Week 4 - Including Professional Development in a Technology Integration Plan

 

One crucial component of a Technology Integration plan is professional development. If teachers are not trained in a new technology or a new way of using technology, they are unlikely to achieve the best results. According to the STARSS-LS rubric, this PD must provide ongoing learning and support. It should be learner-centered, oriented towards adult leaders, timely, and relevant.

In my technology integration plan, one of the needs identified was for teachers to become familiar with the ISTE standards for students and educators. Most said they had not heard of them before, and this was also reflected in their practice, where technology tended to be used for more passive learning activities, such as accessing lessons in Google Classroom and uploading assignments. Without increasing awareness of the possibilities and best practices, change is unlikely. Helen Crompton did a review of evidence between 2015 and 2022 and found that there is evidence that the ISTE standards for Educators improve student learning. She also found that both the technology and the pedagogical approach teachers used were important (Crompton, 2023). I think that if teachers were more aware of the ISTE standards and were aware of the research showing their effectiveness, they would be motivated to learn more about this and apply this in their teaching. This awareness is prioritized as a key goal in my plan. I also think it will be effective for subject departments to identify what they are already doing well in those areas and share the best practices from within the school.

In addition to building awareness of the ISTE standards and sharing best practices, teachers will need to build their digital literacy skills and have ongoing support in their learning. The school includes teachers who are very proficient in their own technology use, and teachers who struggle with new applications of technology and struggle to remember how to use ones they already have as well. Some teachers are "digital natives," brought up in the digital age, and others grew up without this kind of technology and had to learn it later in life. Those are just some of the ways the teachers have a diversity of strengths, weaknesses, and interests around technology. In thinking about how to address teachers' needs for ongoing learning and support or coaching, a few ideas have come to mind. In a study by Zimmer and Matthews (2022), the authors test a model of self-paced virtual learning with coaching to increase teachers' digital literacy and support them in the process. They found that it was effective. It offered teachers choices. They worked towards their own goals with a flexible schedule, the coaching was individualized based on the teachers' background and experiences, and it included reflection and support. The feedback they got from teachers also showed that they were applying their own learning in their approach to teaching students. (Zimmer & Matthews, 2022). This definitely sounds like an interesting approach to professional development.

Currently, in our district, there is a week before school starts where teachers can choose professional development to attend on a voluntary basis and be paid to attend. This would be a good time to have some training available for teachers who are interested in developing their strategies and skills for effectively using technology in the classroom to increase student engagement and achievement. In the high school, there is an Ed. Tech. team (and currently I am one half of it) that puts on workshops or drop-in technology help sessions once a month, which is also a good resource. Subject departments include teams of teachers who can help support each other. Teachers already share ideas and lessons with each other. Teachers who are interested in working together could also form PLCs (professional learning communities) to develop their expertise. If they survive the latest budget cuts, there are some instructional coaches who could provide some support for that as well.

If this technology integration plan is successful, students will have opportunities to use technology in more self-directed and creative ways, developing competencies that will serve them well in their lives after graduation. They will leave high school with a guaranteed set of skills, rather than this just being left to chance, based on the choices of their individual teachers. Teachers will be able to teach students more effectively through technology, which should raise the overall achievement and hopefully also teacher satisfaction.

Technology assessments such as the PISA require students to have many of the skills listed in the ISTE standards for students to be successful (ISTE, 2016). This includes not only technology basics to navigate the assessment but also the ability to evaluate information, explore real-world issues and applications, solve open-ended problems, think computationally, and more. They have to do much more creative and critical thinking and not just recall and restate information they have learned.

REFERENCES

• Crompton, H. (2023). Evidence of the ISTE standards for educators leading to learning gains. Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education 29(4), 201-
  219 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21532974.2023.2244089
  
  
• International Society for Technology in Education. (2017). ISTE Standards for Educators. https://iste.org/standards/educators
  
  
• International Society for Technology in Education. (2016). ISTE Standards for Students. https://www.iste.org/standards/students
  
  
• Zimmer, W. & Matthews S. D. (2022). A virtual coaching model of professional development to increase teachers' digital learning competencies. Journal of Teaching and Teacher Education, 109(9). doi: 10.1016/j.tate2021.103544.  
  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355351183_A_virtual_coaching_model_of_professional_development_to_increase_teachers'_digital_learning_competencies

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