1Running Head: SHARED VISION & RATIONALE

9SHARED VISION & RATIONALE

TitleShared Vision and Rationale

Carrie SettlesITEC 7500 Technology LeadershipSummer 2015Kelly Fuller

Keywords: Technology and Learning, effective professional development, improved student engagement, diversity

Shared Vision and RationaleVision StatementOur vision for Brookwood High School, and Gwinnett County Public Schools is that we will commit to having technology implementation with ISTE/NETS standards incorporated into lesson plans by all teachers on a daily basis. Technology will also be student-centered and allow for high levels of critical thinking which will help guide our future 21st century leaders into becoming global citizens. I believe that with collaboration and support from our community and technology leaders our teachers will be able to foster creative thinking and enhanced engagement for all of our students.RationaleAccording to our Assistant principal, Kristen Fowler, our mission at Brookwood High School is to provide a challenging learning environment which emphasizes the critical thinking skills needed to become productive citizens and lifelong learners.(K. Fowler, personal communication, June 25th, 2015). Some common themes amongst the administrative staff at Brookwood High School are that we have a tradition of excellence and that in order to maintain our high standards we must be continually focused on student improvement and we must find ways to reach our growing diverse population. There have been many initiatives in place after the data from the previous year was analyzed to see what areas should be addressed and prioritized first. One example of an opportunity for improvement is with our ninth grade failure rate. Overall, we have a 91% graduation rate, which we are very proud of, so what can we do to help these youngsters be more successful their first year of high school? The data also shows that our student struggle with the literacy and reading comprehension with document based assessments. Therefore, many of our interventions fall into those areas. Our Local School plan of improvement specifically says that we need to improve the scores across all subject areas and one way to do so is to effectively incorporate technology. However, there hasnt been any attention brought to the ISTE standards in our school, nor have our teachers been informed on what effective technology implementation really is, leaving teachers to think that the programs that focus on practicing multiple choice questions are indeed effective. While our goals say effective technology integration, there isnt any research stated on what that actually means. To make this vision a reality, our professional development efforts need to hone in on technology that provides rich opportunities for student collaboration and higher processing skills (ISTE Policy Brief, 2008)The District as a whole and Brookwood High School would score an exceeds in the Shared Vision category on the ISTE Essential Conditions rubric, as both the district and Brookwood High School have a collaborative system in place for creating strategic plans for addressing our biggest areas of growth. One component of our district vision for technology is, Digital tools will expand the walls of the classroom, fostering collaboration and nurturing creativity and innovation in students and teachers. Appropriate technological tools and resources that are part of students every-day, media-rich lives will be incorporated into the school day, making learning real and relevant to a student population that has never known a world without sophisticated technology. Employees will have the technology-based knowledge, skills, training, and tools they need to be effective in their jobs. Innovative technology will facilitate teaching and learning(GCPS 3 year strategic plan for technology, 2015.)To incorporate our district goals into our Local School Plan of improvement, our leadership team meets with a community panel, administration, and teacher-leaders within the school on a continuous basis to get feedback and then consensus on our goals for improvements. Also, every year the staff development AP sends out a needs assessment to the entire faculty to see what teachers need in regards to support and that becomes one of the components to the staff development map in our school.Diversity ConsiderationsAt our school special attention is placed on our growing population of sub-groups as the school has gone from 51%white population to 41% in the past 3 years. We need to be culturally aware and sure that the needs of all of our students are being met, and that conversations about our cultural diversity are not taboo. If we ignore that there are indeed diverse cultures present, then we will fail to make sure their needs are being met (Love, N., Stiles, K. Mundry, S. and K. DiRanna. 2008). To make certain all students are using technology in a meaningful manner, ALL teachers will be trained on adequate uses of technology and to provide the funding and resources to make sure the equipment is adequately shared in our school. Also, teachers need to pay specific attention to who has Internet access at home and who does not, as there are grants that will help assist individual teachers get equipment that these students can check out, and many cable companies have special programs where they will provide six months of free access, etc. At Brookwood High School we are very proud of the science course offerings, comparable to a Magnet or Charter school, we lead the way for traditional high schools. Brookwood has won the Science Olympiad state championship seven of the last eight years, beating all Magnet and Charter schools. We sent our Robotics team to the Nationals in Anaheim, CA for the third year in a row. We will offer the first Robotics course at a traditional high school; our teachers are on the team to build the standards for our district in this course. Our school is known for its science program and the success rate on the science AP College Board classes, however, even with our strong reputation for science in this community and state, we still see the disparity of males and females in the physical science and engineering-type courses. There needs to be strategies in place to attract more females into our STEAM program, and robotics courses. We need to campaign to parents of females and the female-related clubs to show how more women are needed and can be successful in these fields.Another trend in our school is the increase in low income families to the area. A problem teachers have is making assumptions that if a student has a SMART device, then they can access Internet at home, most of them have very limited DATA plans. Or that all students can participate in the Bring Your Own Device program. On the other hand, some teachers fear that