Instructional Leadership Reflection

Instructional Leadership- EDLD 5352
Reflection
When I first read the title of this course, Instructional Leadership, I honestly did not envision technology as the main topic behind the title. I thought I would be learning specific strategies on how to lead a staff and campus toward strong instructional practices, best practices. Then, I looked through the topics for each week more closely and realized that it was all going to be about technology. After ALL of the readings, assignments, lectures, discussion board exchanges, and the blog work, I realized that it WAS about strong instructional practices/best practices, only for the 21st Century learners! I can not say that there was an alignment between the course outcomes and those I envisioned, because I had the course totally wrong. However, I can say that the course exceeded my expectations as far as the relevancy of the material. I am pretty comfortable with my technology skills. Instead I learned about the importance of integrating technology in the classrooms of today, if we want kids to learn.
As an Intervention Teacher/Instructional Coach, this new learning is extremely relevant to what I do. Reading all the research and case studies integrated in this course opened my eyes to many possibilities for our struggling learners. Every time I read a new article, listened to the lectures, or looked at the STaR Chart analysis and the Texas Long Term Plan, etc., I wished I could take it all back to my campus and share it with everyone, my Principal especially. I’ve been out of the classroom for 4 ½ years. However, when I was in the classroom, I had my kids involved with technology, even then. My fondest memory is that of a new student in my classroom, straight from Mexico. She was 9 years old and had never even seen a computer. I took a picture of her the first day I sat her in front of one and walked her through a project we were working on. The expression in her face was priceless. My kids did Science projects research, experimented with everything in Microsoft Office, from Word documents to Power Point presentations. They were so engaged! Now as I work with struggling learners, I find it vital, to have my kids use technology. Paper-pencil learning does not work for these kids. Now I know it doesn’t really work for most kids. I knew that technology is the way to go, but now I know the research behind it.
This course confirmed what I have always believed. However, I still don’t know how to bring about a change at my school. I recently brought up our district’s written technology applications curriculum to a teacher I consider to have a pretty good relationship with. I was so excited telling him about the amazing tech apps website. I told him about how it is set up by grade levels, that it tells the teacher how, when and under which subject to integrate the technology TEKS. I told him that the site even had written lesson. He answered that he did not have time to teach that; he was too busy teaching Reading, Math, Social Studies and Science. He felt as if it was one more thing, and was not going to even look at that until after TAKS. I know that what prevents me from bringing about a change at my campus is the system itself. As a district we ‘say’ we support technology integration, as a school we ‘say’ the same. But TAKS scores are the bottom line.
I wanted to cry every time I opened a new assignment document thinking that it would be impossible for me to complete it. I did extremely well the first 3 weeks. I spent hours working on them, at home and at work, interviewing, etc. On week 4 however, I was totally overwhelmed. It was just too much and I was late by a day. Although I understand the reasons behind having us post 20 something entries on the discussion board each week, I found it a bit excessive. Yes, people made more entries, but I honestly think we were all trying to meet the requirement instead of having an authentic exchange of ideas. I think that if we are given more time to get on the discussion board, just reading and reflecting on each other’s postings, we would have engaged better. Perhaps, instead of having 8-9 quotes for all of the articles, we could’ve been given the choice of responding to four or five.
I am one of those technology immigrants the course talked about. Still, I’ve embraced technology wholeheartedly. It is probably my favorite means of communication. It is also my main tool for developing ideas for my personal and my professional life. I have a gmail, a yahoo, a Facebook, and a MySpace account, and 2 blog sites. I tweet, do online banking, online shopping, and now, online school! But just when I’m feeling pretty good about myself, I receive a long text message from my son. I quickly realize that he is a thousand times faster at texting than I am! While I’m replying to one text, he has sent 4 more, the last one saying, “hellooo, r u there?” That’s when I realize he is a native and I an immigrant! My leadership skills are getting better, now that I’m on my second year at this campus. I’ve invested a year and a half building relationships, and giving my colleagues time to get to know me as a professional. I understand that without trust and sharing my vision, I can’t lead a group of people. Slowly but steadily people are seeking my advise, and asking for my opinion.
As a technology immigrant, I find blogging a bit overwhelming, still. There is so much one can learn! I believe that our students are missing out by not being exposed to this type of technology. Teachers can have students work on projects of any type, for any subject. When kids use blogging as a means of communication, it allows them to develop their writing, critical thinking, and communications skills. I dream of a school where kids do not take tons of papers home for homework, and teachers don’t take tons of papers home for grading. Teachers blog their assignments, and students blog their homework, research papers, media projects, and questions to their teacher. Teachers and students have access to teaching and learning 24/7; that should be the norm, not the exception.
What concerns most teachers and administrator about blogging is student safety. In this litigious society, educators live in fear of being sued and losing their careers for failing to keep students from getting into unsafe practices on the internet. This is the number one reason why teachers keep their students as far away from the internet as possible. Yes, many teachers feel insecure about their own technology skills, or think that using technology is just one more thing. However, they absolutely fear getting in trouble or worst, a student getting hurt.
We could possibly begin by using blogging as a mean of communication between educators and district personnel, before we bring it to the classroom. We could create virtual professional learning communities that meet through blogging. These ‘Virtual PLC’ can be grouped by topic of interest, by grade level, by department, by different groups. We could also organize a PTA blog and a Spring Hill Parents blog. How great if parents didn’t have to wait for the next monthly newsletter to get home to know what’s going on at school. We can possibly eliminate staff, team leaders, and so many other unnecessary meetings. Once the adults master the use of blogging to communicate, then they will be more comfortable with bringing the world of blogging to their students. Lastly, I’m glad this course gave me a sense of urgency. If we don’t change the way we teach, we will loose our students.

