Recommendations for Future Development of School/DistrictProgarm

Pamela Wilson
Blog 10
LS589 W-1

Recommendations for future development of school/district program: a study of a school district.

The school district that I studied is progressive in many ways. They have a good technology department and access to technology. This has improved dramatically in the last three years when they received the Classrooms for the Future grant from the state of Pennsylvania. Teachers have the technology that they need to have meaningful learning using technology, but they don’t all have the knowledge or experience to use the tools. Teachers report that when some of them have used technology in their classrooms, the students really enjoy the lessons and they comment on their positive experience.

Johnston and Cooley (2001) list five major barriers to technology integration. The first barrier that they list is poor equipment decisions (p. 56). At this particular school this is not a barrier. Their technology department has done a good job at choosing the equipment that they use, especially the computers. The second barrier that Johnston and Cooley (2001) list is lack of technical assistance and support (p. 57). This is also not much of a barrier at this school. Teachers report that when they put in a request for equipment repair, it is done in a timely manner. This is amazing because they have a small technology department which services all schools in the district.

The third barrier that Johnston and Cooley (2001) list is not enough time (p. 58). This is a big problem in this school. Teachers are given duties to fill up time in which they are not teaching (except for their planning period.) Areas to be monitored in the morning usually have many more teachers than are required for the job. Teachers think that if they could rotate the duties, then they could have an extra half hour once or twice a week to “play” with their technologies and become more comfortable with them.

The fourth barrier that Johnston and Cooley (2001) list is lack of leadership (p. 59). This is also a problem at this school. Teachers report that they have had numerous changes of principals in a relatively short amount of time. This means that the principals have to spend time and energy learning the daily workings of their school and they don’t have time to focus on the technological aspects of the school. This is left entirely up to the teachers and their discretion. Some teachers don’t want technology, some have it, but never even try to use it, and some use it, but don’t have the skills to use it effectively for meaningful learning. Hew and Brush (2007) state that, “Research has shown that school leadership can hinder the integration of technology by teachers” (p. 228).

The last major barrier that Johnston and Cooley (2001) mention is inadequate professional development (p. 60). They state that, “It is disappointing to see the research pointing out that many teachers do not use the computers purchased for them, typically because they do not know how to integrate the computers as tools to support meaningful learning” (p. 60). Because of federal and state laws like “No Child Left Behind,” the majority of professional development is standards based and teachers in this school are being trained to teach to the tests. They are trained in the same techniques repeatedly. Vocabulary strategies. Open ended question strategies. Formative assessment. Writing the five paragraph essay. All of the strategies that they are given are paper or textbook based. Teachers think that it would be helpful if they were given some strategies that incorporate meaningful learning through technology. The problem is that to obtain the position of coach, a teacher has to have seniority. This means that they are usually older teachers who have taught using 20th century pedagogy and they have not transitioned in their thinking to the 21st century. They are good teachers for what they do, but it is not enough. Without school leadership pushing for technological training for teaching for meaningful learning, things are not going to change in this school climate. There are teachers in this school district trying to use technology and making baby steps, but they report that it is a slow process.

References

Hew, K. F., & Brush, T. (2007). Integrating technology into K-12 teaching and learning: current knowledge gaps and recommendations for future research. Education Tech Research Dev 55. 223-252.

Johnston, M., & Cooley, N. (2001). What we know about: Supporting new models of teaching and learning through technology. Arlington, Virginia: Educational Research Service.