1
Lapan, S. D., & Hays, P. A. (2005). Collaborating for change. In K. T. Henson (Ed.),
Curriculum planning: Integrating multiculturalism, constructivism, and education reform
(3rd ed.). Longrove, Il: Waveland Press.
Background Information
Change is an issue teachers must face from the day they enter a teacher training program
until the day of their retirement party. Change comes in many forms, from curriculum
reform to state competency mandates to changes in personnel. Very often in the
education world, change is imposed on, rather than initiated by, classroom teachers. The
result is generally a reluctance to embrace change and the change process. Acceptance
and support at the classroom and building levels come much easier when the agents of
change are classroom teachers.
In the summer of 1991, fifteen potential change agent teachers arrived on campus
of Northern Arizona University (NAU) to become participants in a training project
funded by a Jacob Javits grant.1 The goal of the training project was to prepare teams of
classroom teachers to develop and implement programs of gifted education for
underrepresented populations in the school. Schools had been approached by NAU
1
The project reported in this case study was supported under the Javits Act Program
(Grant No. R206A90087) as administered by the Office of Educational Research and
Improvement, U.S Department of Education. Professors Lapan and Hays directed this
NAU project.
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project directors earlier in the year with specific focus on sites that served a large number
of ethnic minority students.
These teacher teams faced ten weeks of intensive training that included practice in
teaching methods, lesson and unit development, and analysis of their own teaching. They
would be expected to learn how to identify underserved minority gifted youth and to
develop a faculty collaboration plan to implement upon their return to school in the fall.
The stories of the 15 participants during the course of training and school year
implementation are as unique as the school sites they represented. Levels of success were
varied as well. One particularly successful site was an elementary school in the southwest
of Arizona, an oasis in the middle of the desert region near the border of Mexico. This is
that school’s story.
The Community
The community has a population approaching 55,000, a medium-sized city by Arizona
standards. Agriculture, through irrigation of the desert, is a part of the lifeblood of the
economy. A significant number of Mexican families, representing more than 33 percent
of the community’s population (all Hispanics represented nearly 36%) were drawn to the
city, either due to the proximity of its location or the job opportunities that beckoned. The
community struggled with providing the best educational programs possible for these
students; a disproportionately high dropout rate of Hispanic students was an indicator that
much more needed to be done.
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The School
The K-6 elementary school site that was selected as part of the training project was a
relatively new building in a growing section of the city. Socioeconomic diversity was
apparent as one drove around the neighborhood. The staff, including the principal, was
primarily female, with several teachers at each grade level. An absence of diversity on the
staff was quite obvious when compared with diversity in the student population; only one
of 40 staff members was Hispanic while the school had a 52 percent Hispanic enrollment.
The presence of bilingual office staff was a positive, not only in terms of translating
communications but also serving somewhat in the role of “liaisons” for the Spanishspeaking community.
The school offered a gifted education program that was similar to many across the
state. State-mandated intelligence and achievement tests were used as criteria for
placement, and the program focused on acceleration and enrichment. Very few minority
students had been identified for this program.
The Players
The key players in the NAU project training were Melinda, a fifth grade teacher, Bart, a
sixth grade teacher, and Kelly, the school principal. Melinda had not been teaching long,
but her classroom was very well organized. Bart had taught at the school for a few years
and was known for his success with challenging students. It was no surprise to walk in
his classroom and find a large number of boys (and a few girls) who had the potential to
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be very disruptive. Bart’s laid-back, carefree attitude was in direct contrast to Melinda’s
stoic approach to teaching. Kelly had been the building administrator for a few years and
steered her faculty and staff smoothly and efficiently. You knew where you stood with
Kelly, and she ran the school’s business with fair yet demanding expectations.
Kelly was a natural administrator. She was a “no-nonsense” kind of decision
maker when situations called for a “the buck stops here” kind of solution. Kelly also was
an innovative instructional leader; she recognized many needs not being met in her
school and explored creative ways to meet those needs under the funding constraints of
the district.
The Case: Part One—The Training
Melinda and Bart arrived on campus at NAU in June 1991 along with the other project
participants from across the state. The two teachers spent the first few days attending
intensive full-day sessions that provided experiences in knowledge acquisition, reflective
thinking, self-evaluation, critical thinking, and collaboration. As the training progressed,
Melinda seemed to be quieter, more serious, and more efficient. Bart became far more
outgoing in his behavior.
