standard 3:
Model Digital Age Work and Learning
Teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society.
a.Demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations
While attending the Midwest Educational Technology Conference this spring, I attended a valuable session on creating Digital Data Notebooks with students using Google Sheets. However, the session was hosted by teachers from a Google Apps for Education district who had already rolled out student accounts while I worked in a district that had no buy-in to Google at all beyond some individual teacher experimentation. After investigating student privacy guidelines and conducting some trials in my own classroom, I decided that these Notebooks would be perfectly suited for adapted use in my school. Our school improvement plan included a component of student goal setting, although it was loosely interpreted and implemented in a variety of ways. I decided to utilize our voluntary Tech Tuesday mini professional development venue to test out the concept on any willing parties. My Digital Data Notebook Professional Development mini-session was well attended and seemed to be well received. While it was only an overview, my exit survey indicated that 100% of participants wanted a follow up session. I admitted that my current template, with graphs on tabs separate from the raw data, was a trial and serious error that I'd remedy before next year's implementation. The current set up does not allow for commenting on the graph, nor can students include their goals or reflection physically near the visual representation the data. I've since assisted another teacher to figure out the compatibility this may have with a set of donated smart phones she utilizes in class and also submitted a proposal for our district wide TechFest professional development workshop day this October in order to share this innovation with teachers from other buildings K-12.
In the middle of this past school year, due to various extraneous circumstances, my school was granted the funds to hire six full time "interventionists" whose duty was to support struggling students in Math and English Language Arts. The catch was, at least with our Math interventionist, that she would work with three different grade levels and not have any common plan time with mine at all. As department chair for my team, I knew that I needed to come up with a twofold solution. First, I needed to provide her with a means of compiling and tracking student growth (or lack thereof) as she implemented Tier 2 services per our pyramid of interventions. Secondly, I needed to find a way for my team of teachers to have access to this data in order to remain abreast of student progress. Luckily, the individual who shouldered the role of interventionist for this content area was a very competent, flexible and technologically proficient teacher. Together, we created this Math Intervention Tracking Sheet in Google for our use. It was so successful in facilitating collaboration between her, my team and administrators that I was soon asked to train the remaining department chairs and interventionists how to use it. I happily did so and am pleased that Google Sheets will next year be the primary means for all staff members to document the data resulting from their implemented interventions. Aligning my entire school on one tool is something I'm very proud of since it's been an area of dissonance since I began teaching there. It has proven to streamline the collection of student data for our support and Special Education teams, improve communication with the parents of struggling students and refine the interventions themselves as we continually and collaboratively revisit and reflect on the qualitative and quantitative results of our efforts.
b.Collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation
While this may be the shortest survey I've ever created, it ended up being a very meaningful one. With our PTO wanting to support technology, but with individual teacher donation requests topping $7, 000, I wanted to procure funds for an online tool that would benefit all of our students; RAZ Kids. Knowing teachers from other schools who utilize it, and hearing the testimonials from our own first grade teachers who acquired funding on their own to implement it this past year, I knew that it was a quality tool with which we could increase our student's at-home access to quality on-level text with an engaging interface. Embedded in an e-mail touting testimonials and statistics about RAZ Kids' features, I sent this one question Google Form and was amazed as I collected the results. I was able to facilitate the purchase for our 700+ students by having reliable data to support our staff's buy in. Of course, I had to first agree to be the administrator of the subscription and train all interested teachers how to set up their classes, but I will happily fulfill those duties in exchange for this valuable resource!
In an effort to bring the versatility of Google tools to our staff, a co-worker created a mini PD session to be presented at one of our Tech Tuesday events. His objective was to provide an overview of Drive and the basic Google Apps to interested members who wanted to begin using them with students. Since I'm a fellow Google groupie, he asked me to provide feedback on his Presentation. I invite you to view the strand of comments and hope you'll gain a sense of how our asynchronous conversation facilitated improvements that were made before he presented to our colleagues. The session was a success and he has been asked to head up future sessions for next year as we transition to Google Apps for Education. I was impressed by his use of Google Form pre- and post-surveys he sent to participants to further tailor his content. I'll certainly be using those as a model for future sessions I'm in charge of!
c.Communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital age media and formats
I've had a melange of success and failure as I've muddled through several innovations in teacher to parent communication.
On the last day of school, during our Meet the (next year's) Teacher event, I handed out this letter for my incoming students to take home. So far I've had one parent sign up for Remind, so I'm already ahead of the game compared to last year!
