Systems Thinking and Technology Integration as Catalysts for School Change in High Need Schools: IMPACT V and the Alignment of Organisational Ends and Means

As part of a grant project in the state of North Carolina in the United States, eleven schools participated in the IMPACT V project, designed to help infuse technology into middle and high schools across the state. Involvement in the program required the preparation of a detailed action plan identifying how each school would use grant funding, coaching, and graduate-level courses to integrate technology effectively. Faculty assigned to mentor and provide direct instruction to the principals of the participating schools soon determined that there was a high degree of variability in terms of how well prepared principals were to plan, develop, and implement their respective action plans in a systematic fashion. Each school was asked to prepare a logic model designed to help both their planning and implementation of IMPACT V funds through identification of clear goals, activities, outputs, and outcomes. Preliminary results of our study indicate that principals were initially disoriented and confused when introduced to the project, and their preliminary action plans were not grounded in a clear understanding and plan for technology integration. The cohort model provided a lot of necessary support, and the action plans changed over time with statistically significant differences found between pre and post action plans. In terms of participant attitudes, principals have moved from excited and frustrated at the beginning of the project to confident and satisfied as their technology integration action plans have evolved into living documents that have helped them utilize systems thinking in planning and implementing technology into their schools.