UC Berkeley

This dissertation is a story about instrumental genesis, or the lack thereof, and digital exodus in technology-mediated systemic reform in urban elementary education. The purpose of this design study was to develop a support-oriented intervention for exploring new practices aimed at organizational change in K-12 schools, in particular, the case of teachers adopting mandated digital assessment technology and developing new data use practices. The intervention was job-embedded, locally situated, and specific to the needs of a small group of three urban elementary school teachers. Through structured professional learning sessions emphasizing peer modeling and reflection, the ADAPT model created space for instrumental genesis and the potential adoption of the educational technology. While ADAPT proved effective in increasing teacher use of the new technology, it failed in terms of changing teachers’ practices regarding data use and assessment. The design failed to support teachers through instrumental genesis (specifically, the instrumentalization of the new technology) because of a perceived mismatch between the objective and the artifact: the intended systemic reform objective of the technology adoption did not align with the selection of the digital artifact itself for teachers. Findings from the iterative development and evaluation of ADAPT suggest a need to reframe teacher resistance to technology adoption as a resource in systemic reform, and a need to improve the alignment of data visualization models embedded in technology tools with teacher professional vision. The instrumental genesis model is elaborated to account for the social and dynamic nature of systemic reform with technology in education.