6th Grade 1:1 Status & Plans

At the end of last school year, in May & June, the District Tech Committee recommended that the roll-out of the 1:1 to the elementary schools be limited to just one grade, in the model of the Pilot that was rolled out to just 300 students at the MS in 2016-17, and that the students not begin the year by taking home the devices. (Minutes of the June Meeting are here.) There were several reasons for recommending a slow roll-out to the Superintendent. First, while the librarians at the MS & HS are central and critical to the whole 1:1 at those schools, the media specialists in the elementary schools do not have the same freedom and availability. The librarians in the elementary have teaching responsibilities. They would simply not be able to help students who just drop in, or visit whenever there is a problem. More worrisome, the K-6 librarians would not be able to support the teachers in the roll-out, in the same manner as the Tech Coaches at the MS & HS, who have been as critical to success as the Librarians at those schools. Technology in the manner that the 1:1 envisions potentially transforms learning, as long as the teachers have support to implement change. There was a concern that the 6th grade teachers would need some additional resources to adjust to the 1:1 program, if learning were truly to be transformed.

There were also practical considerations. The MS & HS spent considerable time preparing their families for the responsibilities of the 1:1, reviewing with the parents and the students the various Acceptable Use documents and forms. (See here and here.) Given the comparative high turn-over of students in some of the schools from year to year (as high as 20%), it was deemed more prudent to introduce both students and families to the responsibilities of care and management of the devices gradually. Moreover, both the Librarians and the classroom teachers would have to adjust some of their routine procedures to support the program. Gradual roll-out of the program would give everyone time to make those adjustments.

A memo to the Superintendent & Assistant Superintendent on June 20, 2018 included the above plans with indicated rationales, and the added recommendation, based on consultation with the MS, that the 6th grade teachers be brought to the MS at least three times in the 2018-19 school year, both to see how that school and those teachers had integrated the Chromebooks in their teaching and make plans for their own integration of the 1:1 in their own elementary schools. The memo included a specific suggestion to have each sixth grade student complete a common lesson wholly online, an exercise that would potentially utilize the collaborative features of Google, and allow the students to create their own multi-media or other web-based presentations. It was suggested at that time that the lesson be graded, but that changed.

On Tuesday, August 28, at 10 AM, the Superintendent & Assistant Superintendent presented the above plan to all of the K-6 Principals. All the major elements of the plan were discussed, including gradual roll-out of the 1:1 in the sixth grade in 2019-20, not taking the devices home until after the year started, introducing both the teachers and librarians to the likely changes to their school days, as well as the plan to bring the 6th grade teachers to the MS three times, and once for a final meeting to the Board Office in June 2019. It was also decided in that one hour meeting that the project to be implemented for all sixth grade teachers and students to be completed before the end of the school year would be discussed and finalized as part of the teacher visits to the MS. The meeting in August concluded with the finalization of the specific dates for the 6th grade teachers to visit the MS.

Beginning Tuesday, October 2, with Berkeley & Brookdale, the 6th grade teachers and librarians of eight elementary schools visited the MS, in groups of two schools, enjoyed the very generous hospitality of the MS teachers, as they visited classes, and met in the afternoons to discuss the implications of the 1:1 for their schools in 2019-20. They heard a terrific presentation by the MS Principal on the SAMR model of Tech Integration, input from the MS Librarian and Tech Coach, and discussed concerns about the program for themselves and their schools, and what type of project to have their own students complete before the end of the year. In the course of the three months of meetings, four (five?) K-6 Principals visited with their teachers.

Among the recommendations for both the current year and next year that emerged from the meetings were the following -

• If possible, provide some additional Instructional Tech Support to help the teachers and librarians, at least at the larger schools, something like the tech coaches at the HS & MS.
• Provide some facile tech mechanisms or solutions for teachers to report both mechanical problems with the Chromebooks and behavior problems with the students to their Principals in order to ease their level of work.
• Offer more Teacher Academy courses specific to effective use of Gradebook and online submission of assignments.
• Provide a cart for holding the Chromebooks that is smaller, with less of a footprint than the ones purchased so far.
• Find someway to add more electrical outlets to classrooms that had only one.
• Make sure the Principals coordinated their messages to the 6th grade parents and students in the fall meetings.
• For the project, have the students create a web site with reflection on learning that took place during the year. Commence the project only after PARCC finished for most students in May & June.
• Use the final, third meeting of the 6th grade teachers at the MS to discuss among themselves how to integrate the 1:1 technology with their instruction and plan the end of year project.

And that is were we stand as of now, still planning the roll-out of the 1:1, more than less, but not exactly, as proposed to the Superintendent & Assistant Superintendent in June, based on the District Tech Committee's recommendations from last year. More updates will follow shortly.