Staff development plan to bring Bastrop High School from "developing tech" to "advanced or target tech" according to the STaR chart data.

1. Action Plan-- Autrey The staff development agendas are designed for week-long summer institutes and beginning of the year in-service with follow-up checkpoints during the year on staff development days and late-start days. Benchmarks and evaluations have been designed to incorporate student, staff, and parent feedback to determine if needs are being met and changes that might need to be made to the staff development process. All activities address technology issues brought forth in our STaR charts and are intended to take our campus from “developing tech” to “advance tech” within one year and “target tech” in two years. We are specifically going back to reteach the use of our data systems so that more teachers will use it effectively; to teach all teachers instructional strategies that utilize easy-to-use, highly engaging technologies for all content areas; to ensure that available technologies are used on a more regular basis; give teachers time to plan and properly implement the technology use for their content areas and classrooms; and to provide more online learning opportunities about teaching with technology for teachers. Lastly, I have designed the following trainings to involve the administrators and teachers in a collaborative effort to improve learning opportunities for students that will meet both state content and technology standards. ActivityPurposeFacilitatorEvaluationBenchmarkAudienceEduphoriaTeachers will attend a series of breakout sessions designed to train teachers in the most useful ways to pull data for their classes and their teams:Academic Target dataTAKS historical dataCommon Assessment dataTPM predictorsDisaggregating data for team meetingsTailoring instruction to meet students’ needs based on dataContent Curriculum SpecialistsAt the end of each session, teachers will be asked to perform a specific data task on their laptops with mock data. As they successfully complete each task, they will be given an evaluation form on which they can give feedback, asking what they would like to know more about regarding the data digs on Eduphoria.Follow-up sessions will be designed based on teacher feedback and administrator “walkthrough” observations, modeling the data-driven instruction for the classroom.At the end of each six weeks, surveys will be done by teachers and administrators based on their practice in and observations of data-use with instruction in order to answer the following questions:Are you able to pull up reports to answer the questions you have about your students’ performances? How often do you do this?To what extent do you discuss your students’ needs based on the data you pull with your team? What data-driven changes to your instruction have you made? What have the results been?How might you teach your students to use data to monitor their own learning and mastery of objectives?9-12th grade teachers (ALL)Laptop Implementation Take 9-10th grade teachers step-by-step in the distributing of laptops, monitoring devices, acceptable use policies, classroom rules surrounding laptops:Troubleshooting laptop distribution (homeroom: students receive laptops & power cords after turning in contracts, home use permission, and acceptable use policies)Review teacher materials such as extra power strips, power cords, maintenance forms, and homeroom forms LanSchool 101: a) how to effectively monitor student computer use in your classroom without sitting behind your desk, and b) teach your students to turn their work into a LanSchool inbox and keep it organized for ease in gradingComing up with classroom rules that work with our school’s acceptable use policyDiscipline issues surrounding computer misuse in the classroom (alternative assignments when computers have been confiscated)Utilizing the district Portal for student home use (retrieving documents, audio and video files, and other aids for homework)Campus Instructional Technology SpecialistSurvey teachers about the ease in laptop distribution and amount of materials:Did they feel prepared to distribute laptops? What were some of the problems they encountered?Did the students seem to know what to do when logging on?How well did we plan for students who were unable to log on?What was our backup plan?Teachers and administrators will fill out surveys about laptop implementation for feedback in future laptop distributions at the end of the first 9 weeks period.Tweak the acceptable use policies and contracts.Assess maintenance issues surrounding materials (loss of power cords and broken screens or laptops).Develop plan to address teacher material needs to facilitate use of classroom technology (devices, specifically).Utilize teacher feedback to maximize LanSchool’s potential as an instructional tool to facilitate teacher needs.Determine and prioritize discipline issues/ violations and develop a plan to effectively overcome them.Develop a plan for streamlining and facilitating Portal use for students and utilize it to house school wikis, blogs, and web pages.9-10th grade teachers (ALL)Technology Tools for InstructionClassroom web pages: creating a web page for your students and parents to get to know you, your classroom, and get actively involved in learningClassroom blogs: creating and utilizing blogs for students to journal, share ideas, and collaboratively solve problems within the virtual classroom and beyond (collaborating on a more global scale)Classroom wikis: creating and utilizing classroom wikis to invite collaboration amongst all stakeholders in student projects (administrators, teachers, parents, students, and community members)Multimedia project software: creating and utilizing multimedia projects for all subject areas with Photostory, Moviemaker, iMovieCampus Instructional Technology Specialist, CATE computer teachers, Stephen Autrey At the end of each session, teachers will have created a classroom web page, blog, and wiki for use in their classrooms.Teachers will add to their own and give feedback on one another’s web pages, blogs, and wikis regarding instructional use.A panel of district personnel will interview teachers or review teacher surveys regarding the use of the technology tools and how it has changed, enhanced, or hindered their classroom instruction. Based on this information, they will create a plan to further the use of more in-depth tools and software for classroom use and instruction.The same panel will review student surveys and interview students about whether or not (and how) the use of these technology tools has enhanced or hindered their learning in the classroom. The panel will note progress in low-marked areas of the STaR chart and publish progress in the district newsletter.9-12th grade teachers (ALL)Overcoming Obstacles to Teaching with TechnologyTeachers will become familiar with the state technology standards and discuss with their peers ways they can integrate those standards with their content area standards for their classrooms.Ideas for teaching with technology when all students don’t have computersWhat to do when the library or computer lab are not availableHow to effectively utilize your campus instructional technology specialistWriting for grants to get more technology and materials in your own classroom or departmentGetting more technology training through use of online training and MoodlesStephen AutreyTeachers will come up with a written plan for their classrooms for how to utilize the COWs (computers on wheels) at least 1x a week in their classrooms. Teachers will write a proposal (within teams) for how to split the use of a COW cart to 6 computers for 5 classrooms and write a plan for using cooperative grouping (6 students to a computer) for projects in the classroom. Teachers will spend time in their grade-level teams to write lesson plans using this type of cooperative grouping around a computer to state content and technology standards.Teachers will write proposals for trainings they would like to receive from our campus instructional technology specialist to write plans with him for their content grade level, complete with technology and standards-based assessments.Teachers will sign up for Moodle classes in cooperative groups themselves to make use of the district’s online professional development. The idea is that there is accountability and safety in cooperative groups and we can get more teachers using these types of staff developments to increase their use and comfort levels with our available technologies.Administrators will note through “walkthrough” observations and meetings with departments and content grade level teams how many times per six weeks each team is using available technology for project-based learning (this includes GPS systems, PDAs, digital cameras or camcorders, laptop carts, etc.). The results will be displayed at the end of each semester to note improvements made utilizing technology in the classroom. The goal is to move the campus forward on the STaR chart levels for technology training and use in the classrooms.Teachers will meet in content grade level teams and also with their departments to evaluate their projects, assessments, and lessons and decide how well they align to state content and technology standards. They will adjust all of the above to improve alignment.11-12th grade teachers (ALL)