Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Margareta V. Tripsa
two surveys to Ms. B. in order to assess her level of technology use and identify her
new innovations adopter category. Ms. B. has been teaching social studies for three
classes for the first time. She confessed, when I saw the acronym IC on my schedule
among my other SS (social studies) classes, I did not even know what it meant
school has Promethean boards, Macbooks for middle school and high school students,
and iPads for elementary students. The school is trying to implement a one-on-one
computing program by providing Macbooks for middle school and high school
students and iPads for elementary students, but the school has only sporadically
reached this goal (during the 2014-2015 school year when the student body was
smaller, the middle school was 1:1 Macbooks). Ms. B. has access to a Promethean
board and MacBooks when working with her high schoolers. She could also check
The first survey I administered to Ms. B. had the purpose of helping me identify her
technology integration. According to the responses she provided, I concluded that her
technology integration practices fall under the LoTI level 2, Exploration. At this level,
the teacher focuses on direct instruction and on making sure the students comprehend
the content. The teacher targets the lower level of Blooms Taxonomy (knowledge,
her survey, Ms. B. indicated that besides remembering and understanding, she also
focuses on developing students analytical skills. I was tempted to rate her level of
technology integration at a 3, but the fact that she mainly targets the low-level
thinking skills was eye opening and an indication of the fact that she needs to work on
integration skills she needs to design and deliver instructional episodes that revolve
targets only one high-level thinking skill in her lessons, analyzing, and typically, is
not having her students apply, evaluate, or create content. In the Level of Technology
integration interview, Ms. B. indicated that she uses technology multiple times each
day, but the students only use technology only at least one time a week. In Ms. B.s
class, digital tools and resources are used by students to carry out teacher-directed
tasks that emphasize higher levels of student cognitive processing relating to the
content under investigation. To move to the next level, Ms. B. would need to have her
students use digital tools and resources more often and empower them to create, not
just produce content. She could also engage the students in authentic learning
experiences that would allow them to interact beyond the physical space of the
classroom. The students could be engaged in exploring and solving real word issues.
The diffusion of innovation research explores how ideas spread among groups
of people. Innovations are not adopted at the same time by all people. Rogers (1971)
posited that, according to how long it takes people to start using a new idea, people
can be grouped into five categories: innovators (2.5%), early adopters (3.5%), early
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majority (34%), late majority (34%), and laggards (16%) To collect data regarding
Ms. B.s new innovations adoption level, I have administered to her a nine-question
survey. After analyzing her responses, I concluded that Ms. B. would most likely
identify herself as being part of the early majority group. She seems to be open to new
ideas, but is a little reserved when it comes to implementing ideas as soon as they are
presented to her. On the survey she indicated that she sometimes deliberates before
adopting new innovations or creative strategies. A typical early adopter, she would
adopt new ideas before the average member of a social system would do and she
interacts frequently with peers. Also, both via the survey and during coaching
sessions she shared the fact that she loves sharing ideas with other educators. This is
very important aspect because it generates interest in regards the new ideas or
Technology Perspective
fact that she has been teaching only for three years, her expertise in regards to
instructional technologies is rather limited. During our initial conversations she shared
that she is confortable using the Promethean Board, G Suite applications, and locating
resources for her lessons online. Ms. B. capitalizes on the collaborative nature of
technology. She has her students create audio news casting and presentations. In
regards to digital citizenship her students are neither novice, nor experts, but rather
representing strongly agree, rated her comfort while trying new technologies in the
classroom as a 3. The students in Ms. B.s class use technology to conduct research
online. They know what makes online reading different from reading printed books
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and articles. They know that there are layers to digital text. In her classroom they
work on engaging with and analyzing digital texts in order to enrich their multimodal
literacy skills. As educators we need to make the shift with our students from reader-
Ms. B. acknowledges the importance of shaping 21st century learners and the
noted in a report issued on June 20, 2014 that student access to technology is no
opportunities. (p. 3) Ms. B. supports this idea and is working towards broadening her
area of expertise in this domain. She revealed that the biggest barrier that prevents her
from utilizing new technologies in the classroom is planning. She believes that our
coaching sessions could provide her with the support she needs to make fundamental
changes into her classroom. She is eager to collaborate with the other social studies
teacher at our school and coach her on publishing opportunities for students with
Google Sites, which was the first focus of our coaching sessions.
