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Putting technology into the hands of teachers and students is a given as schools are required to ensure that all students are technologically literate, but in times of fiscal cuts, finding funding for that technology is becoming more difficult.
Three Sussex County school districts found a partial solution: Cape Henlopen, Laurel and Delmar school districts teamed up and won a competitive federal technology grant of nearly $300,000. The three districts formed the CHiLD Consortium (Cape Henlopen in collaboration with Laurel and Delmar).
Federal guidelines stipulated that nearly half of the funding be dedicated to professional development and teacher training. So, between January and February, approximately 15 middle school teachers from each district participated in four full days of training - three days were with curriculum design and instructional strategies and one day was dedicated to the integration of new technology into the instructional plan. Teachers from both Mariner Middle School and Beacon Middle School made up the Cape Henlopen School District team.
In addition, each teacher participated in at least two after school sessions related to specific technology instruction. In order to receive the technology, the participating teachers developed curriculum units based on the principles of backwards design that the State of Delaware has adopted. These units were showcased at a Gala held on Tuesday, May 27, at the University of Delaware’s Carvel Building in Georgetown.
Patricia Collins, a math teacher at Mariner Middle School, said “one important benefit that I received from this training was the focus on how to create a series of lessons, using the backward design model.” The backward design method stresses considering the ultimate goal of the learning first, rather than starting the unit or lesson planning with a series of activities. The design is based on a “big idea” and “uncoverage” of that idea rather than marching through a textbook as a unit plan.
Most of the participating teachers spent countless hours developing and refining their units. “Writing the unit was challenging - and it was a challenge that I am happy to have tackled,” said Diane Albanese, an eighth-grade English teacher at Mariner Middle School. “Because there was so much analysis of what we do in practice and so much research as to what is good form, the unit took on an elevated quality and hopefully will be a highlight in terms of student learning.”
After training in backward design, teachers reevaluated their use of technology in the classroom. The emphasis was placed on student use rather than teacher use. The focus on technology integration will benefit her students, Collins said, “The integration of technology into the lesson should ensure that all students are engaged in the learning and understanding.” Student use of technology is not a goal in itself, however, but a tool to help make meaning of other issues. Albanese plans to equip her students with both the technology and the skills needed to write and produce short documentary films, photo essays and other products around her unit’s theme of Think Globally, Act Locally.
Teachers ordered technology appropriate to their specific content areas. Many teachers ordered LCD players, projectors that enable their computer screen to be projected on a wall or screen, and document cameras, cameras that project on a wall or screen any image placed under them. A number of teachers received interactive whiteboards, computer-linked boards that enable students and teachers to manipulate images and write on the boards while integrating with the computer. Most of the math teachers involved in the grant also ordered Airliner pads, that enable students to write on the pads and their writing gets projected onto a screen.
Collins ordered student responders - a sort of remote control - that, according to Collins, should “help the students to maintain engagement in the lesson by allowing them to immediately input responses to questions with or without other students knowing their answer. It makes all students accountable for their own learning, and it serves as a great way to practice skills. It also makes a great quiz or test review.” Other teachers ordered digital cameras and ipods so students could produce podcasts and short documentaries in their classes.
Working with new technology has other benefits for the school districts, and teachers are excited about the improvements in their instruction. Cathy Cofrancesco, an English teacher at Mariner Middle School, received a laptop computer, and immediately dived into revising her original unit on the Holocaust. “This whole design process is addictive,” Cofrancesco said. “And as I started to teach the unit I saw places where I could add more of the technology piece and some other things. The more you work on it the more you want to change, add, delete, etc.”
While this federal grant was a one-shot deal, the lasting results of refined unit preparation and technology integration into the instruction will be something both students and teachers will benefit from in the years to come.
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