The Nature of Questioning
I think it's fascinating how answering questions often gives rise to newly discovered questions.
answered questions → additional questions
To culminate my formal graduate schooling, I conducted an action research project that began with four inter-related questions:
- What efforts have been and are currently being made in the Canyons School District to meet the instructional technology needs of teachers?
- What do school and district administrators, teachers, and other stakeholders hope to accomplish in providing teachers with instructional technology support?
- What changes might be made to current support models within the District, such that teacher needs (including those once-unanticipated) might be met?
- What forms of evaluation might serve to improve the instructional technology support that teachers receive?
To my eventual surprise, answers to each of the questions were often complex and could have been extremely detailed by nature. Moreover, as the study progressed, a wide array of new-found questions continued to emerge:
- What new teacher needs have developed in recent years, particularly as a result of increases in technology quantity and quality and the ubiquity of information?
- How might professional development (PD) better be used to meet teacher needs?
- While PD can effectively meet certain teacher needs, which others must be treated through other means?
- How might new learning/technology environments meet the technology access needs of teachers and students, and what support requirements does each new environment entail?
- Moreover, how do startup and maintenance costs for these new environments compare with more traditional educational technology scenarios?
- How do environmental support conditions impact the reception garnered through support efforts provided?
- How might access to technology be more evenly distributed across public schools, and what political and economic changes must be made to enable such change?
- In what other ways does administrative priority affect school environments?
- What impact do technology-related support efforts have on non-licensed school community members?
- How does teacher preparedness and support influence student achievement?
- How might action research continue to better inform educational and technology policy, organization, and procedure?
