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Teachers like Henry DePriest (above
left) at Blue Valley North High School in Overland
Park, Kansas, rate themselves on how well they integrate
technology into their teaching.
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When schools focus on technology, the spotlight is often on Internet
access, student-to-computer ratios, and other hard evidence that
shows technology is available and being used. Sooner or later,
parents and community members will ask how the technology is being
used and what impact it is having on student learning. And when
that question arises, most districts can provide only anecdotal
evidence -- not hard data -- to show how technology is being applied
by classroom teachers and how technology is advancing student
learning.
Until recently, this was the situation we faced in Blue
Valley Unified School District 229 in Overland Park, Kan.
Twice in the past five years, district residents have voted to
approve bonds for funding technology improvements. Those two bond
issues, combined with other general fund and capital outlay investments,
will have resulted in nearly $40 million in technology investments
in less than a decade. With such a large investment for our nearly
17,000 students, the school board and district administration
wanted to ensure improved accountability for technology use and
to provide a system for continuous improvement in technology use
at every level of the district.
"Placing technology in schools is not an end in itself, but
a means to an end, the ultimate goal being improved student learning,"
says school board member Sheryl Spalding. "It is imperative that
we regularly assess how technology is being used in the classroom
and gain insight from teachers who can best describe present practice
and areas needing improvement."
With that aim in mind, board members and administrators began
searching for an effective means of assessing and documenting
technology integration throughout the district. Teachers naturally
became the focus of our efforts. We had always known and supported
the idea that teachers are the key to student learning and achievement.
But even though we had emphasized the use of technology for years,
we had never specifically articulated how we expected teachers
to use technology.
Measuring technology use
We set out to identify and measure a comprehensive set of effective
technology integration practices. Our first step was a thorough
review of the "Recommended Foundations in Technology for All Teachers"
developed by the International
Society for Technology in Education and adopted by the National
Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education.
Initially, we began writing our own set of teacher technology
competencies based on these well-researched national standards.
Not long into the process, however, we recognized that it would
be difficult to assess our teachers' mastery of the competencies.
We spent several more months reviewing other technology assessment
and "profiling" tools available on the Internet. Each of these
resources had some value for us, but they all seemed like disparate
tools that were not linked to our already well-developed teacher
appraisal, professional development, and school improvement systems.
Our teacher appraisal system identifies six technology-related
standards in the areas of curriculum, instruction, classroom management,
communication, and professional development. These six standards,
we realized, could act as the starting point for developing a
more comprehensive set of technology integration indicators. Once
we identified our starting point, we began to consider how we
would measure teachers in these areas. Again, we turned to an
existing system. This time our Individual Development Plan (IDP)
process provided the answer. The process includes a rubric that
individual teachers use to measure their development in identified
growth areas.
In hindsight, using our teacher appraisal standards and the
IDP rubrics as the foundation for our technology integration assessment
was a natural fit. By using these existing systems, we would be
able to accomplish our goal of measuring technology integration.
Further, we would be able to position teachers for success in
the appraisal process and support continuous improvement by individual
teachers and schools. Sherrelyn Smith, president of the Blue Valley
Education Association, notes that "the assessment is intended
to allow teachers to find out where they are at with regard to
technology use in a nonthreatening way and it helps them to set
goals for improvement." By focusing "on effective use of technology,"
Smith adds, "the assessment [will] reinforce the use of a variety
of effective instructional techniques."
Members of the school board, the teachers' association, instructional
technology and staff development administrators, and coordinating
teachers all agreed we were on the right track, so we were ready
to develop the assessment. After several weeks of intensive work,
we drew up 43 competencies in four areas: curriculum and instruction,
classroom management, communications, and professional development.
We tailored the rubric used in the IDP process to help teachers
assess how well they integrated technology into their teaching
-- from not using technology at all to making technology an integral
part of teaching and encouraging colleagues to use it as well.
Our Teacher Technology Integration Self-Assessment was well
on its way to implementation.
Loose ends
With only a few months to go, we began to tie up a variety of
loose ends. Our district coordinating teachers (about 20 teachers
covering a variety of disciplines) and our library media specialists
agreed to pilot the assessment. These two groups, representing
about 4 percent of all district teachers, provided valuable feedback
on the clarity of the various items and the time it took to complete
the assessment. Our hopes were confirmed: The self-assessment
was understandable and would take no more than 20 minutes for
a teacher to complete.