As department chair this past year, my team had two new members added as we implemented new English Language Arts, Math and Phonics curricula. To say the least, it was not easy. My six member team needed to pace our lessons very closely together in order to have effective conversations and planning sessions. Initially, I used our Outlook Calendar to post important deadlines and reminders, but found that was not as effective as I'd hoped. While about half of the team used it regularly, the other half did not and could not be persuaded to do so. Borrowing an idea from our Kindergarten department chair who emails out a summary every Monday of the week's upcoming events, I started a Google Doc Week at a Glance. I was in charge of having it updated before every Sunday evening and individual team members were given rights to edit and add items at will. Linked to our team Symbaloo webmix from whence we access the plethora of other resources we use daily, the WAAG, as it came to be known, has been well received and we will continue to use it next year. The fourth and fifth grade teams who will adopt all new curricula simultaneously have agreed that they'll adopt it as well.
d.Model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning
During the 2011-12 school year, my team had significant difficulties locating reliable math assessments that provided the data we needed to effectively implement interventions and improve student achievement. Additionally, our aging math series did not provided resources from which we could draw remedial student activities. These challenges led me to look to online resources for help. I came upon the Quantile Teacher Assistant but still struggled to choose appropriately leveled activities without first knowing the Quantile measure of our students. After researching several standardized assessments from various vendors, I decided that the computer adaptive Scholastic Math Inventory would best meet our needs. I led the application process to commission funds for a pilot program to purchase a year's subscription. The initial request was approved and we reaped the benefits during that school year. I submitted a summary report, a supporting program-created graph and an extension request. Our pilot was not funded by our central office again, as they anticipated the cost to integrate the program District wide would be too much. However, my building's principal funded it for an additional year while also funding the purchase for our fourth grade cohort.
Another aspect of our students' achievement that my team and I realized needed special attention was their vocabulary acquisition. With a large portion of our community living in poverty, background knowledge was something that the children did not come to school with much of. Especially after enjoying an amazing professional development session with Dr. Sharon Faber entitled Beating the Odds for All Students, my team and I knew we needed to bolster their prior knowledge base. As Dr. Faber has since asserted, "All kids can read if they have vocabulary and prior knowledge."
Embedded in our new ELA curriculum, we had several academic vocabulary words each week that we knew our students would struggle with. Being only one of two Title 1 schools in our otherwise wealthy district, we knew that our curriculum department would not likely see a need to provide the type of scaffolding activities we envisioned using to assist our students. First, we took turns creating a background knowledge building multimedia file to use while facilitating whole group discussions. Then, as a rotation of our Daily 5 workshop, we'd allow students to search their vocabulary words on the Discovery Education video collection site with the closed captioning enabled. As they heard the word we were studying, they'd pause the video to record the sentence on this note-taking sheet. We hoped that hearing and seeing the word in context would be a beneficial use of their independent work time.
a.Demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations
While attending the Midwest Educational Technology Conference this spring, I attended a valuable session on creating Digital Data Notebooks with students using Google Sheets. However, the session was hosted by teachers from a Google Apps for Education district who had already rolled out student accounts while I worked in a district that had no buy-in to Google at all beyond some individual teacher experimentation. After investigating student privacy guidelines and conducting some trials in my own classroom, I decided that these Notebooks would be perfectly suited for adapted use in my school. Our school improvement plan included a component of student goal setting, although it was loosely interpreted and implemented in a variety of ways. I decided to utilize our voluntary Tech Tuesday mini professional development venue to test out the concept on any willing parties. My Digital Data Notebook Professional Development mini-session was well attended and seemed to be well received. While it was only an overview, my exit survey indicated that 100% of participants wanted a follow up session. I admitted that my current template, with graphs on tabs separate from the raw data, was a trial and serious error that I'd remedy before next year's implementation. The current set up does not allow for commenting on the graph, nor can students include their goals or reflection physically near the visual representation the data. I've since assisted another teacher to figure out the compatibility this may have with a set of donated smart phones she utilizes in class and also submitted a proposal for our district wide TechFest professional development workshop day this October in order to share this innovation with teachers from other buildings K-12.
In the middle of this past school year, due to various extraneous circumstances, my school was granted the funds to hire six full time "interventionists" whose duty was to support struggling students in Math and English Language Arts. The catch was, at least with our Math interventionist, that she would work with three different grade levels and not have any common plan time with mine at all. As department chair for my team, I knew that I needed to come up with a twofold solution. First, I needed to provide her with a means of compiling and tracking student growth (or lack thereof) as she implemented Tier 2 services per our pyramid of interventions. Secondly, I needed to find a way for my team of teachers to have access to this data in order to remain abreast of student progress. Luckily, the individual who shouldered the role of interventionist for this content area was a very competent, flexible and technologically proficient teacher. Together, we created this Math Intervention Tracking Sheet in Google for our use. It was so successful in facilitating collaboration between her, my team and administrators that I was soon asked to train the remaining department chairs and interventionists how to use it. I happily did so and am pleased that Google Sheets will next year be the primary means for all staff members to document the data resulting from their implemented interventions. Aligning my entire school on one tool is something I'm very proud of since it's been an area of dissonance since I began teaching there. It has proven to streamline the collection of student data for our support and Special Education teams, improve communication with the parents of struggling students and refine the interventions themselves as we continually and collaboratively revisit and reflect on the qualitative and quantitative results of our efforts.
b.Collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation
While this may be the shortest survey I've ever created, it ended up being a very meaningful one. With our PTO wanting to support technology, but with individual teacher donation requests topping $7, 000, I wanted to procure funds for an online tool that would benefit all of our students; RAZ Kids. Knowing teachers from other schools who utilize it, and hearing the testimonials from our own first grade teachers who acquired funding on their own to implement it this past year, I knew that it was a quality tool with which we could increase our student's at-home access to quality on-level text with an engaging interface. Embedded in an e-mail touting testimonials and statistics about RAZ Kids' features, I sent this one question Google Form and was amazed as I collected the results. I was able to facilitate the purchase for our 700+ students by having reliable data to support our staff's buy in. Of course, I had to first agree to be the administrator of the subscription and train all interested teachers how to set up their classes, but I will happily fulfill those duties in exchange for this valuable resource!
