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Evidence A: Results from Needs Assessment of teachers in Livingston School District.

Instructional Challenge

Technology integration has become a major part of the educational profession. Technology can enhance a teacher's lessons, create more engagement for students, make individualization and differentiation of instruction more attainable, and aid in classroom and learning management. Expense and inexperience, however, has created a divide among educators and schools where inequities are magnified. From teachers of varied abilities and generations to actual affordability of devices for students to use, technology integration is a challenge that many schools are now facing.

Throughout this journey, I have wanted to utilize my position as a technology integration leader in my school to help others become more familiar with technology integration in order to enhance their lessons and better engage their students. I have wanted to demonstrate that technology integration doesn't have to be daunting or time consuming, and that students don't have to be "one-to-one" in order to make it beneficial.

As a member of the school and district technology committees we had identified that there was a need for more formal professional development around technology integration via a survey we gave staff. You can see in "Evidence A" the results of a couple of questions that were asked.

As my project evolved, with the COVID-19 pandemic school closure, the need for professional development only increased in its importance.

Going High Tech Under High Surveillance: Technolog

Evidence B: Educational Journal Article

Learners

The learners who are involved in my project are the teachers of Park High School. They are a very diverse group of educators in terms of years of experience, ranging from first year teachers to a teacher who just celebrated her 50th year in the classroom. As diverse as they are in age, they are just as diverse in their experience with using technology in the classroom, as well as their attitude toward expanding their knowledge on technology integration.

It is important for teachers that this learning challenge be addressed, because as we saw with the COVID-19 pandemic school closures, technology may be a necessity for education to continue. Without technology integration we are not acknowledging the ways the world is changing in terms of relying on technology, and I strongly believe we are not adequately preparing our students to be competitive among their peers when they go to college or into the workforce. Technology is a major component of our world, and if we don't embrace it in schools we are going to watch the rest of the world fly by us and leave us in the dust.

Based on research of technological funding and technology integration in public schools, it has been identified that there is a vast inequity on how schools of higher diversity and lower economic standings are not able to integrate technology as much or as well as schools where a majority of the students are white and of middle to upper class (Kress, 2011 - Evidence B). This major inequity has been shown to have a ripple effect which then makes those students with less technological integration and knowledge at a deficit as they enter college or the workforce. In addition to this, one must also understand that there are diversities among teachers based on their own backgrounds, beliefs, and age. Therefore, understanding the importance of technology integration for students, but also acknowledging the diversity among the staff whom I am working to educate on proper integration practices and tools, I have worked with the technology committee to diversify the training based on ability and interest for the staff. This way staff will feel more comfortable and that they are truly benefiting from the professional development they are receiving, and will be more likely to actually use and integrate the skills and knowledge they learned.

My intention is to change a practice that educators are no strangers to, and that is the "one and done" type of professional development where teachers are not afforded any time to put into practice the new knowledge they have gained. As a member of TILT, I have first hand experience at how beneficial individualized professional development along with time for guided practice/implementation is. With this knowledge I will be changing the type of professional development our teachers will be participating in. This is a viable solution, because teachers have identified a need for this type of training, and.... ITS FREE! We have to be better, in education, about utilizing the experts we have on our own staff. By empowering staff to lead professional development so much can be gained and learned, and not carry the intense price tag many professional organizations do for their services.

Competencies

The two overarching competencies I'll be focusing on to address this challenge is "Group Processes" and "Adult Learning". Leading groups and adults with diverse prospectives is a common theme between these two competencies, and I believe that these directly tie to my challenge because I was working with a very diverse group of teachers with varied backgrounds, experiences and technological knowledge. I am also a member of many professional groups within this field, and being able to gain the knowledge from others and apply it to this issue is of huge importance.

The category I'll be focusing on from the Diversity, Equity, and Cultural Competence is "Explore and Challenge Inequity". I chose to focus on this competency because I tend to forget my own biases in how I feel about technology integration. I have done the research, I have seen the benefits, and I have the knowledge of how to properly integrate technology into my instruction. I sometimes forget that this is not as easy, nor as desirable for other teachers. Being sympathetic to our differences will only help teachers feel more comfortable with the new information I am trying to teach them. Also, if I am able to show them the true benefit it can provide students, I know that due to their deep care and love for our students, my colleagues will have a positive attitude toward technology integration.

The instructional competency I believe will be beneficial for this challenge is "Community Awareness, Engagement, and Advocacy". To be completely truthful, I didn't choose this one from the beginning of my TLI journey, but I have chosen to include it as my project evolved due to the COVID-19 pandemic school closure. As a part of my role as a technology leader in preparing staff for moving learning online, I was also tasked with preparing students and families (virtually). This was an immense challenge in of itself. In order to understand the situations that our students were in at home, and in order to best advocate for them, I created a survey that I sent out to all families (Evidence C: embedded below - questions appear depending on answers). From the information we gathered on this survey we were able to make informed decisions on how best to engage and advocate for families from varied backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses. Our focus, always, was equity.

Evidence C: Survey sent out to all families at Park High School

People, Places, Things

In addressing the challenge I have identified, I will work closely with two other members of my staff who are also members of the same committees I am a part of. The teachers I am working with are from other departments, and bring a very different perspective. However, we all believe in the importance of technology integration for staff to benefit students. We also worked closely with our technology department in our district, and administrative staff. In addition to the members of our district with whom we relied upon, we also worked closely with members of MontanaPBS in gaining the proper training and knowledge to be technology leaders.

The resources we have at Park High School to address the challenge is the time during PIR days to lead professional development. We also have our current access to technology for teachers to consider while planning for integrating the technology they learned from our professional development (PD). We also have the support of our administration to move forward with this training. Each teacher has their own laptop, and we all have access to Microsoft 365 and all the apps that are included there.

Our goal was not to need any additional resources beyond what we already had at Park High School. All we needed was the dedicated time for PD, which we were granted from our administration.

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