Research on Social Networks in Schools – More Highlights from AERA

One of the most exciting sessions I attended at AERA was a panel exclusively focused on the use of social network analysis to study teachers’ work and communities.

Nienke Moolenaar, a Ph.D. student from the University of Amsterdam presented a study on the social networks of teachers in Amsterdam schools (the co-authors include Bonne Ziljstra and Dr. Peter Sleegers).  Their study is massive – including almost all of the teachers in the district.  They are interested in looking at the ways that teachers’ different types of social networks (friendship, professional, etc.) are related,  and the relationship between levels of trust between teachers and within the school are related to characteristics of the networks.  Moolenaar et al’s initial findings are quite thought provoking. First, she found some contradictions between levels of trust between teachers and within the school (you’ll have to read their paper to get more detail on this). Second, they found that teachers’ professional networks were much more inclusive and widespread than friendship networks.  This is a promising finding, in my opinion – that professional work does not have to rest exclusively on friendship, but rather on the collaborative work and projects that teachers do.

 Dr. Alan Daly, assistant professor at the University of California-San Diego presented  (co-authors Kara Finnegan & Jose Manuel Bolivar) a longitudinal study of social networks in schools.  This is one of the first whole-district, longitudinal SNA studies to be done.  Daly et al are interested in the ways networks change as a reform effort is being implemented.  I found their tie characteristics interesting – for example, one type of tie they examined were “risk” ties – that is, who in your network takes risks or do you see as a risk-taker?  Also, it was interesting to see the movement over time – to see who became more isolated and pushed to the periphery (again, please look for their papers to read more detail on the study)

 Finally, another fascinating SNA study was presented by Allison Atteberry (co-author Dr. Tony Bryk) from Stanford University.   Their study examines the social networks of teachers as they relate to literacy coaches in a school.  Their research shows how important a coach or mentor can be in bridging ties between teachers in a school and sharing information.  To read more about the study, you can visit their website at: www.iisrd.org

There was another session with researchers the MIECT study project that focused exclusively on teachers’ networks.

Doctoral Student, Ben Pogodzinski focused on issues of mentoring and commitment – his findings are similar to several other recent SNA studies in one regard – the importance of “informal” mentoring relationships over formal mentoring relationship.

Another presenter, Nathan Jones, discussed his work with Peter Youngs on the attitudes of early-career teachers throughout their day.  Low & Youngs used an interesting technique to gather data – a sort of paging system that beeped teachers randomly throughout the day to ask them about what they were doing at that time and how they were feeling. The study had interesting findings around the proportional differences in the kinds of activities that regular and special education teachers engaged in throughout the day.  Further, I was particularly interested in their finding that teachers were generally “happier” during instruction time than when interacting with colleagues.  Of course – and we don’t necessarily need a study to prove this -- they were least happy filing paperwork J

Mark Low presented a paper that contrasted the networks and commitment levels of teachers in public schools versus catholic schools. There were some initial findings that indicated important differences in the commitment levels of Public versus Catholic schools – this study is still in progress and more analysis on the data will probably be available soon.

In addition to the sessions, I met another SNA researcher, Alison Fox, from Cambridge University, who presented her paper on the social network of early career teachers. She works with several scholars in England – Patrick Carmichael (CARET, Cambridge), Robert McCormick (Open University) and Richard Procter (I of E).  They have been researching teacher learning and communities in England for several years now, and have a website dedicated to all of their research: www.tlrp.org

Research on Teacher Induction & Mentoring- Highlights from AERA Conference

Teacher induction and mentoring is a hot topic in education, and I sought out talks that related closely to teacher relationships and networks. The following were some papers and presentations that posed some interesting findings and ideas:

Morgan Polikoff, a doctoral student working with Dean Andy Porter at the University of Pennsylvania GSE reported on his research about the range of mentoring that teachers receive in schools. One interesting pattern that emerged in his study was that mid-career changers tended to have been paid less attention to by their principals, and received less time in mentoring.  In interviews, principals seemed to infer that they believed that these older teachers could handle things better with less support because they were more mature and had more life experience.  From a social network perspective, I wondered if these teachers had more established social roots in the community and school that might have provided additional social support that first-career new teachers may not have.

