Aisha+Chadwick


 * Integrating Instructional Technology in Daily Schedule **
 * Murphey Candler Elementary School **

**Problem Summary ** Murphey Candler Elementary has purchased multiple forms of technology. The school district have made it mandatory for teachers use the means of technology for data recording, for communication, for specific assessments, and for instruction. The district has introduced new instructional technology that can be utilized for the classrooms. Some teachers do not want to implement the technologies because of lack of education, lack of time, and lack of interest. Murphey Candler Elementary School is located in Lithonia, Ga. The school begins as a single room school called Powell Academy in 1875 and became Murphey Candler School in 1938. The school has a successful history of making Adequate Yearly Progress for the past 8 years and has been recognized as Georgia Title I Distinguished School. Murphey Candler’s goals are to increase academic achievement utilizing hands-on experiences and flexible groups. The school provides continuous staff development to enhance teaching and learning in the school. The school wants to enhance communication with the community and parents. The staff has been a part of the school for years and there is a low turnover rate. The staff loves to work together on all projects and always out the students’ best interest in planning, implementing, and organizing. **Stakeholders and Decision-Makers ** Murphey Candler Elementary administration, staff, and students will benefit from improving integrating instructional technology in the daily schedule. The administration will approve the improvement intervention plan. The trainers can be teachers who are integrating technology, the media specialist, and the technology and training department of DeKalb County School Systems. Dr. Yolanda Turner, the school principal, Mrs. Lucille Patrick, the school assistant principal, and Dr. Laurie Paulk, the school instructional coach are the key personnel that can provide insights into problem with integrating instructional technology in daily schedule. Murphey Candler has several instructional technologies that they would like the teachers to utilize in teaching and learning daily Aisha what are some of the specific instructional technologies that the teachers are asked to use? **Actual Current Performance ** All the teachers have the opportunity to attend the training that is provided by the school district What kind of trainings are offered, is it relevant to what they are trying to do right now? ~Jamie . Murphey Candler has provided the instructional technologies in 85% of the classrooms. Instructional coaches introduce other instructional technologies to teachers during staff meetings. Some teachers attend the training provided by the school district. Some teachers utilize the instructional technologies effectively while others use only during administration observation or do not utilize the technologies at all. Murphey Candler would like all teachers to be trained and implement all the instructional technologies effectively in the classroom daily. The inadequate usage of instructional technology by teachers is because of lack of education ~But it's not a lack of opportunity for education right? They have the opportunityt o learn about the different technologies but choose not to attend the trainings? ~Jamie, lack of time, and lack of interest. If teachers take the necessary time to be educated on the instructional technology, their interest will increase as they implement it in the classroom and spark the interest in the student to utilize it. The performance gap is due to teachers’ choice to use instructional technology. The school district has adopted the approach of differentiated instruction in order to teach students of different learning styles and levels. Some teachers teach in the traditional style using whole group learning, using textbooks, using dittos, and completing teacher directed learning. However, other teachers use differentiated instruction using small groups, online websites, videos, and games, use e-books for resources, and assign technology-based activities and projects. Murphey Candler’s administration has discontinued some very useful instructional technology that has higher students’ achievement because of the low and effective usage of them ~ Does your district have a set of non-negotioable practices? Our district recently implemented some non-negotiables and using a variety of instructional practices is one of them. You might want to take a look at our list of non negotiable practices []- Jamie. Murphey Candler’s goals are to increase academic achievement utilizing hands-on experiences and flexible groups. The school provides continuous staff development to enhance teaching and learning in the school. The school wants to enhance communication with the community and parents. Murphey Candler has transformed from a one room school to a school of rich heritage of many years of excellence. The school has a successful history of making Adequate Yearly Progress for the past 8 years and has been recognized as Georgia Title I Distinguished School. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The mission of Murphey Candler is to work with DeKalb County School System and community members to implement a curriculum that emphasizes academic and life skills for the development of responsible students who can compete successfully in an ever-changing world. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Murphey Candler would like all classrooms to utilize the purchased instructional technologies in daily teaching and learning. There are three intervention strategies they would like to use to close the performance gap. 1. A few trained teachers will train some teachers and share the instructional technologies between their classrooms. 2. The teachers who are only interested in utilizing the instructional technology will be trained and will use the technologies in their classroom. 