Catherine Hernandez
HERNANDEZ-Plan.rtf
Technology Leadership 7-366
Professor Anita Phipps
Fall 2005
Staff Development Plan
Alternative Assignment

Purpose:
In the current 5-year budget plan Miami-Dade Public Schools will spend $14 million on enhancements to the technology infrastructure and services within the school system.1 At Sunset Park Elementary; we can see that many of the existing technology resources and services are underutilized. As Jamie McKenzie asks in his article, “Grazing the Net”, 
“Will we see dramatic increases in student achievement to justify this investment? “ As Dr. McKenzie observes:

In many cases — those districts which fail to clarify learning goals and fund professional development — the answer will be "No!" There is no credible evidence that networks improve student reading, math or thinking skills unless they are in service of carefully crafted learning programs which show students how to interpret information and make up their own minds. 

In the best cases - with the right program planning and robust professional development - schools will use these new tools and resources in ways which will improve student performance on high stakes state tests.2 

That seems to be the crux of the objective. Technology can be effectively integrated when there is “…program planning and robust professional development…”

By carefully reviewing the existing technology puzzle at Sunset Park Elementary School; we will implement a staff development program that will allow us to better utilize our resources and provide improvements in learning outcomes. 

Our purpose in this phase of staff development is to 1) improve staff ability to use technologies that are already available and 2) to begin introducing and integrating new technologies into the classroom to achieve effective learning outcomes. 

We will accomplish this using a modified Concern-Based Model3, as described by Joyce and Shower and coaching4 as McKenzie described. These methods will be incorporated into a fairly structured set of workshops followed by informal mentoring with feedback.

Assessment will be conducted in the form of surveys before and after the process. The survey will focus primarily on how much technology is being used, how comfortable the staff feel using it, and how much or whether students and parents perceive improvement in learning outcomes. Other learning assessments will be conducted in an attempt to quantify learning outcomes regarding teacher effectiveness and curricula choices.

Training Process: Participants:
	Technicians:
There are two technical support staff at the school and there will be two additional technical support staff assigned from the district for this training process. All four technicians will be present to assist and mentor staff and teachers through each training session. Upon completion of the training workshops and mentoring process, the school technicians will continue to support resident staff and function as liaisons to the district level staff. There will be an important benefit in having the district technicians present during the training as they will gain a better understanding of the specific needs at this school as well as foster trust and a working relationship with the resident technicians, teachers and administrators.
Technicians will be given an orientation to the training process and methods of the Concerns-Based Model of training. In this way, our technicians will know what kinds of concerns to expect from trainees and how to best alleviate fears and move toward solutions. 

Coaches:
Technically savvy teachers and administrators, who are willing, will be selected to serve as peer coaches to other trainees. They will be given a short orientation in advance of the workshops so that they will know what to expect. The intention is that these peer coaches will work alongside the other trainees but with some prior understanding of the process and applications to be presented. The added bit of familiarity should allow them to be comfortable enough to offer assistance to their peers without getting lost themselves. Once the training has been completed, these Coaches will continue to work with their peers to field daily questions. This will serve two purposes: many simple questions will be answered immediately by trusted peers, and these Coaches will be in close touch with the school technical support staff reporting trends and problems that take more than a moment to resolve. 

	Teaching/Learning Specialist:
There is one TLS at the school who will have two roles. She will be integral in the development of the workshops to be presented process and will be present during each workshop session. The role of the TLS is to ensure that appropriate pedagogical principles are employed as technology is applied to instruction so that learning is enhanced. This role is critical to the success of this process: it is vital that we avoid the pitfall of using technology for its own sake, rather than for the purpose of improving learning outcomes. Our TLS team member has studied Concerns-Based training methods and is familiar with this process and will lead the orientation for the technicians in advance of the workshops.

	Trainees:
All teachers and administrators will participate in the workshop series. Attendance will be organized by content so that administrators are not required to attend sessions pertaining strictly to instructional applications and techniques.

Workshop structure:
There is a need to train both administrative and teaching staff about the technologies they can be using to help with education in our school. Workshops of 9-12 participants so that “clusters” of 3 can be formed in each session. Administrators and teachers will attend separate workshops, as they will have varying focuses on the technologies they will be learning. 

There will be 4 tech staff and one teaching/learning specialist present at each workshop to assist with explanations and mentoring responsibilities. There will be a lead presenter for each session, but all tech staff will work within the groups to facilitate learning and experimentation.

