This
report describes results of year three of the Fayette County Public Schools
(FCPS) District Technology Assessment (DTA).
The Board of Education requested a third party evaluator conduct an
assessment during the 99/00 school year and that it be updated annually to gauge
progress. The updates are to be
conducted by internal staff. The
DTA was designed to address three fundamental research questions:
99/00
and 00/01 DTAs
The excerpt below is from Fayette County Public
Schools: A Formative Assessment of Educational Technology, February 2000,
by Sun Associates.
The following chart shows how the district scored on
its various indicator rubrics in 99/00. The
numerical scores are on a scale of 1 to 4, where 1 represents a minimum level of
achievement and 4 represents the highest degree of achievement.
Figure
2. 99/00 Results
Fayette County views its technology evaluation within
the broad context of educational change and improvement. The greatest value in
this evaluation process, even at the classroom teacher and department levels, is
the reflection that the process inspires. The development of indicator rubrics
requires that teachers and administrators spend considerable time examining
and defining what constitutes “success” in their efforts to integrate
technology into teaching and learning.
In
terms of its key evaluation questions, FCPS has for the most part scored in the
mid-range of its indicator rubrics. Specifically:
·
Students use
some technology nearly every day in relation to learning activities.
The primary emphasis of technology use is still in the acquisition of
basic skills, but there is evidence that the student is beginning to use
technology to engage in learning practices that lead to new ways of thinking,
understanding, constructing knowledge and communicating results. The vast
majority of student technology use is teacher-directed, with students assigned
to use particular technology tools, applications, or resources as part of their
academic work.
·
Teachers are basically fluent in common technology productivity tools
such as word processors and the WWW. The
majority of teachers are using basic technologies to support traditional
instructional models. Nevertheless,
the teacher fluency indicators developed by the district evaluation demand a
level of technology appropriation much higher than what was found.
·
The largely traditional instructional models employed by the majority of
FCPS teachers do not encourage or allow them to reach high levels of achievement
in the district's rubric relating to how teachers use technology to inspire
student learning. This rubric
demands that teachers use technology to empower students as engaged learners.
More than anything relating to technology, this expects teachers to teach
in ways far different than how we believe many FCPS teachers currently work.
·
FCPS teachers are skilled in the use of technologies as productivity
tools. Given the relative new-ness
of networked technology in many schools, we find this degree of adoption
remarkable.
·
The district's network infrastructure is largely, if not
"fully", complete. Computers
are in students' "places of learning" throughout the district, but not
necessarily in sufficient numbers to achieve optimal impact.
·
Few schools have a full time technology resource teacher, but every
teacher has at least some access to a person in a technology resource position.
·
Teachers have access to appropriate software, but only recently have
efforts been undertaken to map technology applications onto curriculum
frameworks.
Once
again, it is important to note that these particular findings are really only
truly relevant when considered in the context of the district's indicators of
success for meeting our instructional technology goals.
Each of the above findings references an indicator rubric designed to
show where the district wants to go in terms of student impact, teacher fluency,
and infrastructure/support.
The
evaluation resulted in a number of specific recommendations in the areas of
professional development and policy. Key
among these were:
Professional
Development
·
Teachers need to develop a greater understanding that integrating
technology involves concurrent changes in instructional practice and classroom
management. If more teachers
embraced models of cooperative learning, individualized instruction, and
student-centered approaches to learning then they would surely realize more
opportunities to use classroom computers. It
will take significant professional development resources to help these teachers
adopt new approaches. Simply
creating mandates for change without supporting change will not suffice.
·
The district should develop stronger messages concerning the purpose and
value of technology integration. Too many teachers only understand technology as
a "skill" to be mastered and not as a tool for transforming learning.
Professional development which emphasizes the transformative value of
technology will help teachers understand the role that technology has within the
existing curriculum. It will also
help teachers understand how as grade and subject area instructors they can play
a greater role in encouraging student use of technology tools.
·
The district should organize technology professional development
specifically for building administrators. The
main goal of this training would be to transmit the message that technology is
both a tool and catalyst for creating pedagogical change.
·
The district should create a district-wide technology professional
development plan which emphasizes and develops additional models for addressing
the increasingly complex mix of teacher technology skills and interests.
Also, it is critical that the district remember that the largest barrier
to technology use is pedagogy, not technology "skills."
Policy
·
Teachers at all levels should be more active participants and pedagogical
guides to their students' time in school computer labs.
·
Site based councils must become better educated and informed on the
values of instructional technology as a tool for learning.
Since these bodies control much of what happens in a school visa vis
policy and budget, there is a distinct limit on the impact that "district
wide" policy can have on issues such as staff expectations, technology
staffing, and expenditures of KETS and school funds for technology.
·
Technical support needs to be increased at the building level.
·
Parents should be more involved with their children's technology use in
and out of school.
The
00/01 DTA showed progress on all three research questions.
The teacher productivity component was found to have been rated too high
the first year, and an adjustment was made the second year to bring it more in
line with actual levels of teacher productivity.
Administrator support increased very significantly from year one to year
two. Full copies of the year 1 and
2 reports are available at: http://www.fcps.net/edtech/suneval.htm
Since the Sun Associates report was released in February 2000, the district has undertaken a host of initiatives to address the recommendations from the first two DTAs. Many of the initiatives are reflected in the district Consolidated Plan while others are simply reflected in the daily activities of staff. Specific data and information on those initiatives will be described in this report. The report also provides a direct comparison of data from the past two years, as a yardstick of progress.