Educator Preparation and Development—the Intermediary Domain of Star Chart Data Week 2 Part 2

In many ways, the key area of Educator Preparation and Development is an indicator of how well technology dollars and resources have been used and will be used. Each campus’s score in this domain comes from teachers noting the amount and quality of instruction time they receive in preparation for adding new technology to their classroom routine. Any administrator will tell us that the week of conferences and staff development before students arrive for the year is simply packed with state required lectures such as the one covering sexual harassment.

During this time when teachers have the energy and inclination to incorporate new ideas into their plans, they are stuck in staff development not directly related to their instruction. The school year starts, and now it doesn’t really matter how much the administration supports technology or how well your infrastructure has been updated. We fail to make it to advanced or target ratings in Teaching and Learning because not enough time has been spent showing the teachers how to instinctively use technology for collaborative instruction. Thus, we see that a campus’s score in Teaching and Learning closely follows its score in Educator Preparation and Development.

We see this trend play out on both the local and state levels. On my campus, Teaching and Learning and Educator Preparation and Development scores have been one point away from each other improving in lockstep over the past three years. At the state level, the percentages of schools scoring for the two domains are never more than six percentage points away from each other. For example, the statewide percentage of schools that report scoring at developing tech in Teaching and Learning and Educator Preparation and Development are 69.7% and 74.2% respectively.

I believe this indicates that more quality time spent training staff will result in higher student achievement and higher percentages of schools reporting levels of advanced or target tech. Now, many of the non-negotiable seminars that teachers have to sit through during that week before students arrive are unavoidable. However, they are only mandated because the state mandates them, or the district mandates them. As administrators, if we want to see the best return on the tax payer’s dollar, i.e. students communicating and working collaboratively with the technology that costs so much money, than we need to ask for some adjustments to the current policies. Just imagine what we could do if we could move the boring housekeeping style seminars to the weekly staff meetings, and use that week for planning and learning how best meet the goals the state set forth in its Long Range Plan for Technology.