Information and Technology Plan - G4: Professional Learning & Building Capacity

Gear 4: Professional Learning & Building Capacity

Introduction

It's not about the stuff!

Staff and student devices are tools provide access to the information of the world. Understanding the appropriate role of instructional technology related to teaching and learning is an important component of building capacity with teachers through professional development. Innovation and 21st Century learning are often promoted as answers to building capacity. Innovation and 21st Century learning can be transformational in building staff understanding and capacity to provide motivating and engaging instruction.

Instructional technology professional development continues to evolve away from learning "how to use" or "where to click" teaching, into an exploration modeling "what can I do with...". Old models of professional development fostered a reliance on students all doing the same thing at the same time. This type of learning approach creates unnecessary and unproductive use of devices, a "staring at the screen" mentality.

Ultimately, student engagement and motivation are what inspires the development of technology integration professional development learning opportunities at NJSD. A need continues for staff and student collaboration and communication to foster conversations about new technologies, new digital teaching, learning tools, and the evolution of existing applications.

Beyond traditional learning sessions about apps or new Websites, instructional technology professional development must be concerned with modeling and fostering knowledge of innovative teaching practices and purposeful technology integration in classrooms. Developing 21st Century teaching and learning strategies are essential in building a culture of excitement, engagement and exploration for students at all levels in all buildings.

The NJSD Instructional Technology Team will continue to establish flexible professional development policies and practices that encourage the personalization of professional learning for teachers, administrators, and non-certified education professionals. The result will ultimately help reduce a digital divide among adult staff through equitable learning opportunities focused on critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation.

Planning

Neenah Joint School District leverages a multi-layered approach to providing support for digital learning and empowering growth and leadership.

Technology and digital learning expand access to high-quality, ongoing, job-embedded opportunities of professional learning for teachers, administrators, and other education professionals . This includes traditional IT functions of those who support the technical infrastructure of districts. Such opportunities ultimately lead to improvements in student engagement translating into academic and social success and creates a broader understanding of the skills that comprise teaching and learning in a digital age.

Gear 4 is comprised of the following elements:

Shared Ownership and Responsibility for Professional Growth
21st Century Skill Set
Diverse Opportunities for Professional Learning Through Technology
Broad-Based, Participative Evaluation

District and school administrator training needs center on three areas: understanding how to streamline and integrate major initiatives into a manageable workload for both staff and leaders; seeing examples of strong leadership; implementing using easy-to-use resources.

Digital professional learning communities, peer-to-peer lesson sharing, and better use of data and formative assessment, combined with less emphasis on traditional professional development sessions eliminate the confines of geography and time. These ever-increasing resources offer participants vast new opportunities to collaborate, learn, share, and produce best practices with colleagues in school buildings across the country.

Planning

Neenah Joint School District professional development in technology integration and technology services is delivered in multiple layers planned and supported by our district technology team. The instructional members of the technology team under direction of the Director of Instructional Technology include the Instructional Systems Analyst and Manager, Instructional Technology Coaches, Instructional Library Technology Specialists and building level technology mentors.

It is the goal of professional development to “model” technology integration through, the creation of collaborative environments, individualized learning, self-paced learning, flipped learning, project based learning and the opportunity for learners to participate in decisions regarding their professional development experiences. Learning begins with selection of one of many self-paced, collaborative, hybrid-online professional development strands that are hosted in our learning management system. Within individual strands are multiple levels of learning courses. Staff selects the appropriate level based on their individual knowledge, experience and digital learning abilities related to the subject. If the the staff member has made a course selection that is at a higher level or too slowly paced, the staff member can easily move to the appropriate level. Through the earning of badges in data-based fundamental training courses and staff participation in interest-based breakout sessions, staff becomes prepared for the skills and concepts needed to participate in higher level breakouts and to earn district level certifications.

The content of technology Professional Development (PD) is based on annual technology surveys of staff and students in conjunction with the input from our Technology Mentors, Instructional Library Technology Specialists, building administrators and more. NJSD uses the CLARITY BrightBytes Survey as the tool to analyze practices related to instructional technology integration. Technology PD sessions are built through the NJSD Learning Management System and are available to staff 24/7. This provides a vehicle for “just in time” training or to be available for building, department or grade level specific needs.

Building-based Instructional Teams consist of the building administrator, the building Instructional Library Technology Specialists, the building technology mentor(s), and the building assigned Instructional Technology Coach. The purpose of building-based technology teams is to differentiate down to building-based instructional technology needs and wants. Another purpose of building-based technology teams is to build a library of experiences to share with other staff members in the District.

Implementation

The implementation of our professional development plans begins with the analysis of yearly collected survey data and through monthly technology mentor meetings. This analysis and collaboration develop the content to share during our District PLDs.

Our current PLD structure provides three hours of technology training in the summer and seven additional hours during the school year as a part of the district portion of our all day PLDs. During each of these technology PLD sessions staff can choose between working on earning badges collaboratively or independently, participating in a breakout session lead by a member of the district technology team or other expert staff member, participating in a higher level breakout session with attendance based on badge prerequisites, or work in a small cohort earning a district technology certification.

During these technology PLD technology sessions “just in time” training may be offered as a voluntary breakout session or as a mandatory requirement.

The Neenah Joint School District Digital Learning Plan Goals, Recommendations, and Priority Activities within each section of the plan represent issues that speak to our engagement with federal, state, and local education agencies.

The following goals tie directly to the priorities in the Wisconsin Digital Learning Plan for Gear 4.

Goals

4.1: Teachers, administrators, and other educational professionals will continue to participate in our self-paced learning modules in our learning management system.

Link to: Professional Development Opportunities

4.2: NJSD Educators, administrators, technical support staff, and other appropriate staff demonstrate understanding and application of a dynamic skill set applicable to their professional learning, their professional practices, and their classroom or other work practices through our self-paced and hybrid online learning professional development.

Link to: Professional Development Opportunities

4.3: Diverse opportunities for professional learning will continue to be available to all staff.

Link to: Professional Development Opportunities

4.4: Educators collect data on their use of technology for learning and use it as evidence in their evaluations.

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