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- John Dewey -

"Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is, not a preparation for life; education is life itself." -  John Dewey

Coaching Project

As a Digital Learning Coach, I have a unique opportunity to take the lead in assisting my school community in addressing our technology integration needs. We are fortunate to have an ample amount of chrome books for the students to use and student Google accounts for our students to connect, collaborate, create and use creatively. Our needs stem from this new influx of technology. Here are two needs that I’d like to address in the coming year:

 

Goal #1– Effective implementation of Google Apps for Education. Literature suggests that students are consumers of content. They create and share ideas with relative ease; however, students lack the experience and wherewithal to evaluate the ideas that they are devouring (Boyd, 2014). Thus, teachers must provide their students with direct instruction, guided practice, and exemplary sample texts that demonstrate a quality of student writing that learners can achieve from communicating and collaborating. Furthermore, students must be given ample practice and opportunities to hone the skills.To do this I will provide PD sessions during our PLC's , one-to-one coaching, open or optional after-school sessions. During which I will ensure teachers are given:

  1. Opportunities to collaborate on ways to integrate the 4 C’s into their lessons that integrate GAFE, with my support.

  2. Support on how to use Google Classroom as a way to inspire more collaboration and communication between students. (Using Student Response Systems like Pear Deck and Padlet)

  3. Co-plan, co-teach opportunities to observe each other

ISTE-C Standards Addressed

  • Standard 1 (a-d)

  • Standard 3 (a-g)

  • Standard 5 (a-c)

 

Resources:

Boyd, D. (2014). Literacy: Are today’s youth digital natives? It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens. (pp. 176-198). New Haven: Yale University Press.

Fisher, D., Frey, N., & Lapp, D. (2015). iPad deployment in a diverse urban high school: A formative experiment. Reading and writing Quarterly, 31(2), 135-150. doi: 101080/10573569.2014.962202

Kiger, D., Herr, D., & Prunty, D. (2012). Examine the influence of a mobile learning intervention on third grade math achievement. Journal of Research on Technology in Educations, 45, 61-79.

Liu, M., Navarrete, C. C., & Wivagg, J. (2014). Potentials of mobile technology for K-12 education: An investigation of iPod touch use for English language learners in the United States. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 17(2), 115-126.

Weekly Summary of Coach Project
August 2016

To begin, I utilized both feedback from my staff the previous school year to begin a workable technology integration plan. My vision is to have complete buy-in from the staff based on their needs and the common understanding of what our students need as 21st century learners. I collaborated with my school site leadership to create a workable plan.

September 2016

September is a busy month in the life of a teacher, they were inundated with new training and implementing two new curriculum adoptions. My active role was supporting them with the technology side of these adoptions as well as with their established curriculum. In addition I began visiting each class to present on Digital Citizenship.

 

Behind the scenes I began planning with both our site leadership and our community liaison to set school-wide technology integration goals and Digital Citizenship certification.  

October & November 2016

Grade level collaborations begin with goal setting for technology integration. I created a planning document that all grade levels can put their goals into based on the Common Core technology standard (W.CCR.6). In this way all grade levels can easily see, with a progression guide, what skills they need to have, what they should receive in the previous grade and what they will need in the next grade level. 

Fifth grade team and I collaborating on using SeeSaw to support their tech integration goals (view only)

Second Grade team in a grade level collaboration planning ways to share their chrome book cart to support their technology integration goals (view only)

Coaching Project Reflection

The entire process of planning for and implementing my coaching project benefited my staff in wonderful ways. Some of my struggles as a coach had been on connecting with my staff about the type of PD they wanted. I was very focused on delivering PD that my administration and I felt the staff needed, and yes they did need it, but I didn't plan appropriately for the type of PD that they would most appreciate and in turn benefit from the most. 

I began with what teachers wanted, based on my paper and digital surveys as well as my conversations with them. This school year is growing into one of my best years as a coach, morale is great and I feel they trust me more than ever to seek support and advice about their technology integration progress. I, in turn, have grown so much in this process. 

In comparison with prior years, our students are far more comfortable using various technology to highlight the 4 C's. Of course, our progress with using Google Apps school-wide has grown to the point that I see it's use everyday in every class 2nd grade to 6th. Many teachers are taking more risks, learning other tech tools to integrate and to see it's impact on our students makes me so happy. Students are enthusiastic about their Common Core standards based work, mainly because they are given more options to complete the tasks in ways that motivate. That to me is a result I feel satisfied with and drives me to continue to support teachers to reach that level in every subject.

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