Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM)
Video: One-Legged Interviews


Text Transcript of the Video

NARRATOR: The one-legged conference, or one-legged interview, is a change intervention used informally to monitor a teachers concerns and progress in putting an innovation into practice. You are about to see Linda, an instructional facilitator for the district office conduct one-legged interviews with four classroom teachers. In the next two scenarios, Linda uses the interview technique to determine Robert and Sue's Stages of Concern about a new inquiry-oriented science curriculum. [Interview 1: Linda Interviews Robert about the Inquiry-Oriented Science Program]

LINDA: Hi Robert.

ROBERT: Oh, Hi Linda, how are you?

LINDA: I'm fine, how are you?

ROBERT: Well, I'm sort of busy right now. I need to get this lab set up before the bell rings. But, I'm doing alright.

LINDA: Looks like you're working on the new science program.

ROBERT: Yes I am. This is sort of taking up a lot of my time right now. Every day there's a lot of preparations for all the activities for each of the program, and I'm sure glad I have this planning period to get ready for the next class.

LINDA: I wanted to ask you a few questions about the science program.

ROBERT: Sure.

LINDA: Are you having any problems with it?

ROBERT: Well, I don't know if I would call them problems as such, but it sure takes a lot of time to get ready for everybody. Because, you see, I've got students at all different levels. Some of them are still on the first unit and just trying to finish up. And, I've got some other kids that are moving way ahead. Some of them are on to velocity of moving objects with different angles to it. And, it's just really hard keeping up with everything and where everybody is in the program.

LINDA: How do you feel about the process content element?

ROBERT: Well, that's just what I'm talking about in a way. It just seems as if the process is important, and I understand that, but some of the content is getting lost, because there just isn't enough time for it. And, I'm having trouble individualizing the instruction, because each of the students is moving at a different pace.

LINDA: I see. Would it be easier for you if you worked with the kids in small groups instead of doing all individualized planning?

ROBERT: Can I do that?

LINDA: Of course, you could do that. I think the goal in the end would be to get the students working in an individualized fashion. To start off with, sure you could use small groups.

ROBERT: Hmmm, I didn't know I could do that. I think that would help, because you see, I have 24 kids in each class, and each one of them is at a different point, and if I could get them clustered together, say three or four in a group, I think that would help a little bit.

LINDA: Yeah, what we'd like to do is get you used to the program, and then kind of refine it, you know work on the fine details.

ROBERT: Well, if its alright, I'd like to try that. I think it would help out.

LINDA: Yeah, I'll come back in a couple of days, and we'll see how that's going.

ROBERT: Alright. Good. [Interview 2: Linda Interviews Sue about the Inquiry-Oriented Science Program]

LINDA: Hi Sue.

SUE: Hi Linda.

LINDA: How are you doing?

SUE: Oh, I'm fine, I'm just doing some catch-up work here.

LINDA: I thought I'd come by and talk to you a little about the new science program. Have you heard about it?

SUE: Yeah, the new science program. Right.

LINDA: Have you tried it in your classroom?

SUE: I don't know anything about it, and from what I've heard from the other teachers, they're having a lot of trouble with it.

LINDA: You didn't get a chance to go to the workshop they had at the end of the summer?

SUE: No. When I returned, everything was in full swing, and I just really felt out of the loop. And so, I thought, what I'm doing in science seems to be working, so...

LINDA: Um-hm.

SUE: You know, I like it, and the students seem to be learning what they need, and that's fine.

LINDA: Well, what do you know about the program, or how do you feel about it? Do you think it's a good program?

SUE: I really don't know that much about it. I know it's here, and the district wants us to keep it, but I haven't had a chance to talk to the other teachers about that or anything else. I just know that they're having a lot of trouble.

LINDA: The other teachers?

SUE: Yeah, I mean, why should I set myself up for a lot of trouble?

LINDA: Yeah, well the program was adopted by the district, because it had such good outcomes for students in other districts. And we felt if we tried the program in our district that we might be able to raise the achievement scores in science and math. You know they've been slipping in the last few years, so that was our rationale for using the new program. Would you like some information about that, or could I tell you a little bit more about it? Would you be open to that?

SUE: Well, are they going to have any more of those workshops that I missed or anything else?

LINDA: Oh yeah, we're going to be having a review workshop coming up in about two weeks, and I can make sure that you get contacted about that.

SUE: I'd really appreciate that.

LINDA: Believe me, if you have any questions, please feel free to call, I'd be happy to come and help you with the materials. It is complicated enough to try to get started that...

