My original Problem of Practice was about designing technology-focused professional development sessions for faculty and staff that would be meaningful and empowering to them as tech users/instructors (and that they would actually attend).
Over the course of this unit, I have been working to better define my problem and craft a problem statement. To get to the root cause of my problem, I first asked myself "why?":
My Problem is: Designing technology PD sessions for faculty and staff that are meaningful and empowering to them as tech users/instructors (and that they will actually attend).
Why?
There is a need for technology focused professional development at my school.
Why?
Response 2: Faculty and staff should be competent and confident technology users so that they can do their jobs more effectively and be better prepared to help students.
Why?
Modern education is relatively tech-dependent, and teachers need to learn new skills to stay relevant.
Why?
Teachers are not being taught the tech skills they need before starting the school year.
Why?
Technology PD is not a big part of our onboarding process for new hires and there is no required continuing education for teachers/staff.
After working through the 5 Whys process I felt like I still hadn't addressed half of my problem, so I did it again:
My Problem is: Faculty and staff aren’t attending our tech PD sessions.
Why?
Optional PD isn’t a priority for many people.
Why?
There are time constraints and they have other obligations.
Why?
Teachers aren’t available during the day, and everyone wants to leave after school.
Why?
Teachers are asked to do a lot and don’t have much time to do it.
Why?
Teachers are busy fulfilling the requirements of their positions and don’t have the time/energy to prioritize learning new skills.
This second root cause, that teachers simply don't have the time to do more optional PD, was the launching point for the next exercise, a Why-How Ladder. Below, I've mapped out some whys and hows of this problem (start reading from the bottom and follow the arrows).
Finally, I wrote a Point of View Statement based on my empathy interview from the last unit:
I met: Kelly, the assistant librarian. She is a bit older, and does not consider herself very computer literate. She works with all grade levels when they come in to use the library, and when the head librarian is absent she is responsible for filling in.
I was surprised to notice: Kelly noted that our students use three different operating systems on a daily basis and staff don’t necessarily know how to use all of them.
I wonder if this means: If Kelly feels uncomfortable or unprepared when trying to assist students on their devices in the library.
It would be game-changing to: Teach Kelly to be a competent user of Macbooks, iPads, and Chromebooks so she can feel confident working with students on these devices.
In addition to these exercises, I did some mind mapping to help specify the different layers of my problem:
From here, I developed the first iteration of my problem statement:
My problem is designing a technology-focused professional development program that is useful and empowering to the faculty and staff at my school. Technology training is not a big part of our onboarding process, and there is no required technology training throughout the year to introduce new tools or reinforce skills. My specific goal for the PD is to expose users to new tech tools/skills and get them comfortable and confident enough with those topics to explore them further on their own.
This problem is multifaceted: first, I must identify the needs of my users by asking what tech skills they need to know and what skills they want to learn. Second, I need to figure out how to get people to attend— how do I work around scheduling constraints and motivate users to show up?
I'm eager to see how my problem statement develops as I further explore this topic!
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