Teach Tech for All – Exploring Ways to Make Technology Inviting for All Students and Teachers

Remote Learning Practicum

Introduction

The final quarter of Seattle Pacific University’s Digital Education Leadership (DEL) program includes a practicum in which students usually take on a special project and document the process in a final blog post. Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, we have been allowed to use our “regular” work experience as our practicum.

In this post, I will describe my own learning as a technology specialist, as well as insights from teachers and the Instructional Technology Curriculum Leader (ITCL) I worked with during the past three months of emergency remote learning. Though we are still in the thick of things and don’t know the long term effects this closure will have on students, I think it is important to reflect on the experience as best we can, and I am grateful for the opportunity that this practicum provided.

Leveraging the Power of Teacher Innovators & Early Adopters

Teacher-led pilot programs to assess new education technology practices can be an effective way to scaffold risk and entice more reluctant educators to try new teaching methods.

“Try It, You’ll Like It”: Formative Assessment in Professional Development

When powerful digital formative assessment tools are woven into professional development, they help teachers reflect on their own learning while giving them the practice and confidence to use these tools in their own classrooms.

A Data-Driven Approach to Professional Development

In this post I would like to explore how data can be used to support key adult learning principals for professional development, including practical, problem-centered instruction and autonomy. This supports ISTE (2011) Coaching Standard 4b: Design, develop, and implement technology rich professional learning programs that model principles of adult learning and promote digital age best practices in teaching, learning, and assessment.

Online Methods Support Effective Professional Development

Like many people, I had my doubts about online education prior to joining the Digital Education Leadership program at Seattle Pacific University. Would it be rigorous enough and personalized? Would others take the degree seriously once they knew it was an online program? I had taken a number of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and appreciated certain aspects, but didn’t want them to be the model for a graduate program.

Once you experience well-designed, smaller-scale online learning, however, you realize the value and potential – not just the convenience, but also the way it can promote deep learning and quality collaboration. In this module I would like to explore how online learning can be successfully applied to professional development by providing personalization, access to distant communities and experts, and the opportunity for long term learning and support.

Coaching a Peer

The Community Engagement project for our Educational Technology Leadership class this quarter consisted of coaching a teacher to help them improve a lesson by focusing on areas that promote 21^st century skills including:

Support for standards such as Common Core or ISTE
Improving engagement
Using a problem-based task
Applying technology to accelerate learning

(Foltos, 2013)

Protocols: Safe Havens for Discussion

Education protocols are guidelines for efficient, respectful and productive discussions about teaching practices. Though many different education protocols have been developed, all attempt to provide participants with a safe space for sharing and improving their own or others’ teaching and coaching practices.

Essential Questions

Essential questions provide context for individual understandings or skills. They connect the small to the large, the known to what still must be explored. If designed well and integrated into instruction, they help students think bigger, communicate better, analyze and synthesize what they learn and transfer that knowledge to other subject areas both inside and outside of school.

Just in Time: Formative Assessment

Formative assessments are a key component of grounding students in 21^st century skills. By providing feedback while students are learning instead of waiting until the end of a lesson or term, learners can recognize what they are and aren’t understanding. Similarly, educators can adjust their teaching methods to better meet their students’ needs.