SUE: Do you mean you would come right into my classroom?

LINDA: Sure, if you want me to.

SUE: Wow!

LINDA: If you want, I can walk through the material with you and get you started on that, and then we can build from there step-by-step.

SUE: That would be great!

LINDA: OK. I'll certainly get that workshop material to you.

SUE: Thanks!

NARRATOR: In the following scenarios, Linda interviews Jorge and Terri to determine the Innovation Configuration of a new writing curriculum.

LINDA: I was talking to some of the people down at the district office who've been working on this writing for competency program, and we decided it might be a good idea to go around and talk to some of the teachers who are using the program. That way, we can actually see what you're doing and find out if you need any help. And we might learn from the teachers whether there needs to be some kind of improvements. We may need to do some fine-tuning.

JORGE: OK. I'll share with you what I can.

LINDA: Thanks, Jorge. Could you first describe for me how you're using the program in your classroom?

JORGE: Well, we're writing, to begin with. We have daily writing assignments, and two or three times a week we set aside 60 minutes for what I would call in-depth writing. And then, on other days, I have them write three or four lines about something they have done or something they've studied, or something that they are studying. One or two nights a week, I send home a writing assignment that they prepare there and bring it back to me.

LINDA: So, they do have a writing lesson?

JORGE: Oh yes, twice weekly. Occasionally we get three lessons in a week. These are more formal, and I use direct instruction on the writing process. On other days it is more of the approaches I just mentioned.

LINDA: OK, well let me ask you, are you using the source book that the district passed out during the training session last summer?

JORGE: Yes. I find it very useful. It contains a lot of good ideas that I wouldn't come up with on my own. I can't say that I'm using it exactly the way that the district wants or in the same sequence, but it does contain a lot of ideas that I can pick and choose from.

LINDA: That's good. Can you tell me a little bit more about the writing projects that you are doing? Are you gearing the students toward the domains that the source book talks about?

JORGE: Yes, definitely we do some creative writing. At times, there is a question about how creative the writing is, but we have written some poetry, and we've written some really short stories, and they have written descriptions to incorporate descriptive writing. I can't say that I claim to have covered all the domains or that we've thoroughly explored them. I guess that's an area where I need to be a little more systematic, but I do intend to cover them all before the end of the year.

LINDA: Are you doing any expository writing?

JORGE: Yes, definitely. Expository writing is useful to do in connection with social studies and science. For example, we've just finished covering the Civil War. So, the students are writing a report on a topic that they chose. We've also written a couple of paragraphs on what it would be like to be a 12-year-old child during the Civil War. I can't say we've achieved excellence in writing, but we are doing a lot of it, and the students have shown improvement this semester.

LINDA: Let me see what I have here. The rubrics. Are you using the rubrics?

JORGE: Oh yes, I find them very helpful. I evaluate the writing regularly myself, but another teacher and I have made arrangements where we exchange writing assignments, and we look at each other's students' work. That way, we use the rubric so that we might develop a greater consistency, and I suppose you would say accuracy, and we hope fairness in the way that we assess the student's writing. It's taken some time, but we feel fairly rewarded that maybe we're doing a pretty good job of developing consistency in the way we evaluate the students' writing using the rubric. And, um, it also gives us an opportunity to talk about what we're teaching, and to talk about this program.

LINDA: Do the students understand what the rubric is and how the criteria are used for evaluation?

JORGE: I have explained it to them, and I have shared it with them. There is still some question as to how much they understand. I think that they grasp more when the evaluations are favorable rather than when the evaluations are unfavorable.

LINDA: Human nature being as it is.

JORGE: And students are also learning to evaluate their own writing.

LINDA: Great. thank you very much Jorge. That gives me a good idea of how you're using the program, and I might say that you're using it quite well given the amount of time we've been using it. [Linda Checks Terri's Progress Using the New Writing Curriculum]

LINDA: Terri, I'd like to talk to you a little bit about the Writing for Competency program.

TERRI: OK. That would be fine.

LINDA: Are you using the program?

TERRI: Um, yeah, I went to a workshop, like, last August, and they shared a source book with us, and I've looked over it some, and gotten some ideas from it, so, yeah, I'd say I'm using the program.

LINDA: OK. Are you doing anything else in your classroom around writing?

TERRI: Well, in my class, the students have always written a lot, so I wouldn't say that I really doing anything that differently. I think I think more about writing now, but my students have always written a lot.

