Teaching with Technology PD Workshop Summary

My Major Digital Project is complete! For now anyways.  You can view all project resources on my Major Digital Project page.  For a complete overview of the project, please refer to my compilation of Teaching with Technology blog posts.  All major digital project posts were labeled  "Teaching with Technology".  They were posted in the following order:

1. Final Project Outline
2. Teaching with Technology Website
3. Teaching with Technology Professional Development Workshops
4. Teaching with Technology Website Video
5. Teaching with Technology Presentation File
6. SECTIONS Model
7. Moodle Course and Teacher Blog Posts
8. Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned

In previous posts I have described the Teaching With Technology workshop which has been the focus of my Major Digital Project.  In this post I intend to highlight the lessons which were learned through the process, and the modifications Leanne Forrest and I plan to make for upcoming sessions.

A couple of weeks after the Teaching With Technology Session, we sent participants a follow-up email.  In this email we told them we had provided feedback on their blog posts and asked them for session feedback by completing an online survey.

 

Unfortunately, the timing of the survey was close to report card and interview time, so the response rate for the survey was quite low, with only two of the seven participants completing the survey.  Listed below are the survey results.  

 

In reviewing the survey responses and participant comments we were able to determine a few different things:

• Participants liked the website resource and found it useful and easy to use
• Participants were happy with the format for the workshop
• Participants liked the SECTIONS model
• Participants were open to the idea of using the blog to post about their progress with their chosen project
• Participants are less interested in viewing and commenting on the blog posts of others
• Participants like the idea of a technology fair, but are not interested in helping to organize the event

Moving Forward

Leanne and I are excited about the possibilities of this PD opportunity and are looking forward to upcoming sessions.  We have two sessions already planned for the early months of 2014, and registration for both sessions is already at capacity, with 20 participants per session.  In these upcoming sessions we plan to implement the following changes:

1. Introductions: At the start of our session we introduced ourselves as presenters, but we did not take the time to allow participants to introduce themselves to others and identify their teaching assignment.  Fortunately, because of the small group size introductions did naturally occur, and because of this teachers began to network with participants with similar teaching assignments.
2. Networking Opportunities: Teacher feedback indicated they would like more opportunity to network and collaborate with other participants during the project.  This might include Skype sessions between classrooms, joint class blogging projects, etc.  We plan on encouraging and promoting these ideas in future sessions.
3. Establish Professional Learning Networks: We recently offered a "Using Twitter to Grow Your PLN" session for all Regina Catholic employees.  As part of that session we promoted the hashtag #rcsdtech for the sharing of tech ideas and resources through Twitter.  We plan to encourage the use of Twitter and hashtags in upcoming sessions
4. Resource Updates: We will continue to update the website with resources suggested by teachers
5. Timing: In the future we will avoid offering sessions close to report card season.
6. Commenting: Upcoming session participants will be able to view and comment on blog posts from the first session.  We would like to encourage this and plan to build a commenting section into the PD workshop.

As in any PD session I have given, there is always room for improvement.  Leanne and I plan to reevaluate future sessions and make modifications as suggested by participants.  We look forward to collaborating with teachers to create opportunities for teaching with technology in the classroom.

Moodle Course and Teacher Blog Posts

As was outlined in earlier "Major Digital Project" posts, one of the main goals of the Teaching with Technology workshops was to:

• Explore, plan and implement a technology tool to support an instructional strategy or outcome. The model will support selecting, evaluating, and reflecting on the teacher’s plan.
•  Share the successes, challenges, and implementation of the strategy or additional technology integration as a community of learners through a series of blog posts and reflections.  

Our hope was to make the learning process of the teacher participants visible, and to provide a supportive collaboration space for teachers to share their project experience.  Our division made an upgrade to Moodle over the summer, so in our planning we decided we wanted to try out some of the Moodle blogging features.  In planning the session we began by creating a Teaching with Technology section on our Moodle site.  We then enabled the blog block for the Teaching with Technology course.

