Evaluated The staff development plan includes a plan to evaluate the perceptions of participants and success of the course.

Description of the Infusing Technology Course Overview

This course was designed to meet the technology integration needs of West Virginia elementary and middle school teachers. It demonstrated best practice techniques for using technology in the classroom for elementary and middle school teachers, and taught the teachers ways to improve students‘ critical thinking, reasoning, and problem solving skills in a collaborative environment. In addition, participants had an expert mentor who continued to help them facilitate the technology in their classrooms after the initial training.

Mentor Responsibilities

 Attend mentor training

 Participate in professional development course and follow-up courses

 Work with school teams to develop infusing technology plan

 Ongoing support via email, wiki, WebEx

 Monthly onsite visits

 Provide progress reports to professional development planners Timeline

Summer, 2009 Professional Development Agenda

Five days of professional development with $4,000 per school to purchase materials/supplies for classroom implementation.

Technology tools and instructional practices demonstrated and used in the course were based on the ISTE National Educational Technology Standards and Performance Indicators for Teachers (NETS-T) and for Students (NETS-S). In addition, The Partnership for 21st Century Skills‘ skill set was also used to identify necessary technology tools and instructional practices.

NETS-T Standards: (a) Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity, (b) Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments, (c) Model Digital-Age Work and Learning, (d) Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and

Responsibility (e) Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership

NETS-S Standards: (a) Creativity and Innovation, (b) Communication and Collaboration, (c) Research and Information Fluency, (d) Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making, (e) Digital Citizenship

Partnership for 21st Century Skills Set: (a) Core subjects and 21st century themes, (b) Learning and innovation skills, (c) Information, media and technology skills, (d) Life and career skills

Technology and Instructional Practices Demonstrated and/or Used by Participants to Address NETS-T and NETS-S Standards:

Technology demonstrated and/or used by participants during training:

(a) Hardware: flash drives, digital cameras, flip video cameras, Elmo, Turning Point Technology (clickers), InterWrite Boards (Airliners)

(b) Software: Instructional websites, social bookmarking, video communication (Skype & WebEx), wikis and blogs, digital storytelling, video creation

(Premiere), audio creation, distance communications (EPals), photo editing (PhotoShop), virtual learning (Second Life).

Instructional practices demonstrated and/or used by participants:

(a) Grappling‘s Technology and Learning Spectrum, (b) collaborative grouping, (c) problem-based learning, (d) Bloom‘s Taxonomy, (e) inquiry-based learning and instruction, (f) advance organizers (KWHL Chart), (g) use of rubrics.

Once these technology tools and instructional practices were demonstrated and/or used, the participants collaborated within their teams to create a one minute video using a problem-based learning scenario. Each team viewed the other teams‘ videos on the last day. This was their final project for the course.

Fall, 2009 Each team of teachers implemented activities learned from the course in their classrooms. Teachers documented best practices and submitted implementation artifacts. They had continuous support from an expert mentor during the regular school day. Bi-monthly reflections submitted to team blog site.

Bi-monthly Reflections

 Journals should be both descriptive and reflective

 Feedback must be provided to at least one other teacher‘s journal from teacher‘s school

 Example questions posed in Wiki for teacher‘s to reflect upon:

1. Describe the activities/lessons you have used in the last two weeks that directly relate to the summer instruction that you received. 2. Where do these activities/lessons fall on the Grappling‘s Technology

and Learning Spectrum? Why?

3. How does this activity help meet your personal and/or team goals? Winter, 2009/2010 Two additional days of professional development during the school work day. Teams share best practices learned during classroom implementation and receive leadership and facilitation training to help engage other teachers from their school and promote program. Teachers continue submitting bi-monthly reflections to team blog site. They have continuous support from an expert mentor during the regular school day. $1,000 per team processed for meeting implementation requirements.

Spring, 2010 Showcase student work to entire school staff. Each school receives $500 to fund activity. Teachers recruit four to six additional teachers to participate in the second year of the program. Teachers continue submitting bi-monthly reflections to team blog site. They have continuous support from an expert mentor during the regular school day. Three hours of graduate credit to team teachers at no cost for meeting

implementation requirements.

Summer, 2010 Five days of Phase 1 professional development offered to recruited team of teachers from the same school as previous team groups. Five days of Phase 2

professional development offered to original teams. $4,000 given to each participating school to purchase materials/supplies for classroom implementation. $1,000 given as an incentive per team teacher for meeting implementation requirements.

2010/2011 School Year Team teachers continue implementing technology and supporting recruitment teachers. Recruitment teachers implement course activities in

their classrooms. They have continuous support from an expert mentor during the regular school day. $500 per team teacher offered for meeting implementation requirements. Three hours of graduate credit to team teachers at no cost for meeting implementation requirements.

Evaluation

Marshall University‘s Graduate College evaluated this professional course by completing the following tasks:

1. Reviewed proposals, syllabi/objectives, and agendas for academy

2. Developed and analyzed pre/post survey taken by participants about their perceptions of the training

3. Developed an interview protocol and conducted focus groups/interview with participants during follow-up session about their perceptions. 4. Developed evaluation protocol for mentors to use and analyzed data

provided