LINDA: So, when you say writing a lot, what do you mean?

TERRI: Well, I teach fourth grade, and at that period, we're teaching them to write descriptive paragraphs. So, at that point, we're also working with their handwriting. So, of course, the best way to get them to work on their handwriting is to write.

LINDA: So, how frequently would you say you do writing in your classroom?

TERRI: Oh, we write all the time. As far as teaching formal writing lessons, I really don't have the time to do that as much as I'd like to because we have to work so many other things into the curriculum. But, like, if they're working on a social studies assignment, they'll write, and you know they'll have a section where they're doing a lot of fill-in-the-blank, and then it will say, now tell the teacher in your own words, or something like that. But, as far as, well if you're asking me if I teach a lot of formal writing lessons, it's probably not very often, it's probably maybe two or three times a month.

LINDA: And do they keep any journal or notebook with writing activities in it? Anything that they have to write in daily?

TERRI: No, and you probably know how much pressure we're getting to really focus on reading and math this year. So, what I do is I use writing as kind of something to fill in the edges. Well, our test scores were not good in reading and math, so, we're really seeing a lot of pressure coming down for us to really focus on that this year.

LINDA: OK. So, you do use writing when it's convenient or it's good to use writing. How about in another subject area?

TERRI: Uh huh.

LINDA: For some of the other subject areas that you're working with like social studies.

TERRI: Right.

LINDA: And you do look at the source book? Do you use the source book as a guide? Suggestions?

TERRI: Uh, yeah occasionally. I keep the source book right there on my bookshelf, and occasionally when I'm getting to the point where I write, lie, a new unit or something I'll refer to it. And there have been one or two things that I've used from the source book and that's where I got the idea, but then I just changed up the suggestions I got from the source book.

LINDA: How about the idea of domains? I think they talk about the domains in the source book and of course during the training. Have you ever played with that or addressed writing projects to the domains?

TERRI: Well, by domain do you mean letters and poems and essays or are you talking about cognitive domain and affective domain.

LINDA: Well, I think that they are all related, but it's creative, sensory, descriptive, analytical,

TERRI: We did talk about them.

LINDA: So they are the categories.

TERRI: Yeah, I remember we did go over that at the August workshop. Um, I don't use those words when talking to the fourth graders. That doesn't go very far. But, you know, I um, I don't really do my lesson plans to specifically cover domains, like we don't say, this week we're working on domain three, but um, I think that in our classroom, we've always had a fairly good balance of different types of writing.

LINDA: Do you use any of the rubric evaluation systems that the rubric suggests?

TERRI: You know, I would really like to learn more about that. I don't know if something happened in our session or what, but they showed us the procedure, but we weren't able to practice it at all. Though, I don't think it was just me. Um, when I left the training sesion, I don't think there was... I don't think I could have used the rubric right there to evaluate a piece of writing. You know, so I don't know if there was something in our session that...

LINDA: Yeah, I understand, you've not used the rubric. I've been working with theis program for a while, and I think it has a lot to offer students if it is used in a structured way, and it might be that the rubrics are something that is transferrable. The idea behind that anyhow is transferrable to some of the other subject areas that you might be working with, because it presents to students a way of critiquing their own work as well as a way for you to critique their work. That way, everybody knows what you are talking about and what the criteria are.

TERRI: Yeah, and I would really like to learn more about that. In fact, I was a little surprised that nothing else was done about it after that August workshop.

LINDA: OK. Well, I'll be glad to get you some information, and I think we might get a group of people together and just go through the rubrics and have them practice on each other's writing samples or their students' writing samples. Other people have mentioned to me that working with a group of other teachers has really helped them use the rubrics in this writing program more effectively.

TERRI: OK. Yeah, that would be good. You know, I hope that there isn't something that I'm supposed to have been doing and haven't done this year. I really thought that the session was to get us together and share ideas and if we found something useful, to do that.

LINDA: Yeah, what your goal is to have student writing projects more frequently, but it is an informal goal, and if it becomes more than an informal goal, then we need to be clear about that.

TERRI: Yeah. I definitely would be more flexible with that. You know, I think that they need to set the priorities in terms of are we going to focus more on reading and math exclusively, or do we want to offer, I don't know, a more broad curriculum. I don't know, but I'd certainly be more flexible about that.

LINDA: OK. Well, that's good. Thanks, Terri, and I'll check on doing something with the rubrics and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

TERRI: OK. Thanks. I look forward to that.