Last week, I wrote about the importance of including technology in basics of instruction, and the importance for our leaders to understand how to support educators with impactful technology use.
In reality, if you have never learned in a classroom the way we’re asking teachers to teach today, and many of us in leadership positions have also never taught in a classroom the way we’re asking teachers to teach, then how do we effectively have conversations with teachers on this very topic?
A few years ago, our team created an entire multi-day Digital Leaders Academy for a district who was seeking support for their leaders on this exact problem. In the interest of some quick tips to support school leaders in this area, I’ve included five practical ideas below.
1. Get out in some classrooms to see high quality impactful technology use first hand. You don’t know what you don’t know, so you’ve got to find out what it is you don’t know. I’d encourage you to go observe teachers outside of your own school and district walls (although starting there is great) to make sure that you’re really seeing the best examples. Utilize your regional networks to set up a couple of days to tour districts within driving distance. There’s really nothing like seeing it first hand. If you can’t be in classrooms during the live instruction, see if you can get connected with teachers to have some conversations about what they do with students that really makes a difference (video conferencing removes any physical distance barriers!). Hearing it straight from the teacher source is the next best thing to seeing it in action.
2. If observing classes just isn’t feasible for you for whatever reason, there are so many books you can read to paint a picture of good tech integration vs bad, or low impact. I’d recommend checking these out even if you do get to take a peak into live classrooms: Eduprotocols, Google Apps for Littles, and Courageous Edventures.
Eduprotocols might be my top recommendation to help school leaders see just how quick and uncomplicated using technology can be to support very strong instructional practices, like many of Marzano’s high yield strategies. Google Apps for Littles is a great book for anyone who’s ever said or thought my kids are too young for tech. Courageous Edventures is great for anyone who supports teachers with instruction, and it helps tackle a few systemic challenges.
3. Meet with a Tech Coach or other support personnel who can help you become more proficient with technology. They should be able to help you easily identify some quick wins to help you embed technology in your regular routines that allow you to naturally become more comfortable using it yourself and model it for your teachers. Plus, they may help you ease or speed up a real pain point in your role- win win! Furthermore, if you do have a technology coach, you can maximize support of your teachers with these four simple steps.
4. Take a look at this backward edtech flowchart. As a leader, you don’t need to be familiar with every tool at the end of the chart, but starting with student outcomes and asking some questions along the way to help make decisions is exactly how we should think about selecting tech to use in our instruction, not starting with a tool and coming up with ways to use it. The flowchart models how you can approach some conversations with teachers to help them think about incorporating impactful technology use into a lesson.
5. Look at any systems prohibiting change, prioritize, and then change them. As a leader myself, a quote I constantly come back to is every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. So often, we ask one thing of our educators but the schedule, the environment, the space, the system… doesn’t allow it to actually happen. We tell our teachers to take risks and use technology, but at the same time tell them in order to implement the new curriculum with fidelity, they can’t deviate from the scripted plan (and the plan doesn’t include tech). We want our teachers to spend time prior to the return of the school year setting up their courses in the LMS, but we never have courses loaded and ready for them in time. We want the tech coach to meet with grade levels on Wednesdays at the elementary school, but that building principal meets with every team during grade level plan time on Wednesdays. The list goes on and on… and on. As a leader, you have a real opportunity to support change at a systemic level. Ask questions. Understand why. Get to the root of problems preventing full blown success. Invite a representative from every stakeholder who touches those systems to the table. Work together to create sustainable, systemic changes that support teachers and students.
I hope that some of these tips will help make the unknown feel a little less, well, unknown. We’re all strapped for time with too many todo’s on our plates. My hope is that if we can help our leaders really understand the power of good tech use, that they will believe in it and support its widespread adoption. You care about what your boss cares about, and our kiddos deserve it.
What practical tips & resources would you give to any educator trying to better understand really impactful technology use?
Tech To You Later!
-Katie, Ed.D.