Dr. Richard Ingersoll, also a professor at the University of Pennsylvania was the discussant at Mr. Polikoff’s session. He noted that we had “come a long way” in developing induction practices, but that we had a long way to go in breaking some of the entrenched beliefs around isolationism and “sink or swim” policies.  He urged continued research on this front and to realize what we have learned through policies and programs in schools.

In another session on Teacher Recruitment and Hiring, members of the research team on the Michigan-Indiana Early Career Teacher (MIECT) study project reported some early findings.

Erin Grogan (Doctoral Student at Michigan State University) looked at the differences between the way charter schools and public schools recruit teachers. She noted that previous research has found that districts and schools that use a range of strategies for recruitment were most successful in teacher recruitment.   Surprisingly, she noted that traditional public schools were more likely to use a range of innovative incentive strategies than Charter schools.  

 

Her findings were brought into a larger discussion led by Dr. Edward Liu of Rutgers University.   Ms. Grogan noted that, when she talked with principals and other administrators, the reality was that teachers were primarily sought and recruited through social networks – if the principal or administrator knew them prior to their application, say, for example, if they were substitute teachers beforehand. 

Dr. Liu mentioned that it was sometimes unclear what aspect of recruitment and placement strategies (the written policy or the “unwritten” but socially accepted policies) “trumped” the shaping of decisions made by administrators as to who they recruit and hire. Further, teachers’ decisions to apply to a particular school are equally complex and in need of further research.  I recalled Boyd, Lankford, Loeb, & Wycoff’s (2003) research on the “Draw of Home” – or teachers’ desire to teach in communities similar to their own – and wondered if there were any empirical studies comparing this factor with teachers’ actual social networks – and the job acceptance/seeking rate.  As of now, it seems there is not much data on this (but scholars in the MIECT study and others are starting to emerge with new and interesting social network data). 

NCTAF & Online Professional Communities for New Teachers

The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future announced a partnership with Pearson- a private educational resources company - in March 2009 to develop an online program for hosting new teachers' professional learning communities.  The project is officially called "Teachers Learning in Networked Communities" or "TLINC."  TLINC will use the established "Tapped In" platform for the project.  It is based off of pilot programs from the University of Memphis, University of Colorado-Denver,  and the University of Washington. 

For more information, visit the NCTAF website or go directly to this link - 

http://www.nctaf.org/resources/news/press_releases/PearsonTLINC.htm

Teachers' Social Network Papers at the 2009 American Educational Research Association Conference

The 2009 AERA Conference will occur from April 13th-17th in San Diego, CA.

Several papers and presentations will address Teachers' Social Networks.

Myself and Dr. Susan Yoon (University of Pennsylvania, GSE)  will be presenting our SNA research at a poster session on Thursday, April 16th. The title of the session is: "Building and Sustaining Innovative Science and Technology programs: Learning from Teachers' Social Networking Characteristics"  The presentation will describe our research on the social networking characteristics of teachers in a STEM professional development program, and the implications of the findings on future program design.

Another session that promises to be interesting is:

"The Role of Social Networks in Influencing the Commitment of Novice Teachers"

Presenters for this session include: 

From Michigan State University: Peter Youngs, Ben Pogodzinski, Nathan Jones, & Mark R. Low.  From University of Wisconsin-Madison, Patricia Burch, and from University of Notre-Dame, Sean P. Kelly

A session that may give a broader perspective on social networks in schools is: "Understanding the Nature and Function of Social Networks in School Organizations"  Presenters from this session include: 

From University of Washington: Michelle DeVoogt Van Lare, Irene H. Yoon. From University of Amsterdam: Nienke Moolenaar, Bonne J.H. Zijlstra, From Univeristy of Twente: Peter Sleegers,

From University of California- San Diego: Alan J. Daly, Jose Manuel Bolivar. From University of Rochester: Kara S. Finnigan, and from Stanford University: Allison J. Atteberry, Anthony S. Bryk.