Technology Action Plan for Spring Hill Elementary School

Background Information
• On my week 3 report I indicated that our school is very developed in the areas of Infrastructure and Administrator & Support of the STaR Chart.
• I also suggested that we shift our focus to the areas of Teaching & Learning and Educator Preparation.
• The AEIS report for my campus shows Science as the lowest area on TAKS.
• Our campus does not consistently and systematically follow our written technology applications curriculum.

Goals & Objectives
• Staff will become knowledgeable about Cyber Ethics, Online Safety, Avoiding Copyrights Problems, and Intellectual Property Laws in order to be able to discuss and instruct these topics with their students to a grade level appropriate degree.
• Staff will receive staff development on the use of technology and technology applications in the content areas starting with the area of Science. The staff development will include interactive training, model lessons, observations and follow-up sessions.
• 100% of the teachers will fully incorporate technology and technology applications into their Science curriculum, and gradually move this practice into all other content areas.
• 95% of 5th graders will meet Science TAKS standards.

Resources Needed
• Funding for after-school training, substitute teachers (for observations in 21st Century Technology ready classrooms), and the purchase of technology.
• District Instructional Technology Specialists support and expertise.
• School wide buy-in.


Professional Development
• Online Safety & Cyber Ethics- I will provide this training during a professional development/teachers work day.
• Avoiding Copyrights Problems and Intellectual Property Laws- We will invite Dr. Ives, our Coordinator of Instructional Technology to come and talk to the staff about these topics.
• Navigating Through Our Technology Applications Written Curriculum- Ms. Dillard, our campus Instructional Specialist will demonstrate how to access the district’s TA curriculum online. She will demonstrate how to link TA to our content area bundles.
• Teachers will sign up for these according to their individual needs:
a) Getting Started with Spreadsheets
b) Getting Started with Powerpoint
c) Getting Started with Inspiration
d) How to Create Hotlists
e) How to Create HyperLinks in Microsoft Word
f) How To Add Comments in Microsoft Word

All trainings will have an assessment and evaluation piece.

• Bringing Science to Life with Technology Applications- K-2 Sessions and 3-5 sessions. This professional development will be done by the Technology Department in conjunction with the Curriculum & Instruction Department.

Principal’s Role
• Support and participate in all professional development in this action plan.
• Manage the budget set aside for this plan.
• Monitor teachers and students progress.
• Encourage, support and celebrate teachers’ newly learned instructional practices.
• Maintain a positive attitude.

Evaluation
• A pre and post survey will be given to all teachers. This survey will indicate teachers’ degrees of knowledge of computer application practices.
• Principal and Technology Vertical Team will conduct walkthroughs and record observed integration of technology into Science instruction.
• All professional development will have an evaluation piece for teachers to complete.
• Science TAKS results (5th grade).
• Science Curriculum Based Assessments (CBAs) results (all grades).
• On-going data analysis for the next 3 years (AEIS reports, STaR Chart).

Spring Hill Techie Sharks!

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

S Ta R Chart

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The Texas Long Range Plan for Technology, 2006-2020- Educator Preparation and Development

Of all four areas of the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology, the one that I believe has the most impact of the rest, is the Educator Preparation and Development area. If we don’t have teachers equiped with the knowledge and skills necessary to fully integrate technology into instruction, all other areas become useless. What is the benefit of having hundreds of computers with the latest hardware and software at a campus, with all classrooms wired with LAN/WAN, if teachers don’t know how to take advantage of it?