followed by a conversation in the lounge. Because Ms. B., who knew I worked as an
Instructional technology coach at the school the previous year, she send me the
following email: I am teaching communication technology this year and next. This
year I have been winging it and using free resources that the technology director has
given me as well as some I have found on my own. I am working on a budget for next
year. I was hoping you maybe had some ideas on what would be something that was
worth money for this class and maybe we could get it. Let me know if you have
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anything off hand. (email, January, 11th, 2017). During our conversation that
followed her email, Ms. B. shared that she has to teach information communication
technology (ICT) classes and she has no ICT training. She shared with me that the
information technology director shared with her some standards, but she could not tell
if the standards that were shared with her were the International Society for
that she could be a great candidate for coaching. She was very interested in enrolling
technology training needs using Knights (2015) Big Four framework: behavior,
instruction, content, and assessment. We both agreed that she did not need help with
behavior, but that she needed help in the other three areas: organizing content,
instructional, and formative assessment. Because the need was quite significant, we
had to prioritize her needs. During our initial coaching sessions, Ms. B. seemed to be
highly interested in having her students create websites, as a first step. She was
excited about the opportunity to have her students publish social studies content on
the websites and help them reach the standards both for their ICT and social studies
classes. Setting this up priority number one would also equip Ms. B. with the skills to
have her students create content, not just be passive consumers of content. A second
need that emerged from our conversations and coaching sessions was the need for
creating a curriculum for her ICT classes in order to make sure she would help her
students meet all the standards in a systematic and structured manner. However, given
the fact that it was already January, she preferred to schedule the design of a
curriculum for next year during our last coaching sessions. For the design of the ICT
curriculum we would be using the ISTE standards for students. A third need revolved
around formative feedback. Ms. B. feels that if she employed more technology tools,
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the data she could collect would help her gauge her instruction to better serve the
meetings through Google Calendar. So far, we had three coaching sessions. I have
Knight (2015): identify, learn, and improve. This model is designed around the idea
achievement.
Two important components of the first step of this model, Identify, are
identifying a student-focused goal and identifying a teaching strategy to use to hit the
goal. The student-focus goal was to help her students interact with each other during
their ICT and social studies classes and help them engage with social studies content
in a more productive way. The two most important components of the second step,
Learn, are coaching to provide modeling and the teacher setting time to implement
the practice. During our next coaching meeting, I have modeled for her the process of
creating a website with Google Sites. I also pointed out the benefits of giving the
students the opportunity to publish online and how she could use it in her social
studies, as well. The three most important components of the third step, Improve, are
the implementation of the practice by the teacher, the gathering of the data on
teachers implementation practice, and the conversation that follows with the purpose
of improving practice. The teacher I am coaching has implemented the practice, and
now we are at the point where we need to discuss the implementation and set up new
goals. I have already been in her classroom to take notes and observe her and her
students creating websites. At the end of the coaching sessions I will rate her
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technology integration skills using the LoTi rubric to measure the progress she would
be making.
Reich and Daccord (2008) pointed out that great teachers sometimes use
tech, but technology alone doesnt make great teachers (p. 32) Therefore, through
their instruction in order to reach all students and help them be successful.
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References:
Knight, Elford, Hock, Dunekack, Bradley, Deshler, Donald, Knight (2015). 3 steps to
Reich, J, Daccord, T. (2008). Best ideas for teaching with technology. A practical
Roblyer, M.D. (2016). Integrating Technology into Teaching, (7th ed). Boston:
Pearson.
from https://tech.ed.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Learning-Technology-
Effectiveness-Brief.pdf
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