During our session we introduced the teachers to the SECTIONS model for evaluating technology tools.  The sections model is divided into four parts: Define, Assess, Implement, and Refine.  Our plan is to have teachers submit a blog post for each of these four parts as they work through their project.

Participants were given time during the workshop to complete their first post.  In this post they answered the following questions related to the Define component of the sections model:

• I really want students to learn...
• I think I could be more effective in facilitating this learning if...
• The learning activity that I've chosen to address these objectives is...
• The technology I'm thinking of using to support this learning activity...

Teachers were also asked to attach the Assess Checklist document to the first post.  The Assess Checklist document was the checklist teachers used based on the SECTIONS model to evaluate their chosen technology tool.  Displayed below are a couple of examples of initial blog entries made by participants.

Sample blog Post 1

Sample Assess Checklist

As teachers work on their class projects they will be asked to submit two more blog posts.  The second blog post will address the Implement portion of the SECTIONS model.  Teachers will complete this post while they are actively implementing the project with students.  In this post teachers will respond to the following questions:

In observing the students engaging with this activity, I notice...

The technology I have chosen is enabling the learning because...

The technology I have chosen is a barrier to learning because...

Feedback from students about this technology is...

Sample Blog Post 2

A final post teachers will be asked to submit will be for the Refine part of the SECTIONS model.  In this section teachers will be asked to consider future changes or improvements.  During this stage teachers will reflect upon:

• What worked?
• What didn't work and why?
• I need to change...
• My plan to make this change is...

Final Blog Post

Leanne and I have begun the dialogue in this area by commenting on participants' first blog posts.  We plan to encourage teachers to support each other in this space by viewing and commenting on the posts of other participants.  Participants in future sessions will also get the opportunity to view and comment on all participating teacher posts.  It is our hope that this will encourage sharing of ideas between teachers and help in our development of a technology fair.

SECTIONS Model

SECTIONS Model

In this post I intend to outline the reflective document teachers utilized as part of the Teaching with Technology Professional Development workshop.  This workshop makes up a portion of my Major Digital Project.  For more information about the project, please visit my "Major Digital Project" page, or any post labeled "Major Digital Project".
A significant component of the Teaching with Technology PD project involves helping teachers document the process of incorporating a specific tool to successfully implement an effective teaching strategy. My colleague and I wanted to provide teachers with a reflective process that would allow them to identify and evaluate a potential tool; a way to measure the successful use of the tool; and a way to consider the future use of the tool in their teaching practice.  After some research, we found an excellent document from the University of British Columbia Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology.  The document is titled, "Assessing Technology: Using the SECTIONS model", and it based on a framework originally identified by Bates and Poole in the book, Effective Teaching With Technology in Higher Education.  [Bates, A.W.; and Poole, G. (2003) Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations For Success. San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. 79-80]

As is suggested in the document, the SECTIONS model is designed to "facilitate decisions with regard to choice of technology at both the strategic and tactical level, and also to help decide within a particular technology the most appropriate balance between different media." 

The process is divided into four parts: Define, Assess, Implement, and Refine.
During the Define stage teachers identify what they are looking to accomplish and establish the direction they will take.  Reflection questions in this stage include:

• I really want students to learn...
• I think I could be more effective in facilitating this learning if...
• The learning activity that I've chosen to address these objectives is...
• The technology I'm thinking of using to support this learning activity...

After sharing the nine effective teaching strategies with teachers, we asked them to consider one strategy they wished to incorporate into their teaching practice.   They then completed the Design portion of the SECTIONS model with that effective teaching strategy in mind.  Of important note is that teachers were not asked to pick a technology tool they wanted to try.  Instead, they were asked to identify what they wanted students to learn and how they were going to address the specific learning objectives.  The type of technology to be used is only considered in the final question of the Define stage.

