Posting of action plan for technology integration into instructional and organizational leadership
Part 4 of week 4 assignment for EDLD 5352 - Instructional Leadership (The Technology Component)
Week 4
Assignment, Part 2: Professional Development Planning
Using the campus and
district improvement plans, and any suggested technology improvements, develop
professional development activities that include the following:
·
Reference
analysis and lessons learned about the technology needs from the Week 3 report;
·
Addresses
professional development designed to improve the gathering, analysis and use of
data from a variety of sources;
·
Includes
professional development to improve decision making in the integration of
technology with instructional and organizational leadership.
Instructional and
organizational leaders on our campus must look at our STaR chart results, our
AEIS reports, and our AYP data to analyze how we are doing in terms of meeting
our campus and district improvement plan goals and our academic achievement
goals. If the STaR chart indicates that
we do not have enough training or support in certain areas, then they must act to
rectify that. If it indicates that we
have plenty of resources and support on those areas, but the implementation is
lacking, then campus leadership must step in to correct the problem. They must also keep in mind how that
technology ties into the academic achievement indicated on the AEIS reports and
our AYP data.
Our district provides
training on a new system that is being implemented called, iXplore. This system has many features, but the main
component that applies to this week’s assignment is the gathering and analysis
of data. Our district has spent many
days training our campus technology liaisons on the system. In turn, our campus technology liaisons have
spent hours with each of our teams training them on the system. It will allow teachers to gather data from
district benchmark assessments (currently administered every six weeks) and
analyze them by teacher and by period.
Our campus also has
two other data gathering and analysis tools that teachers are trained on at the
beginning of every year. These tools
allow them to gather and analyze data from every summative assessment given
during the year (typically every two or three weeks). This data can be disaggregated by several
demographics. It can also be broken down
by STAAR Reporting Category and TEK.
Our professional
development to improve decision-making in the integration of technology with
instructional and organizational leadership must be done at the district
level. Our administrators from the
technology department and the curriculum, instruction, and school administration
department must get together and map out ways that our campus leadership can
get the training they need to implement the appropriate technology on their
campuses. Our curriculum coordinators
are taking steps to meet those needs by introducing new technologies to our
instructional leaders during periodic meetings.
However, this does not replace the need for actual professional
development on those specific technologies.
Once the key decision makers are together to set priorities for
professional development of leaders, then there will be a more clear picture of
which technologies are priorities, need the bulk of the support, and should
have professional development planned around them.
Week 4 Assignment, Part 3:
Evaluation Planning for Action Plan
The technology action plan integrating instructional an
organizational leadership must include evaluation components that provide
measurable outcomes designed to address the following:
·
Uses data and
other analysis from the Week 3 report, including using the campus and district
improvement plans, and local or state technology plans;
·
Provides
assessments and/or monitoring reports measuring professional development
designed to use technology to improve the gathering, analysis and use of data
from a variety of sources;
·
Provides
assessments and/or monitoring evaluating professional development to improve
decision making in the integration of technology with instructional and
organizational leadership.
Evaluation
components for the technology action plan for integrating instructional and
organizational leadership will include collecting data from the STaR chart and
results form annual AEIS reports along with our AYP data. These data sources will indicate areas that
need further growth in terms of technology and academic achievement. The role of instructional and organizational
leadership is to find a way that we can grow in both areas by improving
instructional and organizational practices.
Analyzing our results and our campus and district improvement plans in
terms of technology and student achievement will help in the decision making
process. Then the leadership must
determine specific action steps that will allow us to continue to make progress
in the appropriate direction for the goals that need further growth. Once these decisions are reached, then the
professional development plan can be modified to meet the campus needs.
The
professional development can be monitored using our district’s online learning
management system. All staff members
must register for professional development online, so we can track the
professional development courses that our campus staff is attending. We also have the ability to require that a
certain number of hours per year are directed towards campus specific
professional development courses. This
means that the teachers must sign up for these courses to earn professional
development hours in this specific category.
That information can be monitored by reports that our campus technology
liaison has access to. Also following
these professional development courses, we conduct surveys using Google Docs or
Survey Monkey to gather feedback from our teachers about how they valued the
course and how we can make it better.
Assessing
and/or monitoring the evaluation of professional development to improve
decision-making may need to be done in two different ways. One part of the effort would be to have the
instructional leaders gather evidence in the form of observations regarding the
level of integration of specific types of technology. The point would be to see which types of
technology was actually integrated effectively into instruction versus which
ones were not utilized effectively or not at all. This would be compared to the types of
technology that was supported by professional development. Since the decisions on professional
development was based on the campus and district technology plans and the goals
of both groups, we would hope to see those types of technology being integrated
into instruction. If that were not the
case, then further investigation would need to be done to identify the
reasons.
A
secondary part of the assessing and/or monitoring process would be to include
more feedback from the teachers. We would
ask teachers to reflect on what specific types of technology they planned to
integrate into their instruction after the professional development. Later on, we would follow up with a survey
asking them what they integrated and how.
We would also need to include components that asked them what they did
not incorporate. Finally, there would
need to be questions regarding why they were able to incorporate some and not
incorporate others. The point here would
be to find out what made some types of technology easier to integrate, and what
were the barriers to integrating other forms.
This
process does not give us black and white data from which we can base our
decisions. It requires thoughtful
deliberation on the part of instructional and organizational leadership to get
to the facts behind the data. However, I
believe that this can lead to improved decision-making for the integration of
technology.
