Colleen Roan's List: ETC 657 Tech Planning and Professional Development

• Hosted by CPS/University of Chicago Internet Project, and too place during the summer from 1997 - 2004. Majority of participants from CPS. Seminars were 4 hrs a day, 5 days a week, for 4 weeks, providing teachers with 80 hours of instruction in building Web-based lessons, WebQuests, and curriculum webs. Program evolved from one homeroon of 22 participants, 2 college professors as instructors. At its peak in 2003 the program had 16 homerooms and each had 15-24 particpants, a lab assistance and 2 instructors/mentors. The program took place at University of Chicago campusand which allowed for less interruptions. - Colleen Roan on 2009-02-28

• Mentors were k-12 teachers and former participants in the program. There were 2 mentors in each section. Onemoved about the room, while the other conducted whole group activities. More experienced mentors could be paired with less experienced for some on the job training. Mentors, assistant director, director, technical corrd., lab assistants met weekly which was key to a smooth running program.
  
  Weekly session of all section for lectures and ouside speakers and a catered lunch was another imporant component of theprogram. - Colleen Roan on 2009-02-28

• Planning began in the spring prior to the summer program. Topics covered the previous year were reviewed, and what worked, what didn't work, and what could be improved was discussed.
  
  A general scope and sequence was formed. there was a lead developer for each learning module, and another mentor who validated the content, user friendliness, and completeness.
  
  Mentors were decision maker, curriculum planner, and based the sections on the needs of the participants. Mentors became vested in the program. - Colleen Roan on 2009-02-28
• Forgot to reference source:
  
  Borthwick, A. & Pierson, M. (2008) Transforming Classroom Practice.
  Oregon: International Society for Technology in Education.
  
  (Borthwick & Pierson, 2008, p. 152). - Colleen Roan on 2009-02-28

• The Web Institute for Teachers (WIT) is an intensive summer seminar designed to  help preK-12 teachers integrate the World Wide Web into their curriculum. WIT  was originally offered in 1997 and has trained more than 700 Chicago-area teachers.
• it presents a holistic
• approach to planning effective teaching and learning
• incorporates multimedia resources.
• Participants gain a greater understanding of how to search the Web, evaluate  web-based materials, find and adapt exemplary lesson plans and plan for  successful technology integration.
• Using the Web in the Classroom
• CPS's magnet cluster initiative
• Creating a Curriculum Web"

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• Examples of staff work - good examples, This link not working. (One section of the Digital Library Workshop, open to CPS librarians) - Colleen Roan on 2009-02-28

• Instruct teachers how to use specified software. - Colleen Roan on 2009-02-28

• The Teachers Infusing Technology in Urban Schools project (TITUS)

  • A university-school partnership of k-12 teachers, teacher-education faculty, and technology consultants who collaborated to desing technology infused curriculum unites and lessons using the curriculum design process as the source of professional development. The design process helped teachers t use technology in ways that reflect domain-centered instruction grounded in effective classroom practices. (Borthwick & Pierson 2006).
• Beyond recruiting mentor teachers who are already adept at teaching with  technology, our work has involved developing communities of experienced teachers  within urban schools – prospective mentors for preservice candidates

  • (Borthwick & Pierson 2006
• number of assumptions and patterns of interaction that can present problems for  infusing technology, and we have explored a number of strategies for addressing  them

  • (Borthwick & Pierson 2006
• Supported by a U.S. Department of Education PT3 Grant and the Steans Family  Foundation, TITUS

  • Borthwick & Pierson 2006

  • The TITUS approach was to engage univrsity and school participants in curiculum design communitie of practice, closely centered on k-12 instructional context. Inherent was that teachers learn by doing, and participants conjoined their respective areas of expertise, subject matter knowledge, and pedagogical knowledge of K-12 instruction.
    
    Focusing on learning standard and objectives within content area, they engaged in a planning process that integrated content objectives, pedagogical approaches, and the role of technology.
    
    This enabled the discussion of technology tools in the context of help students achieve the identified learning objectives.
    
    Work of collaboratively designing curriculum activities was unfamiliar technology tools afforded reflection on the goals of instruction, and also provided an opportunity to communicate across university and school boundaries.

• Recent research has indicated that when technology is used as a tool within  instruction to support learning objectives in the instructional areas student  learning is enhanced (Sivin-Kachala & Bialo, 1994; Valdez et al., 1999;  Wenglinski, 1998). Used in this way, technology facilitates students’ abilities  to retrieve, synthesize, and analyze information. Rather than creating learning  environments in which students use technology to receive knowledge, or for  technology’s own sake, teachers must create environments in which students use  technology to build their knowledge.

