Results in the area of
teacher use of technology were nearly all positive. This area was divided into four components.
The first component is teacher fluency, which is the degree to which
faculty and staff are proficient, knowledgeable, and current with available
technology and translate the knowledge into relevant learning opportunities for
students. Fluency improved from 2.5
to 3.2 over the three years.
The second component is
opportunities teachers provide for students to use technology.
Ideally, teachers create learning opportunities and physical environments
that allow students to assume more independent roles in their own learning
through their use of technology. It
is possible for teachers to be highly proficient in their own use of technology,
but not use their knowledge in ways that benefit their students.
This component is a measure of how well they actually translate their own
personal knowledge about technology into instruction.
It is also a measure of how much teachers emphasize student-centered
instruction. Classroom environment
is another factor in this component. Our
teachers improved from 2.25 to 2.9 in this component.
Figure
6. Teacher Impact.
The
third component is teacher productivity. This
is the degree to which educators use technology to advance their own
professional practice and collegial interactions. This component deals less with how teachers use technology
with their students, and more with how they use tools like attendance programs,
email, etc. for activities that help them professionally.
Teacher productivity rated a perfect 4 in 99/00.
The rating was slightly lower in 00/01 and 01/02, but still extremely
high. After the first year, our
evaluators looked more deeply into evidence of this component and concluded that
we were probably over-rated the first year.
The apparent decline is not an indication of a decline in our teachers.
Instead, it is just a more accurate and realistic estimate of their
actual productivity.
As stated previously,
administrator support was a cause for concern in the 99/00 DTA.
This fourth component deals with mainly with principals and how they
model effective use of technology, develop and support systemic change processes
to maximize support for learning, and facilitate appropriate professional
development processes. As shown in the figure below, our principals demonstrated
very significant improvement over the past two years. Principals have taken the lead by inviting technology staff
to give presentations to their councils on effective uses of technology.
Technology has been embedded more in training that principals receive.
Principals may be paying more attention to teacher use of technology when
conducting teacher evaluations. Teachers
also indicated that principals have been more involved in technology
professional development this year. All
of those factors are positive signs for technology.
Principals clearly set expectations for their schools and teachers
usually follow those expectations. The
fact that principals are placing a greater importance on technology is a good
sign for future improvements in the use of technology.
This should ultimately have a positive impact on student achievement.
Figure
7. Administrator Support
