Description
The purpose of this case study is to examine, in rich detail, the implementation of the Kyberpass project at two of three high schools in a large secondary school district in southern California during its first year and a half of operation The project, a crossdisciplinary professional development program, began its implementation in the Spring of 2008. Because this investigator was a Kyberpass participant in one of the two sites, this investigation may be considered a type of self-study that encompasses not only my professional growth, but also the impact of the project on the interdisciplinary teams at my site and one other site similar to mine in student demographics and household income levels. This study looks at the similarities and differences between the two school sites from the point of few of the teacher teams: how they understood the Kyberpass program, and how they implemented it in their school sites, The overarching goals of this NSF-sponsored program is to increase the use of information technology and Cyber-infrastructure in secondary classrooms, to help students better understand the relevance of current science, and to develop strong relationships with the professional scientific community. The professional development model grouped participants into interdisciplinary teams consisting of a self-selected group of teaching professionals at each of the three self-selected school sites. The use of qualitative methods in this study enables participants and administrators to reflect on what worked, why it worked, and what should be taken into consideration before a replication of a similar project is undertaken. The outcomes of this study shed light on the challenges of interdisciplinary teaching and learning at the high school level, and reasons why project-based approaches to instruction are so infrequent at the high-school level .The results of the study were compared with the conceptual change model suggested by the Rand Change Agent Study of 1974-78. It was concluded that the various failures in the implementation of the Kyberpass program at the two high-schools studied were due in large measure not only to a lack of readiness on the part of the district to mobilize during the initiation phase of the innovation, but also to the "opportunistic" motivations that lend themselves to cosmetic outcomes rather than authentic change. These included the school district's "top down model" to involve participants, a lack of investment from school-site administrators and key district administrators. Failure of the leadership at both the university and school district to meet participant expectations which led to the program being dissolved at one school site after the first year and a half of operation, and a major adaptation at the second school site. Participants agreed that the institutionalization and/or the adoption of project seemed unlikely as all stakeholders were not included in the initial planning and acceptance of the project.