• Students have greater opportunities to attain high levels of computer  integration skills when technology becomes integrated within field placements  because they use technologies while they are learning  instructional methods and strategies.

   

  However, finding such technology-infused field experience sites presents  challenges. Although most institutions report that computers are present in K-12  classrooms where student teachers get their field experience, “most student  teachers do not routinely use technology during field experience and do not work  under master teachers and supervisors who can advise them on IT use” (Moursund  & Bielefeldt, 1999, p. 28). Knowing that teachers teach as they were taught,  it becomes clear that if technology is not infused in instruction during their  practicum experiences, preservice teachers will not graduate with the ability to  create technology-infused learning environments.

  • Borthwick & Pierson 2006

• Challenge 1. Amount of Contact: Balancing Support and  Independence
• drawbacks: Beyond the obvious labor-intensiveness of this model from our  perspective (working with multiple schools), in many cases this approach can  decrease teachers’ sense of “buy in” to the learning process.
• tardiness can frustrate attempts to focus on learning unfamiliar skills and  activities with technology – the very familiarity of the school setting can  undermine this focus.
• Challenge 1 Solution: Off-Site Group Meetings, Building In-School Support
• In-school support is offered on an as-needed and as-available basis by  appointment, requiring teachers to schedule and plan for the assistance they  will receive at school. Technology coordinators have been brought in as members  of teams, so that they are on the same page as teachers instructionally. We have  also tried to cultivate in-school and cross-school teacher collaboration,
• How do we help teachers stay grounded in instructional priorities, and also  challenge their own practices as they learn new teaching tools?
• New container for the old stuff”
• Now for something completely different”
• Both of these reactions make it unlikely that the technology will be used to its  potential in instruction.
• we have moved toward a focus on what it means to learn a particular subject.
• We begin with discussions of assessment strategies, rubrics, and curriculum  standards.
• wanted students to use data from their everyday lives and see how their  firsthand observations connected with science
• One teacher then decided to have students create (with guidance) the actual  input form they used for gathering their garden data. This step of the computer  activity mapped specifically to the goal of having students learn to conceive of  categories of things in the world (e.g., types of plants in the garden) as data  variables.
• underresourced schools it is essential to develop meaningful instructional uses  for relatively simple, accessible, and low-maintenance technologies.

• We encourage teachers to start with domain-specific standards and map them to  properties of technology tools. This takes time, as teachers need to become  familiar with tools before they can sense what they could help students learn.  But we promote a “shopping” mentality for technology infusion – assume that  there is a simple solution for structuring a student activity around a  particular learning objective and search for the easiest way to do it with  technology. Once a technology tool has been chosen, we focus on finding the most  direct way to achieve an instructional objective with the tool, maximizing the  benefit of the tool for that particular objective.
• began to get the sense that there was no need for computers any more
• group was encouraged to revisit the learning objectives it started with

  • TITUS used three main structures: University-school collaborative design teams, academic year workshops, and week-long summer institutes. The book discussed the annual professional development summer institute which blends both the traditional workshop format and the curriculum design team approach to professional development.
    
    Each day participants chose two hands-on workshops from a series of choices. The final hour of each day was devoted to lesson design process. Participants organized into cohort groups based on content area and grade level. Participants created lessons using a Web-based template that reflects the lesson design approach.
    
    Each day, a different aspect of the planning process, reflected in the template was discussed. Participants would analuze a lesson created by a preious participant which helped participants to understand the alighment between objectives, technology use, stepby step activites, and assessments.
    
    Day 2 and 3 participants identified content area objects around which they planned to develop a lesson and brainstoremed assessment for objectives.
    
    Day 4 and 5 were devoted to identifying resources, planning step by step activities that included models of products students swould create and assessment strategies. On day 5 after lessons uploaded to Web-based database, participants presented completed lessons and invited commentary and suggestions.
• students might write down their inferences on the worksheet, but not ever be  able to go back and justify them from specific examples in the text. In fact,  lower achieving students needed a way to engage more closely with the text the  first time through. They then went back to the computer activity and repurposed  it to focus on supporting inferences with evidence from the text and helping  students identify the precise meaning of particular passages. The  electronic-text activity managed to engage a more meaningful set of skills than  did the paper worksheet built on the simple activity of selecting, copying, and  pasting.