Another important step was to identify a research group to compile
and report the data. We wanted to use an outside research group,
rather than district staff -- primarily to ensure anonymity for
our teachers. While we had no intention of using the results in
a punitive way, we recognized that the assessment's link to the
appraisal system might be uncomfortable for many teachers. The
district contracted with Research and Training Associates of Overland
Park, Kan., to enter all the data and to provide "integration
profiles" for each school; for three grade levels (elementary,
middle, and high school); for various high school curricular areas
(mathematics, social studies, science, communication arts, and
others); and for the district as a whole. Individual teachers
would provide their own profiles as they completed their self-assessments.
A final step in our development process was to seek input from
the school board's advisory committee on technology integration.
This committee is made up of board members, parents, students,
teachers, and administrators. Over the course of several meetings,
the committee made valuable additions and changes to the assessment
instrument and the implementation process. In particular, one
community member suggested that we ask teachers to indicate "where
they want to be" in addition to "where they are now." This was
an important added dimension that helped to identify areas of
desired and needed growth.
Input from the advisory committee was crucial, according to
committee member and district parent David Flora. With the committee's
help, Flora says, "the district was able to draw on a lot of expertise
from other sectors of the economy that have had considerable success
in integrating technology." With a final thumbs-up from the advisory
committee in April 1999, the assessment instrument was published
and administered to all teachers by the end of the school year.
What we learned
During the summer months, we met with Research and Training
Associates to determine formats for the report and profiles. By
late summer, most of the results were in and we had begun to analyze
the information. From our initial study of the results, we gleaned
several interesting findings:
* Scores aggregated at elementary, middle, and high school levels
indicated a fairly consistent perception of "where teachers are"
across school levels. But regardless of where teachers placed
themselves on the self-assessment scale (from nonuse to "transfer,"
or sharing their skills with colleagues), they want to be an average
of one to two points higher.
* The most widely integrated technology tool for curriculum
and instruction, and the only tool that has largely reached the
integration and transfer stages of implementation, is word processing.
* An overwhelming majority of teachers at all levels perceive
that current technologies supporting curriculum and instruction
are relevant to their areas of instruction. In general, fewer
than 10 percent of teachers at each level indicated that a technological
application was "not applicable" for their teaching.
* Fewer than 10 percent of teachers at any level reported "nonuse"
of Internet resources for teachers.
* Word processing, Internet resources for teachers, electronic
encyclopedias, web search strategies, and presentation software
are the most frequently used technology applications and skills
in all types of schools.
* Between 10 percent and 17 percent of teachers reported "nonuse"
of knowledge and skills in classroom management of technology.
For each school type (elementary, middle, and high school), teachers
assess themselves lowest in knowledge of district acceptable use
policies for communications technology.
* About 95 percent of teachers reported participation in district-sponsored
professional development courses or workshops in technology.
* More than half of the teachers identified assistance with
software applications as a top priority that would help make them
more effective in technology integration. Of most interest to
teachers was the integration of presentation software into their
classroom instruction.
Using the report and profiles, individual teachers, schools,
and the district are able to set improvement goals for technology
integration. Last October, the same board advisory committee that
played such a vital role in developing the self-assessment instrument
received its first report of the assessment results. Workshops
were scheduled for school administrators to train the committee
in the interpretation and use of the assessment results.
During the current school year, we are continuing to analyze
the assessment data. Decisions about staff development have already
been made based on the assessment results. In addition, we have
identified a few revisions that will be necessary in the assessment.
Once those revisions are made, the assessment instrument will
be posted online on the district's intranet for more efficient
administration and data collection in the future. A shortform
of the assessment is being developed for use in screening candidates
for teaching positions. This will help us set staff development
offerings for new teachers and will allow principals to establish
growth goals for their new hires immediately.
As we gather data over a period of years, we will perform a
longitudinal analysis to determine growth in technology integration
at several levels across the district. The integration profiles
will provide measurements of accountability that the board and
administration hope will act as guideposts for technology integration
efforts. By establishing a system of accountability and of continuous
improvement, the district hopes to foster continuing community
support for technology in the schools. In linking employee appraisal,
individual and school improvement, and staff development, Blue
Valley is providing a positive model of accountability while improving
teacher, school, district, and ultimately, student performance.
Superintendent David Benson affirms these goals. The assessment
enables us "to make better decisions when addressing teacher needs,"
he says, "allowing us to integrate and direct many of our staff
programs toward improved student learning."
Bob
Moore is director of information and technology at Blue
Valley Unified School District, Overland Park, Kan. Blake
West is district coordinating teacher of information and technology
and Carol Bartolac
is district coordinating teacher of technology staff development
at Blue Valley USD.
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