In the Assess stage teachers are asked to evaluate the technology they have chosen to use or explore using a checklist.  This multi-page checklist is divided into the following categories:
Students
Ease of Use
Cost
Technology & Learning
Interactivity
Organizational Issues
Novelty
Speed

In completing the survey, teachers are encouraged to contemplate features of the technology that are important to them and issues they may need to consider in using the technology tool in the classroom.
We asked teachers participating in the workshop to complete the Define and Assess portions of the SECTIONS framework during the planning portion of the workshop.  Once completed, teachers were asked to post these reflective pieces as part of a Moodle blog created for the workshop.  Details about this component of the project will be explained in a future Major Digital Project blog post.

Implement is the third part of the SECTIONS framework.  In this part teachers record initial impressions regarding the effective use of the technology.  Reflective questions include:

• In observing the students engaging with this activity, I notice...
• The technology I have chosen is enabling the learning because...
• The technology I have chosen is a barrier to learning because...
• Feedback from students about this technology is...

This portion of the SECTIONS model needs to occur once teachers have had the opportunity to implement the use of the technology tool with students.  Participating teachers are currently involved in this process with their students.  As they complete their class projects they will be asked to reflect on these questions as part of a follow-up blog post.

The final portion of the SECTIONS model gives teachers the opportunity to Refine.  In this section teachers are asked to consider future changes or improvements.  During this stage teachers reflect upon:

• What worked?
• What didn't work and why?
• I need to change...
• My plan to make this change is...

Once again, teachers will be asked to post reflections on this section as part of a final blog post.  Our ultimate goal will be for participating teachers to share these projects and this reflective practice experience with fellow colleagues as part of a future Technology Fair.

Our first impressions of the SETIONS framework have been very positive.  Teachers responded well to the format and found the checklist easy to use.  I would not hesitate using this document as part of future technology projects and workshops.

What are your thoughts on the SECTIONS framework?  Are there additional evaluations models to consider?

  http://wiki.ubc.ca/images/1/19/SECTIONS_Framework.pdf

Teaching with Technology Presentation File

This video briefly outlines the presentation file and session format used for the Teaching with Technology Professional Development Workshops.  This encompasses one component of my Major Digital Project.  A full list of resources created for this PD session can be found on the Major Digital Project section of my blog.  Further explanations about each component of this project have been posted with a "Teaching with Technology" label.

Video Overview

Ideas?  Thoughts?  Suggestions?  I would be happy to hear from you.

Teaching With Technology Website Video

On this page I have included a sixteen minute video which highlights some of the key components of the Teaching With Technology website resource.  This resource is one component of my Major Digital Project for EC&I 831.  In the video I describe:

• the main focus of the resource
• the nine effective teaching strategies
• creating the environment for learning
• helping students develop understandings
• helping students extend and apply knowledge
• the criteria involved in selecting the suggested tools

Please feel free to add any tool suggestions you feel would assist in the implementation of various effective teaching strategies here.  Thoughts or suggestions for the professional development workshops?  I would love to hear your comments.  For detailed information about my entire project, please visit the "Major Digital Project" section of this website or view any posts with the tag, "Major Digital Project".

Teaching with Technology Professional Development Workshops

In this post I intend to provide a bit of background around the development of our Teaching with Technology Professional Development workshop sessions.  For a complete overview of my Major Digital Project please click here.

As described in my Teaching with Technology Website post, Leanne Forrest and I originally developed a resource designed to facilitate the integration of technology with nine effective teaching strategies to improve student learning for the 2012 IT Summit.  For the 2013-2014 school year, we wanted to offer professional development opportunities for teachers looking to integrate technology into effective teaching practice.  The development of these workshops was a multi-step process.

We began by outlining our ultimate goal for this project, which is to develop a community of learners to support each other, and to reflect on professional practice through a Moodle course blog.  We knew we wanted participants to complete the following as part of the project:
1.       Reflect on the role of technology to support the nine research-based strategies for increasing student achievement.
2.       Explore, plan and implement a technology tool to support an instructional strategy or outcome. The model will support selecting, evaluating, and reflecting on the teacher’s plan.
3.       Share the successes, challenges, and implementation of the strategy or additional technology integration as a community of learners through a series of blog posts and reflections.  
Ultimately our goal is to showcase these projects and experiences with other interested teachers through a technology fair.