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• The Maryland Technology Academy, an intensive professional development  opportunity for teachers across Maryland, is a partnership of the Maryland State Department  of Education, Johns  Hopkins University Center for Technology in Education and Towson University.

  • Goal was to produce a statewide network of technology integration leaders who would provide technical support and professional development to other educators and contribute to strategic technology planning initiatives intheir schools and districts.
    
    Training Time Frame:
    A year long experience which included a 3 week Summer Institute, periodic follow-up events, and a Web-based learning community, collaboration with colleagues, development of authentic instrucional products, systematic follow-up support, and engaged reflection on teaching.
    
    The program served approx. 2,000 Maryland educators over a 5 year period.

• Leadership Program

  • MTA curriculum addressed three themes: Leadership, advanced technology skills, and curriculum integration, and was accomplished through 4 complementary curriculum strands: Leadership Skills, Digital Content, curriculum Integration, and Connections.
    
    Leadership Skills Strand: Explored leachership roles and responsibilites related to effective use of technology in instruction. They examined their school's needs and designed a change implementation plan (ChIP).
    
    Digital content strand provided hands-on learning in computer labs allowing Fellow to design Web-based learning activities and multimedia applications for use in classrooms during the following school year.
    
    In the Curriculum Integration strand, Fellows researched, designed, and developed student learning activities using technology to support academic achievement. Constructivist appraoch to teaching and learning; authentic assessment strategies, and using appropriate technology tools to acoomodate special needs students were all covered topics. Assessment strategies of instructional units was also discussed.
    
    For the Connections strand, Fellows explored how to use technology for collaborationa and data collection, how to use Web-based electron learning community for communication, collaboration, and resource stroage and retrieval (Borthwick & Pierson, 2008, pg. 161).
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• At the flagship Maryland Technology Academy Leadership Program,

  • MTC partnersused a program logic map to to illustrate attributes of an effective professional development model and to lay out the expected outcomes of high quality professional development.
    
    Attributes such as intensive, ongoing, and systematic training; activity community of learners; inquirty-based; incorporating action research; and reflective teaching; authentic product development; and alignment with standards, were included. Borthwick & Pierson, 2008, pg. 160.
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• educators

  • Teachers and library media specialists were invited from across the state to apply for 120 slots allocated each year. Applicants were encouraged to apply as teams in order to work collaboratively and to share new expertise in respective districts.
    
    A variety of intrinsic and extrinsic incentives were provided which included monetary stipedns, books by renowned technology experts, software, adn membership in ISTE and MICCA (?). Participants received 6 MSDE (Maryland State Dept. Ed.) continuing prof. dev. credits, and with tuition pay, could receive up to 6 credits in structional technology from oneof the partner institutions
    (Borthwick and Pierson, 2008, pg. 160).
    
    Participants were selected to become "Fellows" based on a competitive evaluation process.
    
    Leadership development activities involved teacm building and a team leader acted as coach during the instruction and reflection periods.
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• constructing

  • Progam Goals:
    
    Use Technology in the context o constructivist classrooms and project-based learning
    
    Construct and design instructional activities that incorporataed technology to stupport student learning
    
    Use technology to more effectively and efficiently assess student progress
    
    Provide Professional development to other educators within their sphere of influence

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• documents

  • Initial step in developing the ChIP was to analyze school data to identify achievement gaps and based on needs, appropriate state content standards was the focus of the instructional unit planned for as well as the professional devleopment experience planned for educators.
    
    Required of elemtns of ChIP included:
    
    Analysis of need based on student achievement data
    
    A vision statment on how to address identified need
    
    Student learning goals based on state or national standards
    
    An instructional unit for students addressing identified needs and learning goals
    
    A related professional development plan for educators
    
    Borthwick & Pierson, 2008, pg. 162.
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• Administrator Symposium

  • Teach school adminstrators (primarily building principals).
    
    Participants learned strategies for developing building-level technology plans, acquiring and allocating resources, and designing professional development.
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• The Administrator Symposium focuses on increasing the ability of administrators  to plan for technology integration in their schools and assist them in  supporting technology leaders, both within their schools and districts.

• The evaluation of the Maryland Technology Academy Leadership  Program was conducted by an independent third-party evaluator.  In the  first two years of the program’s operation, the evaluation results provided  formative feedback to program implementers that lead to substantial changes in  the design of the program.  In all years, the primary focus of the  evaluation was on ascertaining the degree to which Fellows acquired targeted  skills and determining the effect of the program on the instructional practice  and leadership behaviors of Fellows.