Early in the training, teams from each of the project sites were prepared for the
curriculum and program planning that would take place as the training progressed. A site
plan was to be developed, in collaboration with the building administrator, for a gifted
education delivery model that would identify and provide programming for
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underrepresented populations at each school. These site plans were highly specific to the
needs of the school community and culture.
Melinda and Bart were very effective in developing their site plan. Having full
support and continuous communication with Kelly, their principal, they designed a plan
that would focus on identifying students with potential in the areas of leadership and
creativity. They both saw this as a program needed by the students they worked with.
They determined that the most effective initial implementation of their design would be
in two stages. Initially, they would go into classrooms at their assigned teaching levels
(Melinda at fifth grade, Bart at sixth grade) and teach whole-class lessons designed to tap
the creative and leadership talents of students. Together with the regular classroom
teacher, they would begin collecting data to help them determine which students might
benefit from a gifted program focusing on leadership and creativity.
Phase two of their program implementation would be to jointly select students
who had demonstrated potential in either the leadership or creativity areas and meet with
the identified students on a regular basis by pulling them out of classes at scheduled
times, Bart working with sixth graders and Melinda with fifth graders. With the help of
teaching colleagues, they would identify students from all of the classrooms (including
their own) who were not currently a part of the traditional gifted program.
The Case: Part Two—Fall Semester, 1991
Sometimes agents of change must make sacrifices for the sake of an innovation. Such
was the case with Melinda and Bart. They, as well as Principal Kelly, knew they had a
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very good plan, but they wondered how there would be time to implement it. They all
knew, after ten weeks of reflection, that this was something the students would benefit
from, and they were committed to making it work. So, together, they sat down to look at
the dreaded “master schedule.”
What resulted from hours of reconfiguring was a give-and-take outcome: Melinda
and Bart would give of their talents to students and staff and take from their individual
schedules a portion of the all-too-few planning times they were allotted. Kelly mapped
out the most advantageous times for each to do so, and the first major logistical obstacle
had been overcome. They hoped that the rest of the staff, recognizing the efforts being
made by Melinda and Bart, would be supportive of whatever scheduling changes needed
to be made that would affect them.
In August, the first order of business was an optional in-service orientation with
teachers whose students might be selected for participation in the program. An
information session was held early one morning during “prep” week, with Melinda, Bart,
and an NAU project staff member presenting an overview of the year ahead.
Initially, the school site team had planned to ease into implementation, starting
out with demonstration lessons in classrooms. Once again, the teachers on the team were
charting unfamiliar territory. The idea of peer modeling is not new, but it was new in
their building. The demonstration lessons would have a variety of targeted outcomes.
Bart and Melinda would provide teachers with lesson models that would foster creative
responses from students in the regular classroom setting. It was hoped that teachers
would be motivated to incorporate similar types of lessons into their daily teaching. A
direct outcome of the lessons would be opportunities for Bart and Melinda to interact
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with students and list those students who might benefit from inclusion in the alternate
gifted program.
Although the original intent of the demonstration lessons had been broader, Bart
and Melinda chose to focus on the use of the lessons as a means of identifying gifted
students. The classroom teachers for the most part shared this goal. In addition, a sixth
grade teacher saw the lessons as a means of expanding her students’ reasoning and their
ability to perceive things differently than they might in a typical classroom. The lessons
were viewed more as mind expansion than as teaching definite skills. A fifth grade
teacher, having experienced the lessons, recognized Melinda and Bart’s new expertise in
identifying creative talent. She recognized her own limitations, and was very pleased that
the two were able to share this expertise with her.
The Case: Part Three—Spring Semester, 1992
When the second semester began, it was time to initiate the planned pull-out program.
This would be a real test of teamwork for Melinda and Bart. They planned on meeting the
newly identified students on a weekly basis. As the semester progressed, a few more
students were identified, and students were involved in a number of projects in the pullout program that tapped both their creative potential and their leadership skills. Students
shared their enthusiasm for being in the program with classmates and classroom teachers.
