MEMORANDUM
To: Dr. Erika Paterson, English 301 99A Instructor
From: Syed Ahmed, English 301 99A Student
Date: November 13, 2020
Subject: Progress Report on increasing teacher morale via improved workload management at TNS Beaconhouse.
As requested, I am providing a progress update on the formal report about ways to increase teacher morale by improving teacher workload management at TNS, Beaconhouse. Notably, I have included the survey and interview questions that I will be using to collect data. These would require approval by you before I can begin.
Intended Audience
- Clive Barnes, Head of School, TNS Beaconhouse.
- Rashid Khalid, Deputy-Head and IBDP Coordinator.
- Zahra Bukhari, EY and PYP Coordinator.
Purpose
- Try to identify ‘hidden’ sources of workload for teachers.
- Devising objective methods to account for actual workload of teachers.
- Determining the causes for inequitable workload distribution.
- Explore ways to create an equitable workload and provide teachers adequate support.
- Propose solutions to the administration on ways to increase teacher morale through effective workload management.
Research Plan
Identify the Problem
- Gauging the prevalence of low morale amongst teachers at TNS Beaconhouse that is rooted in feeling overburdened.
- Accounting for ‘hidden’ work that teachers are responsible for doing.
- Finding an objective measure of that determines the true workload of a teacher.
- Explore ways to create an equitable workload distribution for teachers.
Primary Data Sources
- Survey of teachers
- Interviews: Members of the administration
Secondary Data Sources
- Research papers on ways to determine teacher workload and how teacher work burden can impact student outcomes.
Writing Schedule
Nov 14th: Reach out to administration for request for interviews and permission to survey teachers.
Nov 18th: Send out surveys and start interviews and begin secondary research.
Nov 23rd: Analysis of data from survey and interviews.
Nov 25th: Complete analysis and summarize findings.
Nov 30th: Complete write-up of formal report draft
Dec 1st: Post draft to the team forum
Dec 11th: Revise formal report based on peer review
Dec 14th: Make final revisions and finishing touches.
Dec 17th: Post the final report to the team forum.
Please let me know if you have any concerns or suggestions regarding improvements to my report proposal or my data collection plan. I plan to start with the data collection after I have approval from you. I have attached the interview and survey questions below:
Hello Syed,
Thank you for posting your progress Report. This is good, but there are some necessary changes in the survey.
Introduction – The first two sentence have three “I” pronouns – please focus on using as few pronouns as possible.
Reconsider this sentence: “The goal of this report is to create ways for the administrators to be fully aware of the true workload of their teachers so that teachers are not unduly overburdened.” The sentence suggest that administrators are ‘lying’ about workload, or are unaware of realities. It is important to use neutral language.
Rewrite: The goal is to assist administrators in determining and achieving optimum teacher workload.
The third paragraph of the introduction works too hard at stressing the confidentiality. Please simply state that the survey is voluntary and confidential and the data will be used to determine appropriate workloads – and take out all the extras!
All the questions need a edit to take out as many of the pronouns as possible. Try to write questions that are not personal – here is an example:
Question: How many hours/week of teaching do you have?
Rewrite: Number of hours a week teaching?
Question: “How many hours/week do you spend working outside of the classroom?”
Rewrite: Number of hours work outside of the classroom?
Let me know with an email with a link to the survey when you have completed these tasks – thank you.