to build a student's confidence and skill in basic computer terminology and use, which can be transferred to any operating system, be it Linux, Mac OS, or Windows.

Open only to third through fifth grade students. Younger siblings of third through fifth graders are often very jealous of their older brothers or sisters who get to participate in Tech Club. However, their recess times are different than the third through fifth grade classes. Oftentimes their computer skills are not yet honed enough to make participating in Tech Club feasible. While these limitations due hamper their participation, in many respects this "carrot" is good bait to encourage students to wait for their chance to participate in Tech Club when they reach third grade. Perhaps by having third grade students present some of Tech Club's activities as the school year draws to a close we can build anticipation of and excitement in the program, thereby increasing participation in subsequent years.

Recruitment and retention of girls has been difficult in a field dominated by boys. Girls sometimes perceive Tech Club as being something only boys are interested in. However, both the Director of Technology and the Network Engineer for the district are both women. A girls-only Tech Club meeting hosted by these two women might showcase career opportunities in high tech. I also intend to arrange with the school counselor, who runs a girl's lunch group, to engage in a project with girls only that captures their imagination and hopefully yields increased participation in the Tech Club program. Last year's comic book project attracted the attention of many girls who wanted to be photographed with Elroy the lion. Similarly, the digital picture frame is popular with girls as well, who enjoy seeing pictures of their peers. I intend this year to launch a podcast about issues and ideas at Lakeridge in which girls might enjoy participating. By better crafting (and advertising) activities that seem less technology-oriented but that do take advantage of technology, like digital photography, I might better be able to encourage female students to participate in Tech Club.

While the forces against change are formidable in my Action Research Project, I feel that all of them are surmountable. By working hard, paying close attention to the actions and reactions of the students, and by tailoring the activities to better meet the interests of all students, I feel that I can lower the forces against change and meet my goal of increasing students participation in the Lakeridge Tech Club.

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