Once we had established our goals, we revisited the Teaching with Technology resource to determine changes we felt we needed to make in order to achieve our goals.  Our original resource only outlined seven of the effective teaching strategies.  We decided it was important to provide background information and tool options for all nine strategies, so we reviewed the Classroom Instruction that Works book and updated our resource to include summaries and tool options for all nine strategies.

Next, we determined a time-frame for delivering the workshops.  We decided to offer sessions in October, January, and February with a focus on Grade 4-12 teachers.  With this decided, we sent out a registration email to teachers.  Current registration for all three sessions is at approximately 30 teachers.

Finally, we decided upon the workshop format.  When we first developed the website, we delivered the information as a "presentation".  We spoke about each of the strategies and explained the tools we had listed.  However, we did not want this to be the main focus of the Teaching with Technology workshops. Instead, we wanted to ensure teachers had adequate time for resource exploration and project planning.  With this in mind, we developed a workshop agenda to allow for the following:

• Project overview
• Introduction to the Nine Effective Teaching Strategies
• Connecting to the Teaching Strategies
• Project planning time
• Evaluating technology tools using the SECTIONS Model
• Documenting the Learning Process - Introduction to blogging in Moodle
• Individual project development time 

Leanne and I developed a number of resources in order to support the Teaching With Technology workshop, including: Teaching with Technology Website; Mimio presentation file; and Moodle course with Project Overview and links to required resources.

 

In future posts about my Major Digital Project I will describe in further detail the Teaching with Technology website, the presentation file, the Moodle course and blogging process, and the SECTIONS Model teachers used to select and use technology tools for the project.

 







Teaching with Technology Website

As explained in my previous post, "Final Project Outline", Leanne Forrest and I originally created the Teaching with Technology website as part of a presentation we gave for the IT Summit in 2012.  In this post I intend to provide a bit of background around the development of this resource.  For a complete overview of my Major Digital Project please click here.

The inspiration for the Teaching with Technology resource came from reading the book -  Classroom Instruction that Works 2nd Edition by Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, and Stone.  In the book these authors regroup the nine effective teaching strategies as originally identified by Marzano, Pickering and Pollock into the following three categories:
1. Creating the Environment for Learning
2. Helping Students Develop Understandings
3. Helping Students Extend and Apply Knowledge

Focusing on these three categories and nine effective teaching strategies, Leanne and I developed a resource designed to facilitate the integration of technology with these strategies to improve student learning.  As is stated on our home page, "Focusing on these strategies to improve learning while matching pedagogy, content, and technological knowledge, allows a focus on teaching and learning that includes technology."  

While this resource lists a number of technology tools, our focus is not on telling teachers which tool they should use, or on providing them with technical instruction for how to use each tool.  Instead, our goal is to help teachers identify effective teaching practice, and to realize that technology can be used to help support the implementation of each teaching strategy.

In the resource have provided a brief overview and summary for each category, and have divided each category into sections based on the corresponding teaching strategies.  For each strategy we have included suggestions of tools which could be utilized to integrate the strategy into teaching practice.  By no means is this list of tools all inclusive, and it has been updated and modified over time.  As part of this final presentation we have created a public Google Spreadsheet and we are asking for teacher input.  Our intention is to periodically visit the spreadsheet and to update the website with tools suggested by workshop participants.  Please feel free to add to the document.
 
When first developing the list of tools, Leanne and I attempted to suggest tools that fit the following criteria whenever possible:
1. Since we originally designed this resource for Regina Catholic teachers we did not include apps, because we did not have tablet devices available at a system level at the time of creation of this resource.  Our intention is to further develop this website to include app suggestions for each teaching strategy.
2. Because our division does not have student email accounts we tried to include tool options which do not require student email accounts in order to create accounts
3. Because many Web 2.0 tools include terms of service which require students to be 13 or older to create an account, we tried to include tool options which do not require the creation of accounts, or that allow for teachers to create "class" accounts for students.
4. When possible we have tried to list "free" tool options.

