Interdisciplinary Project "Post-mortem"

            By trade, I'm a 9th grade English teacher. You may or may not know that education is an ever-changing process with an ebb and flow of  "best practices" and new ideas that people, especially administration, are eager to implement. One year our principal was really stressing the importance of interdisciplinary projects, so the 9th grade computer teacher approached me to ask if I would like to work with her. "Sure!" I enthusiastically replied, imagining the cool projects that could be completed in English and Computer class. We made a plan to meet and discuss the project later so I was left racking my brain for things that my students could still complete before the grading period ended.

            The next day we met to discuss our interdisciplinary project; however, I soon learned how rigid the Computer teacher was with her curriculum. "We're studying databases this semester, "she informed me matter-of-factly. "What can you do with databases?"

            "Oh," I said, caught off guard at how little wiggle room there seemed to be. And that was how the project happened−I had to make concessions to fit into her curriculum so we ended up planning to have the students do a database of prefixes, word roots, and suffixes that included their origin and the meaning (i.e. etymology). It was a topic that sort of fit into my curriculum and something I thought could be nice to have in a database form.

            Even though I thought I had made an acceptable compromise, the Computer teacher was concerned about copying and cheating; however, etymology was one of the few things I could think of to do with databases, a concept I didn't even really understand! The Computer teacher did try to explain the program to me, but all I could imagine was an Excel spreadsheet but that wasn't quite right. Nevertheless, we trudged ahead with the project, wanting to fulfill the desires of our principal and hoping it would be a beneficial project for the students.

            After storyboarding the rough idea, we both went to our separate classes and planned how we would conduct our classes and what parts of the project our students would do in our classes. I suppose it was a functionally organized project since we created "separate units addressing the same specialty" (Portny et al., 2008, p. 63). So we did understand our own parts, but I know I did NOT understand the Computer class part of the project! And to be honest, I didn't have the time to do so either because it was my first year at the school so I was planning a new curriculum and having to document it all. It was quite the process and even though Murphy (1994) wrote, ""Proper instructional design, on average, requires between forty and sixty hours of design work for every hour of classroom presentation time" (p. 9), getting that much time is impossible for a teacher. Nonetheless, we did try to remain in constant communication. Although, I believe one of the pitfalls of the project was that we had "different work procedures and reporting systems... to guide [the project]" (Portny et al., 2008, p. 64). We knew what we were looking for in our own specialty area and we weren't clear about what that was and then the communication began to fall apart as students tried to pit us against each other saying that one teacher said this (which was against our original agreement) or by lying about changed due dates. (Though with some e-mails and visits, we were able to nip those rumors in the bud.)

            Nevertheless, I know I was very frustrated with the lack of clarity of the project. At this point in my career, I hadn't even heard of project management so we hadn't established a clear plan. In fact, the plan we had wasn't exactly agreeable for either party either. I think we handled the planning phase of the project too informally because we didn't feel like we had time for much more than a verbal agreement and (very) rough storyboard (Portny et al., 2008, p. 77). It would have been better if I had gotten a better understanding of databases by making one with the Computer teacher. She could have taught me how to make it and what it did by leading me through the process instead of trying to verbally explain it. I think a visual aid would have helped tremendously but we were both feeling pressed for time, so that was never proposed.

            However, as I continue to think about the project, the Achilles' heel of the project was the fact that I didn't understand databases. Without that knowledge, proper planning was impossible and without an appropriate plan, the project falls apart quickly. I was making deliverables and assessments based off of my understanding and perceptions and I think that's when students got frustrated and began to feel like the project didn't really matter and to be honest, maybe it didn't. I never actually got to see the databases because I didn't have the right program on my classroom computer. Clearly, we did not spend enough time planning because I did not understand databases nor did I have the appropriate program to even begin understanding them. Portny et al. (2008) wrote, "Project managers can increase a project's chance for success by planning and guiding based on understanding specific project life cycle phases" (p. 108). That is something the Computer teacher and I did not do, so I believe our project was doomed from the beginning. Lesson learned: Take the extra time that is needed to write the plan as a Statement of Work with a Work Breakdown Document if multiple parties are involved. It will save all stakeholders many future headaches.

References

Allen, S., & Hardin, P. C. (2008). Developing instructional technology products using effective project management practices. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 19(2), 72–97.
Copyright by Springer-Verlag, New York. Used by permission via the Copyright Clearance Center.

Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.

Murphy, C. (1994). Utilizing project management techniques in the design of instructional materials. Performance & Instruction, 33(3), 9–11.
Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.