Following are the responses to the Jones Computer Technology Magnet School case study received from Technology Institute participants at the Washington, DC Improving America's Schools Conference.

 

1. Identify the critical issues that most impact this school.  (What are the school’s challenges and strengths?)

 

Strengths:

§           Infrastructure and hardware

§           Student team to help with troubleshooting

§           New school

§           New technology

§           129 laptops

§           Teachers attend staff development workshops

§           Technology in every classrooms

§           Full-time tech coordinator

§           Grant

§           Staff knows what actions need to be taken to fully integrate technology as evidenced by their technology plan.

 

Challenges:

• Over a quarter of the school’s population are from LEP populations
• Low-income community reduces parental resources available to students
• Low levels of student achievement
• High staff turnover
• Inexperienced staff—both teaching and technology
• No district level support
• Low socio-economic area=few to no computers at home
• Minimum community support
• No incentive for participation in professional development
• Multi-lingual
• Students grade below state average
• Low parent support
• No time for technology training and implementation or practice
• Extra work is required of the staff with no incentive or reward in sight
• Efforts to create web pages have been denied by technology personnel
• Teaching practices are not conducive to using technology to enhance instruction
• Lack of teacher empowerment has led to lack of student empowerment

 

 

2. What appear to be the staff’s greatest needs towards effective technology use?

 

• Technology training for all teachers that break the mode of traditional teaching—creative integration of technology instruction.
• They need a plan
• District support
• Develop technology standards for teachers
• They need time to practice and build their skills
• The staff needs to be part of a professional development network
• They need to be given and incentive to do the extra work necessary to fulfill the requirements of a magnet school
• They need a plant o train the integration of technology into curriculum
• Teachers need incentives to stay in the school
• They need Sara Horsely or new principal
• The faculty have a need to learn multi-media presentation tools
• Need a new survey that connects technology to the curriculum
• They need a district commitment of support at the technology, curriculum, and professional development levels
• Pete needs to be president

 

3. Develop realistic objectives for this school. (Be sure these objectives are measurable.)

 

§           Develop and implement teacher technology portfolios

§           Have all staff at a minimum proficiency

§           Provide incentives and rewards for professional development

§           Move student performance averages (10^th grade mate, writing, reading) to state averages in three years

§           Build in additional staff development days for teaching staff before the school year begins)

§           Teachers have takes x hours of technology integration training

§           Teachers will plan and implement x lessons integrating technology effectively into their curriculum.

§           Teachers will collaborate and build a schoolwide plan for curriculum adaptation of technology.

§           Get a firm commitment of support from the district to provide tech support, professional development support.

§           Develop parent and community support

§           Develop an incentive package to keep staff in the building

§           Increase the number of internships with a career track to continue working in the building.

§           Add x number of basic computer skills training classes for students

§           Decrease teacher turnover

§           Increase student’s grades with the infusion of technology

§           Develop teacher training focused on curriculum integration

§           Work with central office to get greater access to web resources

§           Need more ESL teachers

§           ESL teacher working with other teachers

 

 

4. List some strategies you would employ to meet the objectives.  (Consider both what’s already working well and what needs to be improved.)

 

• Gather data from successful districts…find out what is working
• Establish a partnership with the major universities in the area
• Facilitate a staff activity (series of workshops?) to develop a plan
• Obtain an Instructional Learning System to monitor student progress, diagnose student needs, give consistent curriculum delivery.
• Model to teachers new learning styles and provide facilitators and per mentoring system to promote long-term change.
• Technology teachers should collaborate with other teachers to provide continuity in the curriculum when technology tools are used.
• School leadership to establish supportive and teamwork climate to reduce 80% turnover
• Youthful teaching staff need help with scheduling of time to deal with planning, assessment and reporting task
• Develop a teacher-mentoring program for staff
• Open the media lab after hours for parents
• Get grant or funding to provide home computers/access
• Build the interactive video computer network with parents
• Create flex scheduling for staff members so they can interface with parents and students at different times of the day
• Develop online classes for the network that will address parent concerns and provide extra support for students
• Train teachers how to teach content, with and/or without technology
• In school competitions in subject areas and the use of technology, team learning
• Provide training for parents
• Allow teachers and students to sign out laptops to practice, after they attend a training
• Train teachers in classroom management skills training on how to use utilize the computers in the classroom
• Clone Joan, what we are saying is we need more tech support
• There is a lot of aids, train them to help teachers and students
• Involve the local colleges in working with teachers and the school
• Get parents and community involved

 

 

5. Identify criteria for measuring the success of your plan.  (What evidence will you look for?)

 

§           Make every teacher stand up in front of all others and explain everything they know…. just to make them look like fools…just kidding

§           Students show x% increase in reading and math scores

§           Students demonstrate use of a basic set of computer skills (e.g., daily communication through email, use of technology for student portfolios, summative projects that effectively use technology).

§           Reduced turnover of new teachers.  Successful implementation of parent network.  Implementation of an incentive plan for teacher to work on magnet school needs, and implementing tech in the classroom.  District support for tech support and professional development.

§           Teachers demonstrate increased skills in technology as measured by post training skills assessment.

§           Teacher turnover decreases

§           Increased parent involvement and community involvement

§           Teachers report an x% increase in technology integration into their curriculum

§           Use profiler to track teacher proficiency and/or the STAR chart

§           Usage increase by both teachers and students

§           Methodology changes over time measured by observation and the development o student portfolios that demonstrate group work

§           Teachers are using technology effectively in the classroom

§           Students are using technology in researching and reporting and learning independently

§           Colleges are involved

§           More students doing graduate follow up

 

 

6. What kinds of data will tell you if you’ve met the criteria and how might you collect that data?

 

§           Attitudinal surveys, skills surveys, parent survey….

§           Increase parent and community involvement by 50% in the first year as measured by participation in the parent video-computer network.

§           Increased test scores

§           Teacher turn over decreases

§           Students test scores increase

§           Survey the teachers

§           Student attendance increases

§           College involvement

§           Web site up and running

§           Level of participation in school is up

§           Technology in homes increases

§           Use of the computer for more feed back, more emails, less memos/bulletins

§           Increase parent and community involvement by 50% in the first year as measured by participation in the parent video-computer network.