This configuration will mean that we need a location with one machine per trainee, plus one for the workshop leader, and seating for at least 20 people. Clusters of three trainees will be assigned based on interest or work focus and will be encouraged to collaborate and work together. The tech staff and TLS will intermingle and coach with questions, or stumbling points as they appear. With a ratio of no more then 12 learners to 5 leaders, there should be ample means to exchange information and get questions answered.

Each session will begin with a sharing of interests and concerns, so that the first “Concerns” of our trainees can begin to be aired and addressed. This will allow an opportunity for the attendees to become comfortable more quickly with the process they are beginning, and will giving the training staff a chance to understand the concern levels of their audience.

Workshops: Administrative Focus
The Miami-Dade Public School System provides email accounts for all full time school employees and a website for each school in its district. These features are not used effectively at Sunset Park Elementary, http://sunsetpark.dadeschools.net . One important way to use technology to help improve learning is to use technology to improve communications. Training for support staff and administrators at Sunset Park will focus on implementing email and the district web space to improve communications within the school, between the school and district and between the school and its community of students and parents. 

The TLS team member will meet with the principal and vice principal to assist them in making some staffing assignments for areas of responsibility. With people assigned, workshops will be constructed to design and implement the following:
	1) Across the board staff training in how to use email
		Appropriate use techniques and netiquette
		How to use the mail application: compose, save, forward, reply
	2) Web site cleanup and enhancement to include
Updated “home page” for the school including links to district page
		Departmental pages for each grade level and special subject
		Media center page to include Accelerated Reader quiz list
Teacher directory to include phone, room number and email address
PTA page, including membership details and contact information
Calendar page to include local school happenings

The format of this workshop will be a two day session: The first day will cover the theory, principles and materials. The second day will is entirely hands-on, working with the applications and tools.

Workshops: Instructional Focus
The TLS team member will lead teacher and selected coaches to brainstorm some new approaches to teaching and learning that can implement technology. Workshops will focus in this round on curriculum applications which are available to all schools within the district: FCAT Explorer, River Deep and Accelerated Reader and ideas will be generated as to how these particular applications can be integrated into the curriculum. There will also be a set of general information Internet sites that can be explored.

Teachers will have two, two-day sessions: The first two-day session will follow the pattern of the Administrative Focus workshops, as teachers will be learning to use email and building classroom web pages. The second two-day session will follow the same format of Information and Hands-on, but will focus on the three district resources and some useful Internet resources.

Lastly, there will be an optional and separate two-day session designed to emphasize resources for students with “varying exceptionalities”: Gifted, ESE, LD, etc. Teachers in these specialties are invited to the “main” sessions, and will have another opportunity to learn more about how to find and implement resources specifically for students with learning differences. 

Workshop organization:
 Training teachers how to “operate” or use the technologies
Day One: Short one hour orientation/introduction in seminar style followed by small group discussions where questions are flushed out and exploration begins

	Day Two: Down to work with hands-on workshop
Participants spend the day building, constructing, questioning and learning.

Short Term Support Process:
Following the training workshops there will be specific follow up contacts made with each attendee. This process will be fairly well structured. Remembering the CBAM3, we feel that we will have addressed many of the “self oriented” questions during the workshops. Within first month after the completion of the workshops and the fading of the excitement of discovery, we anticipate the emergence of more “task oriented” questions. In order to address these issues we will have all attendees, within their cluster groups signup to meet with a technical team comprise of one of the technician and the teaching/learning specialist. These meetings will be arranged one week, two weeks and one month after the workshops conclude. The meetings will not be structured, but attendees will be asked to bring their questions, sticking points and puzzles to the meeting for some focused guidance. 

Long Term Support Process:
Just in time assistance is a critical element to effective user support, but can be challenging in a public elementary school. We will approach the challenge in this way:
Selected coaches will have the responsibility of being the “go to” person for users in there group or department. If the troubles is simply solved, we will have met our “just in time” goal. If the trouble or question is more involved the coach or the user will go to the local technical staff for help.

All users will have contact information to the local technical staff and TLS. They are welcome to bring any technical questions or concerns to the staff. One challenge that will be faced is the handling of hardware or infrastructure matters. In some cases, if they cannot be handled in-house, support will be needed from the district level. The school’s technical staff will work hard to maintain close alliances with district technicians so that these types of matters can be resolved smoothly and in a timely manner.

