1.3 Policies, Procedures, Programs & Funding
Candidates research, recommend, and implement policies, procedures, programs, and funding strategies to support implementation of the shared vision represented in the school, district, state, and federal technology plans and guidelines. Funding strategies may include the development, submission, and evaluation of formal grant proposals. (PSC 1.3/ISTE 1c)
ITEC 7445 Evaluating an Emerging Technology Project
The Evaluating an Emerging Technology Project represents a survey and evaluation of a technology that our school may want to implement wide-scale. A technology leader must be able to match appropriate technologies with the needs of the context, and this exercise sought to develop skills in selecting, describing, and recommending a useful technology to our school. Ultimately, recommendations were made to adopt Pear Deck as an add-on tool to our already existing G Suite platform. Through the evaluation and recommendations and funding discussions with my principal, I practiced serving the shared technology vision of our district. Then, I created and delivered a presentation of the technology to our English department to encourage early adoption of the technology.
Standard 1.3 outlines a candidate’s goal of researching, recommending, and implementing technologies that benefit the school or district. Researching a technology involves defining its general purpose to determine if it supports the shared technology vision in the district. In Gwinnett County Public Schools, the Shared Vision for technology “promotes an environment of professional learning and innovation that empowers educators to enhance student learning through the infusion of contemporary technologies and digital resources” (GCPS Technology Shared Vision Statement). I surveyed technologies which seemed to enhance student learning but also which helped empower educators as opposed to confuse or frustrate them. As a district, we had recently moved to the G Suite platform, and I researched how Pear Deck, an add-on tool for Google Slides, could enhance the slide presentations that seemed to be ubiquitous in classrooms and common to teachers. Pear Deck allows teachers to embed formative assessment into their already constructed Google Slides presentations. For instance, if a slide displays two paragraphs with different tones, then a formative assessment pop-up might be to think-pair-share in the classroom about which language features contribute to the tone of the passage. This emerging technology seemed to match the habits and dispositions of our teachers who were already adopting a new learning platform, and so it seemed the best choice for empowering and enhancing without further complicating the professional learning. In a word, it is an “add-on” to what we are already doing.
Research also includes discovering the age-appropriateness of the technology for district-wide use and the technical support required to operate the tool. Pear Deck can be adjusted to fit any grade level or special population since the formative assessment questions embedded in the application are fine-tuned by the teacher; she can adjust the questions by type and level to suit her class’s needs. Additionally, I discovered that the tool was already paid for through funds we had allocated to adopting G Suite, so Pear Deck did not incur additional costs. In order to implement Pear Deck, teachers needed no more than what they were already using. In fact, most teachers already use a visual aid application to project their lessons and to keep track of what’s next in the class. So, I designed a short program for the English department teacher leaders to show them how to use Pear Deck to add formative assessment to their lessons and “Power points” as they call them. Teachers are able to collaborate more easily now with G Suite, and the Pear Deck add-on allows teachers to create formative assessment in their level teams rather than everyone creating their own “Power Points”. Implementation of the tool, then, allowed for more efficient use of time in a PLC. Our policy is that all PLCs will deliver the same standard during a calendar week, and this tool enabled teams to plan for teaching that standard in a unified way but with differentiation to each of the team member’s particular section ability.
Therefore, recommendation of the tool to other teams in our school is not a difficult task. The G Suite platform encourages all of us teachers to collaborate in a digitally protected way. Students in the classroom do not have to have a device or logon to participate in any Pear Deck exercises; instead, the tool encourages live, collaborative exercises which engage the entire classroom at once. So, a free, equitable, and engaging learning tool that integrates seamlessly into the habits our teachers already have seems like an easy solution to some of the issues our teams face. Currently, teachers are recommending the tool to their own PLCs, and I see this as an efficient way to diffuse the tool’s use.
Most importantly, I’ve learned that a powerful tool - even one that seems sensible to introduce and sustain - does not make teachers want to try it. Teachers seem resistant, ironically, to anything they have to learn to use for the first time. I presented the tool to teams and was surprised at some responses: “why would we want to put questions on our slides?” and “the slides already have the activity on them, so what does this tool help us to do?” These were fair questions, but they exposed an opportunity for me. I coached peers that activities and learning were not really the same thing and that Pear Deck was a way to introduce assessment into the lesson quickly to see who’s getting what. This one idea caused some teachers to reflect upon their practice and delivery of content. Some hadn’t considered that delivery of content should be properly sequenced and monitored so that student practice is more effective. In part, the tool should be altered, I think, to serve this goal. It would be nice if Pear Deck prompted a teacher for a learning goal at the top of the lesson and offered some way for the students to self-assess right in the tool. There are other external resources to embed this feature, of course, but that’s one more thing for a teacher to look at. Next time I present this tool, I may design a lesson outside my content area to show teachers how formative assessment may be designed to serve to aims of the lesson instead of just provide activities to the students.
If teachers adopted this tool and really used it in a way that reflected best practices in instructional design, it could drive student achievement toward mastery of skills. As Fisher and Frey (2015) recommend from their research, formative assessment as a strategy for acquisition of information has a high affective rate for student achievement. Additionally, PLC teams could become more focused and intentional in their planning for skill acquisition, especially when there are standards that are very difficult to teach. Working diligently on scripting rigorous questions would propel teachers toward thinking of the sequence of the learning instead of the activities themselves. If teachers are trying to script the learning, and if students are wrestling earlier on with the learning and improving during a lesson because of feedback, our school could measure a definite impact on District scores. Further, students would likely show more engagement with lessons if they are required to participate in the acquisition and are given feedback on their progress while the lesson is occurring.
