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.