Preface
xvii
This is one of the most important questions someone has asked me in an interview. A few weeks later, I accepted a new position as the academic director for a large online and blended school system. I walked in on my first day of the job with a host of butterflies in my stomach and a sincere resolve to implement new practices in online and blended learning.
A Note About Methodology
Stephanie and I are both writers and former language arts educators. We believe deeply in the power of stories. As school administrators, we are often awed by the incredible stories told within our school and professional learning community. In our work in global and blended classrooms, we recognized that we were navigating a new narrative of education told through a multiplicity of stories. We believed these stories were important to share, and we wanted to include them in a book that captures this heartfelt work and invites more conversation about the life-giving role of connection in the classroom. As we set out to accomplish this goal, we committed to intentional active listening, dialogue, and story sharing. Our backgrounds and values pointed us to narrative methods for data collection. We wanted to hear from educators in their own words about their experiences making connections and creating engagement in online, blended, and global classrooms. Grounded theory is a research methodology that aims to develop hypotheses and theories through the collection and analysis of qualitative data, including stories and interviews. In our work, we used some concepts from grounded theory to guide our coding and analysis process (Charmaz, 2014). Through coding and dialogue about coding, we sought to create an “interactive analytic space” where we could better understand the processes, conditions, and strategies that make connection possible across many classroom spaces (Charmaz, 2014, p. 109). The
©️2022 by Solution Tree Press
Through our research, Stephanie and I (Kathryn) collected and analyzed many teaching stories. We spoke with educators whose narratives resonated with our own and educators whose stories were very different from either of ours. We spoke with educators who shared their strategies for connecting with students in faceto-face, online, or blended classrooms. These educators are part of a community of teachers who are passionate about relationships, growth, and cultivation of student leadership. We hope that when you read these stories, you feel like a part of this community. We encourage you to brainstorm strategies right along with us as you create connected classrooms that are authentic to your personality and narrative. Thank you for joining us for this moment, for living out your own story, and for sharing your good works with the young people in our communities.
