Elise Johnson
CTER 5 – EdPsych 490TER
Major Proposal

Technology Integration and Professional
Development at Passow School
in Franklin Park School District #84

Project Summary

This project will focus on the use of online learning to enable Passow School in Franklin Park School District #84 to provide quality professional development to enable teachers to integrate technology into the curriculum. The No Child Left Behind Act challenges school districts to improve student achievement through the use of technology, to raise student technology literacy, and to ensure that teachers integrate technology into the curriculum effectively. The faculty will participate in a program, funded through the NEA Foundation for the Improvement of Education (NFIE). The NFIE awards Learning and Leadership grants to educators who engage in high-quality professional development and lead their colleagues in professional growth. The EdTech Leaders Online program at Education Development Center will train faculty teams participating in this project to be online Professional Development Specialists who will facilitate a rigorous program of standards-based technology-enhanced online workshops for teachers across all subject areas and grade levels at Passow School. Participants will also be trained to use online tools to evaluate the effectiveness of the online professional development courses, and to use online assessment techniques to measure the impact of the online courses on teacher practice and student achievement. All curriculum materials created will be in alignment with the Illinois state standards.

During this time, the technology curriculum would be updated so that the teachers would know just what they should teach before the end of the school year. The school team will then develop a variety of suggested projects per grade level that would aid in the teachers’ integrating technology in to their classrooms. Throughout this project, teachers would be given graduate credit or CPDU’s to help them fulfill their Illinois certification requirements. After this program is in place for a minimum of 2 years, the ISAT and IOWA test scores of the district’s students will be evaluated to see if the integration of technology into the curriculum has had any effect. This can best be evaluated in the School Improvement Plan for the following 2 years.

The Learning and Leadership Grant offered by the NEA Foundation for the Improvement of Education for the purpose of initially organizing the EdTech Online project will be applied for using the following format.

Project Background

Franklin Park School District 84 is a small district with 1 Early Childhood Preschool building, 3 elementary schools (gr. K-5) and 1 middle school (gr. 6-8). Passow School presently has a 30 Imac computer lab, plus 1 Macintosh computer in each classroom with Internet access for grades 3-5. Previously, Passow had employed a full time media specialist for its school library and computer lab, but the position was cut back to 3 days a week. The media specialist rarely had time to teach a class and spent most of her time troubleshooting constant computer and server problems.

Five years ago, teachers were given the opportunity to take technology courses at the district’s expense through the Educational Service Region in the area. The problem Passow faced was that teachers would learn new technology, but not learn how to integrate this technology into their present curriculum. Often, whatever was learned was forgotten. The current technology plan was out of date, so teachers at each grade level were not sure of what technology skills they were supposed to teach when using the computer lab.

Utilizing results from another graduate course, surveys given to the staff showed that most of the teachers at Passow School need some type of guidance in the computer lab. A part time media position is not enough to help with their classes, and the grade levels need to have a better technology curriculum outlined, so that every teacher is aware of what should be taught at each grade level. Professional staff development was also needed, according to the teachers interviewed. They would like to make the computer lab an integral part of their curriculum, not just a place where their students can play holiday games, practice drills, or word process. They felt that their students would definitely need these skills in order to succeed in a very technical world.

Statement of Need

As web-based technologies infiltrate every aspect of everyday life, it is imperative that teachers are kept up-to-date, learning the most effective ways to use technology to enhance their instruction and their students’ learning. Nationally, school spending on technology and the number of computers in schools continue to grow, but districts often spend less on the professional development and training needed for teachers to implement this technology in the classroom.

Many of the professional development programs that are currently offered to teachers fail to provide the kind of ongoing support teachers need to make effective use of educational technology, and as a result, few teachers are in a position to integrate new technologies into their classroom practices. Teachers may attend a one-day workshop and return to school the following day not knowing how or having the time to integrate what they learned into their curricula, or they may lack the support from colleagues that is necessary for their attempts to be successful. To be successful in their endeavors to learn and implement new technologies, teachers need hands-on learning rooted in their own curricula that will enable them to translate training into practice.

Like many educators, teachers at Passow School juggle a number of diverse and time-consuming responsibilities, and scheduling time for ongoing professional development or productive interaction with colleagues can be extremely difficult. Educators need to be able to participate in professional development courses whenever and wherever it is convenient for them: before or after school, during a free planning period in the classroom, or at home on the weekends, if need be. Moreover, teachers must be able to interact with colleagues in a collaborative, supportive environment and feel that they have a voice in guiding the direction of their training to ensure that the skills are applicable to the disciplines and students they teach.