They said they enjoyed the chance to use their imaginations, and some said that their
enthusiasm for being involved with the program had extended to their families. One
student stated that when he talked about the program, his parents would “stop what they
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were doing and listen to me.” He added that his parents contributed ideas related to
specific projects he was working on in the program.
Not only was the impact of the new program being felt at the building level, but
Bart and Melinda’s work was being recognized throughout the district. They had met
with the director of gifted programs in the district early in the second semester to update
her on progress. The director had then contacted Bart and Melinda a few times, including
requests for conference presentations, and she appeared to want both teachers to stay
actively involved in gifted education at the district level.
As the school year drew to a close, both teachers finished up projects not only in
the pull-out program but in their own classrooms as well. As the three team members—
the principal, the fifth grade teacher, and the sixth grade teacher—looked back at the year
that had gone by so quickly, they began to reflect on the changes that had taken place.
Throughout the school year, and particularly during the second semester, Melinda
and Bart worked closely together. Initially they had planned how the implementation
would take place and prepared demonstration lessons. As the year progressed, their
collaborative effort grew as they focused on identifying students for the program,
developing activities for the pull-out sessions, and providing in-service programs and
consulting for staff and district personnel. You might be curious to know how the two
teachers viewed such a close partnership, since more often than not teachers perform their
daily teaching duties in the isolation of a self-contained classroom. Looking back at the
year, Melinda and Bart had only positive remarks to make about their year-long
collaboration.
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One indication that this was a successful collaboration was the impact the two
teachers, with the support and guidance of the principal, had at the building level.
Principal Kelly noted the positive effects the implementation had on her school
community:
I think it’s been very creative, very beneficial to the students. It’s created
a lot of parent interest, and I think the neatest thing I’ve seen happen is
the interest the other teachers now have in developing upper-level thinking
skills…I think the teachers were excited to know that Melinda and Bart
were willing to come into their rooms and actually model lessons.
Beyond the immediate changes they saw in the students and their teaching, Bart
and Melinda saw changes in their roles at the building level too. Identifying kids that
could “get lost in the cracks and maybe not even finish high school” and recognizing and
valuing their talents might have long-range effects. They also saw the program’s impact
on the teachers, many of whom were rethinking what “giftedness” meant. Both teachers
saw themselves as being recognized as leaders in the building and in the district. The
opportunities to serve as in-service presenters was new to each of them, but they quickly
grew comfortable with the new roles.
The Case: Part Four—The Epilogue
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This program was implemented during the academic year 1991-1992. So, what does it
prove? What does something that happened more than a decade ago, in some unknown
place, have to do with education reform now?
If nothing else, perhaps the reader of this success story can see that more is
happening in the public schools than what is often so negatively portrayed in the media.
Perhaps you can see a bit of yourself in Melinda, Bart, or Kelly. Maybe someone reading
this will think back on a situation or setting very similar to the one presented. Perhaps
that reader can make a difference too.
This case is not a story of great political changes or sweeping educational reform.
This isn’t a story that will someday become a blockbuster movie or a best seller. This is a
testimonial to the hard work of a trio of everyday educators who, with some training and
support, demonstrated how positive change can happen by using collaboration with
colleagues and a school principal.
Issues for Further Reflection and Application
1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of working with no-nonsense, linear
thinkers when changes are being made?
2. Change often brings varying degrees of discomfort if not down right pain to
people having to adjust to new circumstances. Can innovators be conditioned to
accept and overcome the discomfort that change brings?
3. What role does flexibility play in change leadership?
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4. What steps can agents of change make to ensure that students will not feel left out
or ignored?
Suggested Readings
Fullan, M. (1999). Participating education: A proactive approach. In B. M. Day (Ed.),
Teaching and learning for the millennium. Indianapolis, IN: Kappa Delta Pi.
Fullan, M. (2001). The new meaning of educational change (3rd ed.). New York:
Teachers College Press.
Garaway, G. (2004). Participatory evaluation. In K. deMarrais & S. Lapan (Eds.),
Foundations for research: Methods of inquiry in education and the social
sciences. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Newmann, F., & Sconzert, K. (2000). School improvement with external partners.
Chicago: Consortium on Chicago School Research.