Empowering Leader
From "The ISTE Standards" (2018):
Leaders create a culture where teachers and learners are empowered to use technology in innovative ways to enrich teaching and learning.
3.3.a. Empower educators to exercise professional agency, build teacher leadership skills, and pursue personalized professional learning.
In the TE 882 course, I designed a newsletter that informed teachers of some options for professional learning and technology tools that they can use in their classroom. Included in this newsletter is a "Professional Learning Share-Out" which encourages teachers to share some details about a recent professional development experience. In this way, teachers feel empowered to use their example to inspire others, even if they do not perceive themselves as a teacher leader. Click below to view the newsletter.
3.3.b. Build the confidence and competency of educators to put the ISTE Standards for Students and the ISTE Standards for Educators into practice.
In the TE 891 course, and as part of my professional obligation to suitably train a successor as I transitioned out of my previous teaching position, I developed a comprehensive technology operations manual that could provide all the information that a staff member needed to perform the technology-related duties of my position satisfactorily. With this document, my successor will be more confident and competent at managing a technology program, developing teacher colleagues' use of instructional technology, and integrating technology into their own curriculum. Click below to view the document.
3.3.c. Inspire a culture of innovation and collaboration that allows the time and space to explore and experiment with digital tools.
In my tenure, teachers have become more open to experimentation with technology in their curriculum. In particular, teachers have responded well to my education about the SAMR model and TPACK framework, because each of these conceptualizations has shown them that they do not need to have everything figured out or perfect in order for something to be worth trying. Teachers completely new to some digital tool may choose to focus their attention on simply substituting it (S) for an analog task. They may decide to focus on learning how to use the tool themselves (TK) before trying to teach with it (TPK). My colleagues understand that I am there to support them step-by-step, and most importantly, they know that their technology integration does not define their worth as a teacher in the 21st century. These core values have allowed them to be more open-minded about working together, sharing the load of developing technology-related projects and assessments, building on each others' lesson frameworks, and collaborating on data analysis for the School Improvement Process.
3.3.d. Support educators in using technology to advance learning that meets the diverse learning, cultural, and social-emotional needs of individual students.
In the TE 882 course, I designed a handout that supported teachers' use of the Logitech Crayon in their classroom. Classroom sets of these devices were purchased to pilot with a small sample of teachers. Using this document, these teachers have successfully integrated the stylus into their instruction, migrating their note-taking procedures and redesigning other tasks completely in order to provide students with differentiated learning activities that would have been more difficult to accomplish with pen and paper. Click below to view the handout.
3.3.e. Develop learning assessments that provide a personalized, actionable view of student progress in real time.
A new addition to our school during the 2021-2022 school year was a collection of SMART Board interactive touch panels. Along with these panels came access to the Lumio software platform, on which teachers can develop interactive and personalized assessments that are delivered and made available to the teacher in real-time. In the TE 810 course, I used the Dick and Carey model of instructional design to develop a training program for teachers to incorporate the Lumio platform into their instruction.
One of the instructional goals of this program was: "Teachers at Overton Public School will use the Lumio software platform to embed resources and create lesson content to use for anticipatory sets/bell-ringers, checks for understanding/assessment, enrichment, or closure in a lesson of their choosing." The self-paced learning materials for this instructional goal (which include examples of these real-time learning assessments) can be found by clicking here (a Lumio account is required). Click below to view the rest of the instructional design samples.
