Teaching in the Time of Testing and Technology: An Ethnographic Approach

• In Event: Aspects of Learning Cultures: A Dialogic Approach to Meta-Ethnography of Learning and Teaching

Abstract

Purpose and Perspective
Current educational climates in the U.S. are heavily focused on achievement on standardized tests, particularly in low income areas (Herman & Golan, 1993; Weinbaum, Weiss & Beaver, 2012). However, curriculum and instruction focused on these tests have not shown large strides towards learning gains (Anderson, 2012), as they often ignore local cultures of schools and communities. Using qualitative methods, particularly an ethnographic methodology, can help to peer into the proverbial black box of curriculum and instruction within school cultures. This study aims to strengthen existing literature on teacher pedagogical choices by examining how teachers’ choices in their classroom do or do not align with the larger school culture.
Informed by sociocultural theory in education (Forman & Sink, 2006), the researcher entered a middle school within a suburban school district that is identified as Title I based on a high percentage of the student body receiving free and reduced lunch. The research question driving this study is how do the tensions between state-level testing and technology-centered pedagogies manifest in the classroom instruction of a low socioeconomic middle school?

Methods and data sources
Data was collected using an ethnographic methodology drawing from Nespor (1997) which resulted in field notes, audio recording and photographs. Ethnographic interviews (Spradley, 1979) were conducted with five teachers and the researcher was a participant-observer in their math, English, science or social studies classrooms (Spradley, 1980). Artifacts of the classroom and school included student work, teacher-created tests, and professional development schedules. A go-along (Kusenbach, 2003) with the principal ascertained his daily tasks and dispositions. Students also participated in focus groups (Krueger & Casey, 2002; Tammivaara & Enright, 1986). Data analysis was conducted using a constant comparative method and open coding (Emerson, Fretz & Shaw, 2011; Lincoln & Guba, 1985) iteratively. Then, within axial coding, themes emerged (Maxwell, 2012) and became the focal point of this paper – teaching and technology.

Results
In looking at narratives within the themes a mismatch between the pedagogies promoted by the school and the practices used in the classrooms emerged. Additionally, as was supported through member checking, teachers felt technology was being used to distract from the state-level test results. The principal in this school professed little stock in the validity of the state-level test, but heavily promoted the use of technology acquired through private grants.

Scholarly Significance
This study holds significance in its ability to illustrate, within the instructional black box, specific tensions between different initiatives within a school culture. Often, new policies or initiatives are implemented without consultation with stakeholders or full understanding of the existing culture of the schools the policies aim to change. Competing needs to succeed on standardized tests and create technologically literate citizens are prevalent beyond the walls of the school under study. Providing context to policy makers and those designing interventions can help to further productive changes to the school systems. Within this symposium, I will focus on the ways ethnography helped to illustrate the tensions in the school through thick description and rich data.

Author

• Kathryn M. Bateman, The Pennsylvania State University - University Park