One session that is more about students' social networks, but may have some good examples of innovative social network research is: Peer Networks and School Culture: Their Influence on Academic and Social Outcomes.  It will be chaired by Gabriella C. Gonzalez of the RAND Corporation.

I will be live-twittering from the conference - sign up to follow my twitter account if you'd like to follow along: http://twitter.com/KJBD .

Wikis, Twitters, and Social networking for teachers on the web

Just surfing around & found a few interesting links:

This wiki describes how teachers can use technology for social networking: Socialnetworking4teachers

This wiki is for new teachers new-teacher-resources.wikispaces.com

Here is a link to an article that lists the "top 100 Edu-Twitters"

This site helps schools to network with each other:

www.theschoolsunited.com

It's On: The "21st Century Skills" Debate

Education week just posted a major article on several scholars' challenges to the emerging "21st century skills" movement - a collaboration between professional teacher organizations and businesses that have created a framework for 21st century learning. 

Read it here

According to many scholars, the disagreement actually comes down to the old "skills vs content" debate that has been raging for years. However the 21st century skills folks have been quick to respond to these challenges - here is text from an email they sent to folks on their listserv:

"Education Week has covered a recent discussion between Ken Kay, Diane Ravitch, E.D. Hirsch and Daniel Willingham. The Partnership wants to be clear that we advocate for world class skills and world class knowledge. Our goal is to fully prepare citizens and workers for the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. This means ensuring students receive rich content instruction and graduate with the skills necessary for post-secondary life. It appears our beliefs are echoed by Claus von Zastrow as he said in a blog post: "let's hope our more literal-minded commentators don't make the argument that skills are not transferable-period."

While the above coverage has seemed balanced and informative, some blog posts by discussion participants haven't been. Diane Ravitch, in her blog Bridging Differences, worries that:

"Is [the Partnership] an effort on the part of the technology companies to sell more high-tech hardware and software to schools? Is it an effort to throw a wrench into the effort to develop meaningful and reasonable academic standards by replacing them with vague and pleasing-sounding goals?"

The answer is clearly "no." Our goal is ensure every child in America has the 21st century knowledge and skills to succeed as effective citizens, workers and leaders in today's world."

WOW.

Teachers seeking support & developing their social networks: Two good articles

So, after the SEA conference, Kip Tellez contacted me with to share some information on research he completed a few years ago about how beginning teachers seek out support and help - a fascinating article, with some very similar findings to my research - that teachers often seek informal support persons, rather than formal, administrator types.  Lots of questions are raised by this - like, is it then possible to create formal supportive networks in schools? If so what are the characteristics of "good" formal networks vs. "bad" formal networks (I have some ideas on that one here...) 

Here is the citation to Kip's article:

Tellez, K. (1992) Mentors by choice, not design: Help-seeking by beginning teachers.  Journal of Teacher Education, 43(3) p. 214-221

Also,  Another interesting SNA article on early career teachers that was written recently by Andrew Thomas at UCLA examines the patterns of 99 beginning teachers' social networks and their attrition rates. A major finding here is that teachers with very diverse "heterogenous" networks tended to be "position-changers" - move up in the ranks. Another finding to get you thinking - and connected to some things I've been thinking about - that this coming generation of teacher have more and more ability to reach out to diverse networks - what are the implications of this for teacher attrition rates?

Here is the citation to Thomas' article:

Thomas, A. (2007) Teacher attrition, social capital, and career advancement: An unwelcome message. Research and Practice in Social Sciences, 3 (1) p. 19-47