students will not have a device so they will not to incorporate the technology-based lessons when in reality they can use collaborative groups instead.Our teachers already get together to document intervention strategies when students are not successful, it would align with our vision if our leaders in our school gave feedback on these strategies specifically focusing on the intervention s they are planning. I would like them to reflect to see if their interventions for these 9th grade students we are trying to remediate are focused on drill and kill for our low socio-economic students as the ITSE policy brief suggests. If so, then instead we need to focus more on project-based-learning (PBL) styles that according to edutopia.com are more effective in increasing long-term learning (edutopia, 2015)Stakeholder RolesThe Local School Technology Coordinator will work with the tech team, in Gwinnett County this consists of the media specialists the LSTC, and the TST along with a few technology savvy teachers who unofficially help their colleagues with technology implementation. In every school there are teachers who are natural leaders in the field of instructional technology and they use their gifts for picking up on technology quickly and by helping those around them who are not as savvy. In our school these teachers, also called Innovators have been identified and they play a special role in our staff development implementation by leading what we call Lunch & Learns. The way these sessions work are that teachers communicate with the LSTC if they are using a technology tool that they wouldnt mind presenting to the staff during their lunch periods. Teachers get to pick from a list of who is presenting what, depending on what fits best with their curriculum and classroom. Teachers are not mandated to go to these training sessions; however they are required to document six hours of continuous improvement in technology (they have to log twenty hours of continuous improvement altogether, but our PLC groups count for ten of these hours, so not difficult to do!) What is nice about the sessions where teachers are teaching teachers, is that they are still in the classroom and are up to date on the latest curriculum changes and they have a great perspective on the student body, as in who will have their own devices and who will not, etc. This helps make the sessions very valuable for our teachers. Plus, they usually create a step-by-step trouble-shooting guide that we put on the school share-drive so we can access it when we forget something. Not only that, but our teachers really are there if you have problems you run into later. In my research of our school technology plan and staff development initiatives, at first I found them flawed in that I didnt feel these lunch & learns provided enough time for reflection and follow-up, but considering the teachers will always make it known that you can e-mail them any time and are available for observations, I would have to retract some of my negative thoughts. That being said, I do feel we have room for improvement when it comes to learning about some of the hardware that our media center has available, but some teachers dont know how to use it, so they dont even bother. We are very strong in our eCLASS initiative, which is a part of our district 3-year technology implementation plan, and a part of our annual goals on our LSPI. In our vision, the Innovators will continue to do what they are doing by sharing tech-tools, but our technology team will take a more active role in what is being shared to make more of these sessions focused on the strategies that will increase critical thinking, not just memorization to prepare for standardized tests or ways to use on-line assessments quicker and more effectively. Also, there will be more accountability that teachers are actually taking these strategies back to the classroom and implementing them. Our school prides ourselves on taking new initiatives slowly so we can quickly work out the kinks before pushing out an initiative that might fail. As a matter of fact, one administrator told me that there is a new push to use our Schoolnet more, but we are still providing training and feedback for eCLASS, so our leadership team decided to hold off on Schoolnet for now. However, with technology implementation we would like to have a place where or teachers simply add to the document that they already must fill out that lists their twenty hours of continuous improvement. We think they should name which lunch & learn was most effective in their classroom, and what NETS standard it covered. This simply gets them thinking about actually using the new technology and using it more effectively. Also, since we are not likely to make the implementation mandatory, we could make it more incentive-based, like if an administrator or someone on the tech team observes a technology-rich lesson that gets students synthesizing, collaborating, or creating, then you get a free jeans day. Over time, after trying and succeeding with effectively technology integration, then technology literacy will be like reverse entropy, the natural state in our school! Either way, in our vision the administration would play a more active role with effective technology integration by utilizing the teacher effectiveness system (they are already observing anyways.) In addition to the rubric they are already using, we would like to see a category added that is dedicated only to effective technology integration, but an addendum to the rubric would require district approval. With the stake holders all working together, and with appropriate research and information being shared with the teachers, appropriate staff development opportunities provided, and appropriate amounts of accountability applied, then student engagement will increase which will ultimately help all of our students be more successful and for the vision to become a reality.

ReferencesCreighton, T. (2003). The principal as technology leader. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Edutopia Team (February, 2008). Why teach with project-based learning? : Providing students with a well-rounded classroom experience.What Works in Education. Retrieved June 23, 2015 fromhttp://www.edutopia.org/project-learning-introduction

Gwinnett County Public Schools District Website. (2015). Retrieved fromhttp://www gwinnett.k12.ga.us

ISTE (June, 2008). Technology and student achievement The indelible link. ISTE Technology Brief. Retrieved June 26, 2013 from: http://www.k12hsn.org/files/research/Technology/ISTE_policy_brief_student_achievement.pdf

ISTE essential conditions. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/essentialconditions.Love, N., Stiles, K. Mundry, S. and K. DiRanna. (2008) The Data Coachs Guide to Improved Learning for All Students. Corwin Press.