3. All teachers will take the mandatory training and use the instructional technology in their classroom daily. I don't know that you have to have them numbered. I think if you just write it out in paragraph form it would be better. Jamie <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">A few trained teachers will train some teachers and share the instructional technologies between their classrooms. The grade level chairperson will take the training of the instructional technologies. The grade level chairperson will introduce the other grade level teachers and train them how to use the technology. The grade level will use a schedule or log in and out of sharing the instructional technology. Aisha how will this intervention address lack of time and interest by the teachers? What is going to be the intentive to make them want to stay for the training(s) by the chair person? How many trainings will be conducted or will the teachers be expected to attend? These could be specified in your strategy.- LaTonya Will there be any sort of cost associated with these trainings? Jamie
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Background of Organization **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Performance Gap: Cause Analysis **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Desired Performance **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Performance Gap **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Cause Analysis **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Organizational History and Background **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Goals **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">History **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Mission and Vision **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Three Intervention Strategies **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Low end intervention **

<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">**Aisha Chadwick** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">**Middle end intervention** The teachers who are only interested in utilizing the instructional technology will be trained and will use the technologies in their classroom. The instructional technology classes from the school district will be provided for the interested teachers. After the training has been successfully completed, the teachers will have access to use the instructional technology in their classrooms. Aisha I am curious as to why all the staff is not required to use the technology, because if only a few are utilizing it will there not be a performance gap among the classes???LaTonya Is there a specific technology you are going to address with these trainings? Could part of the problem potentially be that teachers are overwhelmed with the number of technologies they have at their disposal? Jamie    **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">High end intervention ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">All teachers will take the mandatory training and use the instructional technology in their classroom daily. The teachers will have to take the mandatory training over the summer and the first two months of the first semester. The school district will purchase the instructional technology for the teachers’ classrooms. These teachers will be the only ones to utilize the technologies in the classroom daily. <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">﻿ Aisha a suggestion for this portion would be to include the specifics about the trainings. Will the classes be everyday or every other day?How many hours out of the day will they be training. Will there be any online training for them, what are you offering in order for them to give up their summer to take training classes?- Utimately, I would go with your high end intervention strategy because it addresses the staff and their needs as a whole. In addition, it allows the teachers to have some activites already planned to start the school year with. LaTonya I agree with Latonya's questions, I think that this needs to be fleshed out a bit more. I like that you are doing development durign the summer so that teachers have more time to familiarize themselves with the technology. Will they be paid a stipend? If so how much? Can it be mandated that teachers attend a training outside of their contracted time? You may have to offer it during the school year as well, because you might not be able to mandate they attend training outside of their contracted time. Just a thought. ~Jamie  <span style="color: #ff004b; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Justification for Intervention Strategy **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The high end intervention will be a strategy that will help to close the performance gap. Using the high end intervention, all teachers will be trained on all the technologies that are mandated for the classroom. The teachers can set up their own workshop schedule for attended training and workshops that are provided by DeKalb County School System. DeKalb County School System provides teachers with training and workshops that were scheduled for weekdays, evenings, weekends, and summer. The training and workshops are free of charge and teachers can earn Professional Development Credit Hours for the year. It is mandated that all teachers earn 10 hours yearly. The high end intervention will resolve the solution for all teachers. Taking the mandatory training and workshops on the technologies that are purchased and used in the classroom will keep the teachers in compliance with the school system procedures in instructional technology. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> DeKalb County School System purchase Activboards, ActivExpressions, and computers and laptops for the schools. Murphey Candler uses Accelerated Reader, STAR Math and Reading, Schoolnet, eSIS grade book, and Online Assessment System (OAS). These are computerized software that is being used for instruction and assessments. Each teacher and student has usernames and passwords. The websites can be access at home and school. The students can take assessments on skills learned and need to be learned in the academic year. The teachers can monitor the students’ progress and regress. The teacher can view reports and provide data for parents and students. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> The low end intervention will not be effective for the resolution of integrating technology in all classrooms. A few teachers attending training and then training teachers is not effective because the trained teachers can pick and choose when to train others and what they want to train them on. The low end intervention can confuse teachers who are being trained in redelivery because they may not receive all the information about the technologies. The questions that the teachers may have may not get an answer to the questions that they have. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> The middle end intervention will not be effective for the resolution. Training only the grade level chairperson on each grade level will cause may issues. If the grade level chairperson is not a technology savvy person, the other teachers will not get a successful training. If the grade level chairperson does not agree with the technology being used in the classroom, the teachers will not be trained successfully or will not be trained at all. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> The high end intervention is the most successful approach for the school district, the school, the teachers, and the students. The high end intervention shows that everyone is in tune with the mandates from the school district and the technology. The high end intervention makes all teachers attend the training and receive the training first hand. The intervention shows that the training and workshop that the school district provides is being used. ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> The Manager’s Many Roles  ** <span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> The role as the project manager of the intervention strategy is to monitor and consult teachers for receiving the mandated training on the instructional technologies. The project manager would make sure that all teachers have a copy of the schedule of technology training that is provided by the school system. Each teacher will have a list of the mandatory training that is required for the technology in the classroom. Using the schedule and the list the teachers will set their own schedule. The project manager will set a time frame for teachers to take the training in for each semester. All training for 1st semester must be completed by October 31st and for 2nd semester must be completed by March 31st. The project manager will make arrangements for teachers who are having a difficult time to complete the training or need extra assistance after the training. <span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> There are many management techniques that can be used for this intervention. The project manager will give the teachers the itinerary of the training classes that is provided by the school district. The teachers will be able to sign up for the training courses through their email. The teachers will send the confirmation to the project manager and the manager will keep track of this under the teacher’s name. As soon as the teachers have completed the training, the technology and training department will send a certificate to the project manager. There will be constant reminders of trainings that are being held weekly so that the teachers can attend the needed training. After the teachers have completed the required training before the deadline date, the teachers will receive a certificate and their professional development <span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> The project manager will introduce the training and workshop courses to the teachers at staff meetings. The teachers will get a list of the training and the deadlines of which trainings must be completed at a specific time. The teachers will also receive News Flash in their emails of upcoming training on daily, weekly, and monthly basis. The project manager and instructional coach will deliver different instructional strategies that are useful in daily instruction with the teachers using the required technology in professional development meetings. The administrators will explain the training deadlines and the observation process that the teachers will have to make sure that they are implementing the instructional technologies in the classroom. <span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> After the teachers have completed their training, the administrators and project manager will observe the teachers implementing the technology in the classrooms. The administrators and project manager will view the teacher’s lesson plans for proof of planning using the instructional technologies. After the deadline for each semester of the given training, the administrators and project manager will schedule observations on each teacher to see how they implement the instructional technologies in the classroom. The administrators will spend at least 30 minutes in the classrooms and observe the teachers using a checklist. The checklist will observe the teachers’ lesson plans, the classroom schedule, the classroom management, the type of technology, the implementation of the technology, and the activities. ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> The Manager as Change Agent  ** <span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"> ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Financial and Budget Information. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Tentative budget for your intervention strategy, along with supporting documentation; consider technology purchases, personnel training, additional support, and other considerations specific to your proposal. <span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Supporting documentation for your budget, including links to Web sites where purchases can be made and the costs of implementation. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"> ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Project Assessment. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Teachers will be assessed on their training on the mandated technology. The assessments will take place during and at the end of the training. The administrators and project manager will observe the teachers in the classrooms using the instructional technology. <span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> The formative evaluation will be completed during training. The teachers will have to complete task or activities to make sure that they know how to use the technology during the training. The teachers will have to create flipcharts, slide shows, data analysis, tests, and activities. <span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> The summative evaluation will be completed by the administrators. The administrators will observe the teachers in the classroom implementing the instructional technology.