Goals & Objectives

Developing technology competence among all faculty is critical in order to cultivate classrooms in which technology is used to support the curriculum and to meet the individual learning needs of all students. Through participation in the EdTech Leaders Online workshops, teachers will be able to bring technology-enhanced lessons to their classrooms as they integrate new technologies into their teaching practices. As a capacity-building project focused on quality professional development and technology integration into the curriculum, the EdTech Leaders Online program will have a long-term impact on teaching and learning at Passow School. When teachers experience using technology as learners, they are better able to orchestrate its effective use in their classrooms for their own students.

As a result of this project, a core team of educators will be trained as online professional development specialists who can facilitate and deliver a rigorous program of standards-based technology-enhanced online workshops to colleagues across subject areas and grade levels. Because they are conducted entirely online, these workshops will provide the flexibility needed to accommodate the varied schedules and professional development needs of teachers. This ongoing access to quality professional development will enable busy teachers to participate on their own schedule as they learn to develop standards-based, technology-enhanced curricula for immediate classroom use and to assess the impact of technology enhanced learning on student achievement. It will also build an online network of district teachers and administrators who can collaborate as they implement these new lessons and teaching practices.

Our participation in the ETLO program will help Passow School achieve the following goals:

1.Build capacity to offer quality training to an increased number of educators in our district

2.Develop leadership capacity and expertise of a select group of educators within our district

3.Integrate technology more effectively into teaching practice across disciplines and grade levels throughout our district

4.Offer time flexibility that makes it possible for more teachers to receive meaningful professional development

5. Provide hands-on experience that makes it realistic for teachers to translate workshop experiences into classroom practice

Methodology & Activities

Through a partnership with the EdTech Leaders Online program at the Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), and the Franklin Park School District Foundation, this project will train a core of 3 online professional development specialists in the K-12 Technology Integration Program over the course of 2 years, adding a new level to current professional development offerings in the district. These facilitators will then deliver a program of 3 online workshops developed by EDC to up to 35 educators in the district. If successful, these workshops will then be offered to the other teachers in the Franklin Park School District.

Each workshop includes six sessions and lasts from six to eight weeks, requiring teachers to work online approximately three to four hours per week. Each workshop session includes readings, activities and participation in an online discussion and each workshop culminates with teachers developing a final project developed for immediate implementation in their classrooms. Workshops include subject-specific or cross-discipline content in areas ranging from literacy and mathematics to project-based learning and the integration and effective uses of assistive technology.

Beginning in January, 2004, and throughout the 2004/2005 school year, teachers will have the opportunity to take any workshop facilitated by these trained specialists. Below is a sample of what workshops may be available for the interested staff:

1.Finding the Best Educational Resources on the Web
2.Approaches and Tools for Developing Web-Enhanced Lessons
3.Using Technology to Support Research and Presentation
4.Special Students in Regular Classrooms: Technology, Teaching and Universal Design
5.Transforming the Classroom with Project-Based Learning
6.Designing a Virtual Field Trip
7.Classroom Assessment Enhanced by Technology
8.Using New Technologies to Support Literacy Development in Primary-Level Classrooms
9.Reading First: Supporting Early Reading Instruction with Technology
10.Using Technology in the Elementary Math Classroom

In alignment with the Illinois State Board of Education Certificate Renewal guidelines, each participating teacher will receive graduate credit or CPDU’s for each workshop completed.

Dissemination

As part of Passow School’s involvement in the ETLO program, lessons learned about online learning and professional development will be disseminated broadly throughout the Franklin Park School District and beyond. Teachers and administrators who participate in this project will be expected to share their new curriculum materials with other colleagues across the district, and possibly through institutes in neighboring school districts.

Evaluation

Ongoing evaluation is a key component of this program. The Franklin Park School District and EdTech Leaders Online staff will use a combination of online and other survey tools and methods to evaluate the impact of the program and to continuously improve the design and delivery of the online professional development courses and workshops.

Teachers participating in the ETLO training will be assessed before, during, and after the online professional development specialist course, and they will be evaluated by ETLO staff upon completion of the training to ensure that they have met all course requirements. On a local level, project participants will meet in person on a regular basis to reflect on their experiences and to learn from and improve the program as it progresses.

As the trained facilitators offer workshops to their colleagues, they will administer surveys to participants before and after the workshops. Data from these surveys will be analyzed to inform future workshops offered in the district. Guided by EDC’s rubrics for workshop participation and by the specific goals and requirements of the district, OPD specialists will also be expected to assess the performance of each of their workshop participants. In addition, final products will be collected from educators who complete these technology integration workshops, and the district’s trained OPD specialists will have the opportunity to confer with other ETLO participants across the country as they assess these products and evaluate the overall district OPD program.

At the end of each semester and project year, project staff will review the survey data and the teacher and student products to evaluate the successes and the challenges of the program. The results of this evaluation will be incorporated into the School Improvement Plan to propose the next round of training and workshop delivery.

Timeline