Where do the ISTE, NBPTS, and WVPTS "speak" to or promote teacher leadership, particularly leadership for technology integration?
ISTE promote teacher leadership in technology right in it’s mission statement. It says that it goes beyond just using learning how to use the new tools in the classroom, but rethinking how we teach and learn.
NBPTS focuses on teacher leadership by analyzing the teacher according to the five core propositions and having them nationally recognized as some of the best teachers in the nation. This does not explicitly reference technology, but teachers that use technology can be described by all of the five core propositions.
WVPTS has teachers applying their 21st century skills to the classroom environment. The 21st century learning skills are skills in technology so the WVPTS are promoting the use of technology in the classroom.
There are typically three pathways to teacher leadership for practicing teachers: a pathway for teachers who leave their classrooms to move into formal administrative positions as school leaders, a pathway for teachers who remain in their classrooms to develop and share a deeper knowledge base about teaching with their students and colleagues, and a pathway that bridges the two previously mentioned paths, that is for teachers who spend part of their time in a classroom and part of their time taking on additional administrative and professional development responsibilities. If you were designing a program or professional development intended to prepare teacher leaders to take advantage of these multiple pathways, what would it look like? What learning experiences would you include?
If I were designing a program or professional development intended to prepare teacher leaders I would have an in depth review all three of the pathways. By this, I mean that I would give examples of what each of these entails. I would bring in people that participate in all the three of these pathways to talk about their experiences and job descriptions. These people and their experiences will shed light on the advantages and disadvantages of each, while giving the participant the information they need to make the decision of which path they would like to follow.
Share at least one strategy you will use/are using to assess the technology needs of your context (how will you document needs, what kind of data will you use, etc.).
I am partial to the Likert scale in this type of situation. Having the participants fill out a survey that is on a Likert scale can turn a survey into a number system that can help determine a census of the majority concerns and needs of the group. This is a quantitative method and when doing data analysis I prefer that type of approach.
Chapter 5 Communication
Describe how leaders can harness the power of free resources to improve communication and ultimately improve their overall effectiveness and efficiency. (Post to blog)
With free resources, like social media, we can improve communication and the overall effectiveness and efficiency in and out of the classroom. Social media is a fast and easy way to communicate with other staff members and students. Using Facebook to create private groups can open up a place where teachers can share ideas and resources while also having discussions about important school related topics. It can also help organize fundraisers and other social events the school could be hosting. There are many other programs and social media sites that can do the same thing and leaders can use them to help everyone communicate effectively and efficiently.
Chapter 6 Public Relations
Describe your current position (workplace, student, etc…) and how social media efforts are used to promote transparency and engage stakeholders. (Post to blog)
I am a graduate assistant at FSU and we don’t really use social media directly. The college does use facebook and other social media to promote school events. Email is used the most by FSU and by my immediate workplace to communicate with others. There is some addon that looks a bit like facebook that is attached to microsoft office 365 that was just implemented for the graduate committee so we are starting move a little into the social media realm. So we don’t deal too much with social media, which should be utilized more.
Sean, as always we think very similarly in our responses to these questions. However, I do want to shed light on your last comment with respect to FSU's social media presence. They are in fact on everything... I know this because my husband is in their Web Development Department and deals with a lot of the online content.
ReplyDelete@FairmontState has been active on twitter since Nov 2008, having almost 3,500 followers.
FAIRMONTSTATE on instagram has over 1200 followers and 663 individual posts.
Fairmont State University's Facebook Page with over 12,000 likes and the page viewed by over 21,000 people.
Youtube account: http://www.youtube.com/fairmontstatemedia
FSU also has a LinkedIn Page and some individual departments have pinterest pages.
I felt compelled to inform you of their wide scope of social media involvement. You might want to check these out yourself. I think they do an excellent job keeping these pages current with information and updates. Just fyi.
This is great information, Laura!
DeleteWell thank you! I had no idea how linked up FSU was with their social media. I am guessing it is because no one on my social media or I have seen or shared things from FSU. The YouTube channel is exciting to me and I will definitely check these out!
ReplyDeleteOur professional development idea was very similar. I think that people need to be enlightened by those that are doing the work that they want to start doing. Teacher leaders should talk to those that are administrators or that are half time classroom teachers. I think that by getting help and advice from those that are doing the job daily would really benefit everyone. The Linkert scale would be great to use with a survey to view the numbers and look at it that way. Social media really does help with fundraisers and spreading the word more than just people that you may know. Our school uses social media to get the word out for all of the fundraisers and different events that are going on in our school and it is so beneficial.
ReplyDeleteWe seem to have similar ideas about designing a professional development program for teachers. I also said I would bring in speakers and I like your idea of having an in-depth review all each of the three pathways. That would definitely help teachers get an idea of what each one entails. I wasn't 100% sure what the Likert scale was, but after looking it up, I agree what is a really good way to get information from people in the form of a survey. This would be helping in determining where the technological need is in your department. I do follow FSU on Facebook, but none of the other social media mentioned in Laura's comment. It's good to know that FSU is on the web and working to keep people in the know and connected (even if we ourselves don't really use social media in our current positions here at FSU)
ReplyDeleteSean,
ReplyDeleteI really like your writing style and approach to answering these module posts. The comment about "retihinking how we use them" really echoes how I think about some of the technology tools we use today. While media sites like facebook have some negative press about how teens use them, they have great potential if we "rethink" how we could use it to share information. The whole thought of the word rethink sets my mind racing about many others things that need rethinking too. I think (pun intended) the best part of sharing these posts with each other is the idea of rethinking my own thoughts by reading what others have to say about the same content, while I'm reading the same content. So instead of reading posts that are months old... the readings are fresh on your mind so rethinking can occur before patterns are fixed. Thanks!
Isn't it great, when posts make us think in a new way? You have the knowledge and disposition to assess, reflect and revise!
DeleteSean, great post!
ReplyDeleteI’m in a quantitative and qualitative research course, now. I should call you for quantitative help I prefer qualitative – I love to write, collect interviews, observe, etc… Descriptive analysis – whew! With that being said, a Likert scale is extremely beneficial in a school setting. It’s a quick and efficient way to gather data. I actually just had to create two Likert scale surveys in relation to our PBIS program and administer to students and teachers. I used Google Forms, since I love the easy summary tool and the data is automatically (with a click) constructed into graph form. I like that you would bring in people (many others feel the same), to discuss their experiences and job descriptions.