References:
Fisher, D. & Frey, N. (2015). Checking for understanding. Formative assessment techniques for your classroom. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
The Evaluating an Emerging Technology Project represents a survey and evaluation of a technology that our school may want to implement wide-scale. A technology leader must be able to match appropriate technologies with the needs of the context, and this exercise sought to develop skills in selecting, describing, and recommending a useful technology to our school. Ultimately, recommendations were made to adopt Pear Deck as an add-on tool to our already existing G Suite platform. Through the evaluation and recommendations and funding discussions with my principal, I practiced serving the shared technology vision of our district. Then, I created and delivered a presentation of the technology to our English department to encourage early adoption of the technology.
Standard 1.3 outlines a candidate’s goal of researching, recommending, and implementing technologies that benefit the school or district. Researching a technology involves defining its general purpose to determine if it supports the shared technology vision in the district. In Gwinnett County Public Schools, the Shared Vision for technology “promotes an environment of professional learning and innovation that empowers educators to enhance student learning through the infusion of contemporary technologies and digital resources” (GCPS Technology Shared Vision Statement). I surveyed technologies which seemed to enhance student learning but also which helped empower educators as opposed to confuse or frustrate them. As a district, we had recently moved to the G Suite platform, and I researched how Pear Deck, an add-on tool for Google Slides, could enhance the slide presentations that seemed to be ubiquitous in classrooms and common to teachers. Pear Deck allows teachers to embed formative assessment into their already constructed Google Slides presentations. For instance, if a slide displays two paragraphs with different tones, then a formative assessment pop-up might be to think-pair-share in the classroom about which language features contribute to the tone of the passage. This emerging technology seemed to match the habits and dispositions of our teachers who were already adopting a new learning platform, and so it seemed the best choice for empowering and enhancing without further complicating the professional learning. In a word, it is an “add-on” to what we are already doing.
Research also includes discovering the age-appropriateness of the technology for district-wide use and the technical support required to operate the tool. Pear Deck can be adjusted to fit any grade level or special population since the formative assessment questions embedded in the application are fine-tuned by the teacher; she can adjust the questions by type and level to suit her class’s needs. Additionally, I discovered that the tool was already paid for through funds we had allocated to adopting G Suite, so Pear Deck did not incur additional costs. In order to implement Pear Deck, teachers needed no more than what they were already using. In fact, most teachers already use a visual aid application to project their lessons and to keep track of what’s next in the class. So, I designed a short program for the English department teacher leaders to show them how to use Pear Deck to add formative assessment to their lessons and “Power points” as they call them. Teachers are able to collaborate more easily now with G Suite, and the Pear Deck add-on allows teachers to create formative assessment in their level teams rather than everyone creating their own “Power Points”. Implementation of the tool, then, allowed for more efficient use of time in a PLC. Our policy is that all PLCs will deliver the same standard during a calendar week, and this tool enabled teams to plan for teaching that standard in a unified way but with differentiation to each of the team member’s particular section ability.
Therefore, recommendation of the tool to other teams in our school is not a difficult task. The G Suite platform encourages all of us teachers to collaborate in a digitally protected way. Students in the classroom do not have to have a device or logon to participate in any Pear Deck exercises; instead, the tool encourages live, collaborative exercises which engage the entire classroom at once. So, a free, equitable, and engaging learning tool that integrates seamlessly into the habits our teachers already have seems like an easy solution to some of the issues our teams face. Currently, teachers are recommending the tool to their own PLCs, and I see this as an efficient way to diffuse the tool’s use.
Most importantly, I’ve learned that a powerful tool - even one that seems sensible to introduce and sustain - does not make teachers want to try it. Teachers seem resistant, ironically, to anything they have to learn to use for the first time. I presented the tool to teams and was surprised at some responses: “why would we want to put questions on our slides?” and “the slides already have the activity on them, so what does this tool help us to do?” These were fair questions, but they exposed an opportunity for me. I coached peers that activities and learning were not really the same thing and that Pear Deck was a way to introduce assessment into the lesson quickly to see who’s getting what. This one idea caused some teachers to reflect upon their practice and delivery of content. Some hadn’t considered that delivery of content should be properly sequenced and monitored so that student practice is more effective. In part, the tool should be altered, I think, to serve this goal. It would be nice if Pear Deck prompted a teacher for a learning goal at the top of the lesson and offered some way for the students to self-assess right in the tool. There are other external resources to embed this feature, of course, but that’s one more thing for a teacher to look at. Next time I present this tool, I may design a lesson outside my content area to show teachers how formative assessment may be designed to serve to aims of the lesson instead of just provide activities to the students.
If teachers adopted this tool and really used it in a way that reflected best practices in instructional design, it could drive student achievement toward mastery of skills. As Fisher and Frey (2015) recommend from their research, formative assessment as a strategy for acquisition of information has a high affective rate for student achievement. Additionally, PLC teams could become more focused and intentional in their planning for skill acquisition, especially when there are standards that are very difficult to teach. Working diligently on scripting rigorous questions would propel teachers toward thinking of the sequence of the learning instead of the activities themselves. If teachers are trying to script the learning, and if students are wrestling earlier on with the learning and improving during a lesson because of feedback, our school could measure a definite impact on District scores. Further, students would likely show more engagement with lessons if they are required to participate in the acquisition and are given feedback on their progress while the lesson is occurring.
References:
Fisher, D. & Frey, N. (2015). Checking for understanding. Formative assessment techniques for your classroom. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.