The Educator Preparation and Development area is divided into 6 sections; Content of PD, Models of P.D., Capabilities of Educators, Access to P.D., Levels of Understanding and Patterns of Use, & P.D. for Online Learning. According to the Texas STaR Chart, our school scored overall at the Advance Tech stage in the 2008-2009 school year. However, I believe we are more at par with the state, at the Developing Tech stage. An overwhelming majority of the state’s schools, a 74.2% of the schools were at the Developing Tech stage in the 2007-08 year. Nearly 80% of Texas schools were at the Early or Developing Tech stage, up only 2 percentage points from the prior year. Our campus mirrors these same numbers.

Based on the Texas Campus and Teacher STaR Charts, in order to turn these trends around, we need to develop on-going professional development that focuses on providing tech application strategies for educators that will create learning environments where kids are empowered to think critically and where they have the means to collaborate with experts across business, industry and higher education. We also need to offer anytime, anywhere learning available through individually guided activities and inquiry action research, to name some. In order for teachers to be able to do this, we must also provide professional development that helps all teachers master the SBEC Technology Application Standards. They should also receive ongoing professional development training in order to create learning opportunities for all students and across all content areas.

It doesn’t matter how much administrative support or advance infrastructure we develop, incorporating technology in teaching and learning will not occur until teachers know how to do it.

TA TEKS- A Spiraling Curriculum

The Technology Applications TEKS were designed as a spiraling curriculum. Therefore it is imperative that each grade level teaches their required curriculum, so that there are no gaps in the students learning. An example of this spiraling curriculum is as follows.
In Pre-K, 4 year olds are expected to know how to move and double‐click the mouse to interact with software programs. They are also expected to use basic terminology to describe work on the computer. In K through 2nd grade, these same students are taught to, in addition to the mouse, use the keyboard, disk drive, modem, voice/sound recorder, scanner, digital video, CD-ROM, or touch screen. They are also expected to know the use of keyboarding techniques, produce documents, proofread, and correct errors in a document. They are expected to use correct grammar such as correct punctuation, capitalization spelling, etc. They must also develop an appropriate speed for short timed assignments. In grades 3-5 students are expected to master all of the skills above mentioned at their grade appropriate level. In grades 6-8 students are expected to be able to use all of the technology devises above, plus microphones, digital cameras, disk/disc, and joysticks. At this level, students are expected to improve their keyboarding techniques while building speed. In 6-8, students are expected to, in addition to use correct grammar as above, use one space after punctuation, the use of em/en dashes, and smart quotation marks and use strategies for capturing digital files while conserving memory and retaining image quality. Finally, by the time they are in 9-12 grade, students are expected to have mastered all of the above, in addition to being able to use the variety of input devices by incorporating them into a product and use digital keyboarding standards to input data.

Pre-K Technology Applications TEKS- Laying the Foundation for Future Grades

Teachers must provide multiple opportunities pre-K students, as well as model the use of technology in their classrooms. At the end of the year, Pre-K students are able to follow basic oral or visual cues for operating programs, listen to and interacts with storybooks and information texts electronically. They are also able to move and double‐click the mouse appropriately. and can use the technical vocabulary to describe what they are doing with the computer. The are also able to use voice/sound recording and touch screen devices. They can insert and play CDs, create writing and draw, use audio, video and graphs to learn, using software. Finally, students are able to learn new information through the use of technology.
When Pre-K teachers follow the TA TEKS, their students are better able to move toward using technology for discovery of new information, for problem solving, and for asking and researching answers.

The Texas Long-Range Plan for Technology, 2006-2020

I was pleased to realize all of the research and work that was done before putting together such a comprehensive and ambitious plan. They first did a very thorough analysis on the nation’s educational needs, and a study on the learners of today. They also made sure to hear teachers’ voices. They wanted to know where teachers were in their level of knowledge about today’s technology and its use in the classroom. They concluded that in order for our students to succeed after graduating our schools, we needed to create 21st Century classrooms, and place in front of each one of those classrooms a 21st Century technology prepared educator. The plan includes a vision about how to provide professional development for teachers so that they are capable of teaching technology education and fully integrate technology in curriculum & instruction. It provides additional visions on teaching and learning, support for administrators and school leaders, and on developing the infrastructure that’s capable of supporting this huge endeavor. The plan offers many recommendations for all stakeholders from TEA, to parents and communities. Reading and visualizing how this ‘21st Century classroom’ will look like and operate, and thinking about how different teaching and learning will be, makes me want to go back to the classroom!