In an effort to bring the versatility of Google tools to our staff, a co-worker created a mini PD session to be presented at one of our Tech Tuesday events. His objective was to provide an overview of Drive and the basic Google Apps to interested members who wanted to begin using them with students. Since I'm a fellow Google groupie, he asked me to provide feedback on his Presentation. I invite you to view the strand of comments and hope you'll gain a sense of how our asynchronous conversation facilitated improvements that were made before he presented to our colleagues. The session was a success and he has been asked to head up future sessions for next year as we transition to Google Apps for Education. I was impressed by his use of Google Form pre- and post-surveys he sent to participants to further tailor his content. I'll certainly be using those as a model for future sessions I'm in charge of!
c.Communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital age media and formats
I've had a melange of success and failure as I've muddled through several innovations in teacher to parent communication.
- While I did get six of my eighteen students' parents (and one co-worker) to sign up for my Twitter feed this past year, that was not enough to make using it worthwhile.
- I used Remind101 (newly renamed "Remind") to send text message reminders and updates about my class and Student Council's events. I found that tool quite effective after I'd asked parents to sign up for the service at our Open House and ended up with 26 members!
- I sent weekly PDF newsletters via email (and on paper) every Monday.
- I got a total of three parents to create Drive accounts and give me their handle so their child could "share" work with them.
- I sent frequent reminders each time we posted a new Kidblog thread and invited parents to comment on their child's content: no one ever did.
On the last day of school, during our Meet the (next year's) Teacher event, I handed out this letter for my incoming students to take home. So far I've had one parent sign up for Remind, so I'm already ahead of the game compared to last year!
As department chair this past year, my team had two new members added as we implemented new English Language Arts, Math and Phonics curricula. To say the least, it was not easy. My six member team needed to pace our lessons very closely together in order to have effective conversations and planning sessions. Initially, I used our Outlook Calendar to post important deadlines and reminders, but found that was not as effective as I'd hoped. While about half of the team used it regularly, the other half did not and could not be persuaded to do so. Borrowing an idea from our Kindergarten department chair who emails out a summary every Monday of the week's upcoming events, I started a Google Doc Week at a Glance. I was in charge of having it updated before every Sunday evening and individual team members were given rights to edit and add items at will. Linked to our team Symbaloo webmix from whence we access the plethora of other resources we use daily, the WAAG, as it came to be known, has been well received and we will continue to use it next year. The fourth and fifth grade teams who will adopt all new curricula simultaneously have agreed that they'll adopt it as well.
d.Model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning
During the 2011-12 school year, my team had significant difficulties locating reliable math assessments that provided the data we needed to effectively implement interventions and improve student achievement. Additionally, our aging math series did not provided resources from which we could draw remedial student activities. These challenges led me to look to online resources for help. I came upon the Quantile Teacher Assistant but still struggled to choose appropriately leveled activities without first knowing the Quantile measure of our students. After researching several standardized assessments from various vendors, I decided that the computer adaptive Scholastic Math Inventory would best meet our needs. I led the application process to commission funds for a pilot program to purchase a year's subscription. The initial request was approved and we reaped the benefits during that school year. I submitted a summary report, a supporting program-created graph and an extension request. Our pilot was not funded by our central office again, as they anticipated the cost to integrate the program District wide would be too much. However, my building's principal funded it for an additional year while also funding the purchase for our fourth grade cohort.
Another aspect of our students' achievement that my team and I realized needed special attention was their vocabulary acquisition. With a large portion of our community living in poverty, background knowledge was something that the children did not come to school with much of. Especially after enjoying an amazing professional development session with Dr. Sharon Faber entitled Beating the Odds for All Students, my team and I knew we needed to bolster their prior knowledge base. As Dr. Faber has since asserted, "All kids can read if they have vocabulary and prior knowledge."
Embedded in our new ELA curriculum, we had several academic vocabulary words each week that we knew our students would struggle with. Being only one of two Title 1 schools in our otherwise wealthy district, we knew that our curriculum department would not likely see a need to provide the type of scaffolding activities we envisioned using to assist our students. First, we took turns creating a background knowledge building multimedia file to use while facilitating whole group discussions. Then, as a rotation of our Daily 5 workshop, we'd allow students to search their vocabulary words on the Discovery Education video collection site with the closed captioning enabled. As they heard the word we were studying, they'd pause the video to record the sentence on this note-taking sheet. We hoped that hearing and seeing the word in context would be a beneficial use of their independent work time.