Annual Revisiting of workshops:
At the completion of one cycle of these two-day workshops and short term follow-up meetings, the technical support staff will meet with coaches, key administrators, and the teaching/learning specialist to brainstorm about what worked, what didn’t, what should be keep and what should we change about this process. Experience tells us that an evaluation of the effectiveness of the process is as important as assessment of the effectiveness of the use of technology. This meeting will provide ideas and action items for tweaking the training process. These changes will be worked into the process prior to the next training “season”.

The following training “season” will see new and updated workshops offered using the updated/tweaked workshop process. It will not be clear for the second round of training that the audience will be, but we can set some guidelines for consideration:
	Any teacher who wants to move ahead with more technology integration
	Any course or subject that is seen and needing to be revised with technology
Any new application or service that is identified by teachers, administration or the district as having merit to include in our curriculum
A process of culling new resources, topics and ideas will be pursued. This will, by nature that the form of a formal brainstorming session but will also be an organic process of exploration and information exchange among the users. There will need to be a “culture” of innovation and exploration nurtured and fostered in the school. The seeds of that process will be planted in the first of our training workshops.

Each subsequent “training season” will provide more in-depth topics, new technologies to explore and applications to examine. Some samples of further topics might include: 

Materials sites
Methods for finding resources and conducting effective searches
How the internet can support or foster clubs and extracurricular activities
Spelling bee
Science Fair
Web Quests 

Assessment: Sample Survey Questions
These are a sampling of some questions that we may ask our users about our technology integration program. This survey is intentionally brief, but would be reviewed by our technology review group made up of administrators, the teaching/learning specialist and our technical support staff. 

Staff/Administration: Tell us how effectively you were able to use our new school web site and email accounts.
	Were you able to effectively exchange email with teachers and administrators? Was this helpful in your work?
	Were you able to effectively email to students or parents? Did this positively impact your work or improve communications home?
	Were you able to redirect some queries to our web site? Do you feel the web site is a value resource for the school? What additions or changes would you like to see on the web site?
	Do you have any suggestions for ways we can further use technology to improve learning, work flow or communication at Sunset Park?

Teachers: Tell us how effective you feel your incorporation of technology into your curriculum has been this year. 
 How well did you enjoy using district technologies this school year? We are specifically interested in, how well you feel the technology helped your students learn. (FCAT Explorer, Accelerated Reader and River Deep)
Do you feel communication with your students and their parents was improved using the newly update school web site? school email?
How often do you use email with your parents?
Please tell us what other technologies you would like to explore for next year?

Students: We would like to know how you feel about using the computer in your classes. Please take a moment to answer a few questions. Thanks!
	Do you like to work on assignments that ask you to look things up in the Internet?
	What is your favorite web site that you use for your school work?
	Do you enjoy using FCAT Explorer?
	Do you enjoy working on Accelerated Reader quizzes?
	Do you like to work on River Deep exercises? 
		Do you use River Deep when you are at home?
	Tell us more ways you would like to use the computer to learn new things.

Parents: We at Sunset Park are exploring new ways to improve the way your student learns. On of the avenues we are investigating is technology integrated into our curricula. Please respond to this short survey so that we can learn how you have experienced the changes we made this school year. Please know that you are welcome to contact our school any time to discuss these or any other academic changes we make.
	Do you feel that the use of technology, (FCAT Explorer, Accelerated Reader, River Deep and Internet research), have improve the level of learning experiences your child has at Sunset Park?
	Does your child enjoy working with:
		FCAT Explorer?
		Accelerated Reader?
		River Deep?
	Has your child been given an assignment that required them to research a topic using the Internet? 
		Do you feel that project had sufficient instructions and guidelines?
		Do you feel that your child met the learning objective assigned in the task?
	Do you feel that communication with the school through email and the website were useful the year? Please give use your comments.
	Please give us any additional comments or suggestions you might have about how we can improve your child’s learning experience.

Assessment will be conducted in the form of surveys before and after the process. The survey will focus primarily on how much technology is being used, how comfortable the staff feel using it, and how much or whether students and parents perceive improvement in learning outcomes. Other learning assessments will be conducted in an attempt to quantify learning outcomes regarding teacher effectiveness and curricula choices.

References:

1 Miami-Dade County Public Schools 2005-2009 Budget
http://facilities.dadeschools.net/capital/index.asp

2 Grazing the Net
http://www.fno.org/text/grazing.html

3 The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM): A Model for Change in Individuals
http://www.nas.edu/rise/backg4a.htm

4 Traits of an Effective Tech Coach
www.fno.org/jan02/techcoach.html

4 Coaching for a Change
http://www.fno.org/Oct01/coaching.html