Education Innovator: An Interview with Dr. Sarah (Sally) M. Butzin

This interview is the seventh in a series initiated by the members of the Bulletin's 2008-2010 Editorial Board. The goal of the series is to feature interviews conducted with Delta Kappa Gamma members or other educational leaders on a topic related to the theme of the issue. Introduction I enjoy seeking those front-line thinkers who find ways to integrate their brainstorms, enthusiasm, and educational expertise into action* The theme of the Bulletin's Fall 2010 issue is Innovations: teacher- created programs, educational practices, technology, and thinking outside the box* Dr* Butzin is one who leads the way to student success through innovation* Dn Butzin, you are the developer and senior author of Project CHILD, a K*5 program for active learners. Why did you create Project CHILD, and how is it innovative? Project CHILD® (Changing How Instruction for Learning is Delivered) grew out of my work as an elementary classroom teacher in the early days of computer-assisted learning. Computers at that timed seemed to be an expensive distraction for most teachers. But I could see their potential to motivate students, engage them in meaningful work, and provide instant feedback. I was eager to find ways to integrate technology into my classroom, but found it difficult to manage the complexity of teaching a diverse curriculum in the traditional mode of reading groups and seatwork. I also found it difficult for students to have access to computers in a fair and equitable manner with only one or two computers available in the classroom. Scheduling time to take the class to a computer lab was also difficult and not very effective. I came up with the design of Project CHILD after working as a consultant for the IBM Writing to Read® program in the 1980s. That program used the concept of integrated learning stations (I had always used centers as a first teacher), with the Computer Station being one of the stations. However, Writing to Read required a separate lab within the school and also was narrowly focused on K-I reading. Surely, I thought, there must be some way to broaden the scope of the Computer Station concept to include all levels throughout the core academic subjects without requiring separate labs. Thus, Project CHILD was born as a vehicle to incorporate reading, writing, and mathematics across the K-5 spectrum. I felt that the key to meaningful computer integration was to free teachers from the burden of covering all the core subjects so that they could become proficient at incorporating software for one subject specialty. The design is around of three teacher experts: one for reading, one for writing, one for mathematics. Another innovative feature of the Project CHILD design is that the clusters utilize crossgrade groupings (K- 2 and 3-5) to take advantage of the multileveled capabilities of well-designed instructional software. The goal was to move teachers beyond grade level thinking and begin to assign class work based on ability and need. Because the classroom software was multileveled, and the other station activities were as well, children could work at their appropriate level, whether advanced or remedial. An added benefit of this design is that teachers have 3 years to work with students in their core subject specialty. Th is motivates teachers to keep fully engaged until the last day of school, knowing they will have these students again. They also hit the ground running in subsequent years, wasting little time at the beginning of school to launch into full academic mode. Research literature and my own doctoral research on time-on-task also influenced me. I wanted to create a classroom management system that enabled students to move at their own pace in order to eliminate wasted time. There is a built-in mechanism for students to get help if the teacher is unavailable and to teach them self-reliance through peer support. The hallmark of such a classroom is high energy with students actively engaged in interesting work. …