In preparing for our Teaching with Technology Professional Development sessions we revisited the entire resource and made a number of  modifications:

• Added the "Reinforcing Effort and Providing Feedback" section
• Added the "Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers" section
• Added the "Additional Tools" collaborative Google Document
• Revisited each effective teaching strategy section and modified suggested tools (removing outdated tools and updating new offerings)

Please feel free to explore the effective teaching strategies document and to add to the list of tools we have suggested.  Feedback will be greatly appreciated.

1. Creating the Learning Environment
2. Helping Students Develop Understandings
3. Helping Students Extend and Apply Knowledge

I plan to provide a more detailed video explanation of this resource in future "Major Digital Project" reflections, along with information regarding the development of the professional development workshops, and project reflections. Please visit the "Major Digital Projects" section of my blog for resources and support materials related to this project.

Final Project Outline

Teaching with Technology

This week I took a number of significant steps in the development of my EC&I 831 major digital project.  For me, this project has been in the works for close to two years, and it is one I am hoping to continue developing into the 2014-15 school year.  Over the next few weeks I intend to outline my project; share the resources which have been created to support this project; and to document and reflect on the processes involved in achieving my goals.  As this is a work in progress, any comments or feedback would be greatly appreciated.  So what exactly does my final project entail, and why have I been working on it for close to two years?

 

In the spring of 2012 Leanne Forrest, Digital Fluency Consultant for Regina Catholic Schools, approached me with the idea of creating a presentation for IT Summit in Saskatoon.  Because our division was actively promoting effective teaching strategies, we felt it would be a good idea to develop a resource that identified ways in which technology could be integrated to support these effective teaching strategies.  In preparation for the presentation we read Classroom Instruction that Works 2nd Edition by Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, and Stone.

http://technoteaching.weebly.com/

Marzano, Pickering and Pollock (2001) examined decades of research to find the teaching strategies that have the most impact on student learning as part of the first edition of Classroom Instruction that Works.    In 2012 Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, and Stone revisited these strategies and updated them for the 21st century by dividing them into three categories. 


In 2012 Leanne and I collaborated in the development of a website designed to facilitate the integration of technology with these strategies to improve student learning.  The initial version of the website summarized seven of the nine effective teaching strategies and identified a number of tools which could be utilized to support the integration of each strategy. 

For the 2013-2014 school year, Leanne and I have decided to provide professional development opportunities for interested Regina Catholic Schools teachers looking to integrate technology into effective teaching practice.  Over the next few months we will be offering a series a Teaching with Technology workshops which will focus on technology as a tool for reinforcing effective teaching strategies.  Our intent is to also develop a community of learners to support each other, and to reflect on our practice through a blog on the Educational Technology Moodle Course page.  

As participants in this PD, teachers will…

1.       Reflect on the role of technology to support the nine research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Examples of tools and implementation strategies will be shared as part of the session
2.       Explore, plan and implement a technology tool to support an instructional strategy or outcome. The model will support selecting, evaluating, and reflecting on the teacher’s plan.
3.       Share the successes, challenges, and implementation of the strategy or additional technology integration as a community of learners through a series of blog posts and reflections.  Our intention is to build a professional learning community interested in education technology to support improved teaching and learning that can model reflective practice.  

Workshop participants will have time to explore different technology tools and select one to apply to their teaching.  We will guide teachers through a model to prepare for and reflect on the effectiveness of the tool to support learning in the classroom.  And, most importantly, the teacher participants in this PD will share their learning and support themselves and others with improving teaching through technology.  Ultimately, we would like to showcase these projects as part of a technology fair or "unconference"in the Fall of 2014.

 

Over the next few weeks I intend to blog about the process involved in creating and implementing this professional development opportunity.  Related posts will be tagged "Major Digital Project" and "Teaching with Technology".  Resources related to my project will be uploaded to the "Major Digital Project" section of my blog.  Feedback related to the website or project as a whole is greatly appreciated.