Goal: What types of support could benefit new teachers to become successful and have the confidence to continue in the teaching profession?
1. Setting the Foundation – Through collaboration with my principal and the site based decision making team; new teacher retention has been identified as a problem over recent years.
2. Analyzing the Data – Gathering data over recent years will help identify the retention rate of new teachers. Using interviews with new teachers and new teachers that are leaving the school district will be used to gather data to help teacher retention. The school district will also collaborate with neighboring school districts for ideas and programs to help with new teacher retention.
3. Developing deeper understanding – Using the data gathered in step 2, there should be other questions that will need to be addressed. Using the interviews and collaboration from other school districts, the new teachers will be asked to express their concerns for the school district to better understand the new teacher retention problem.
4. Engaging in self-reflection – As a principal I will have to be able to reflect on my decisions with the campus to determine if the new teacher retention problem could be addressed through my decisions. A big question I would have to ask myself and address would be: Do I possess the knowledge and skills to be able to take on the challenge of directing new teachers towards our campus and goals?
5. Exploring programmatic process – After self-reflection, I would have to identify some of the main reasons why our campus cannot retain new school teachers. With this process I would have to confer with a trusted resource to be able to come up with the best possible solution for this situation.
6. Determining direction – Determining the direction of this research project is very important. I need to be very clear on what outcome that I want to have for a solution to this addressed problem. I also have to make sure that everything that I do with this project is reasonable, such as timelines and the monitoring process. I also have to be able to revise and improve my plan as the project progresses in the event that the project is seeing positive results.
7. Taking action for school improvement - For this project I would like to include our site based decision making team in order to collaborate with for solutions on the outcome of my initial findings. Our district also forms a committee that is called the Superintendent’s Committee that is made up teachers and community leaders that help solve district problems through collaboration with district and community resources. Including this committee would be an excellent asset for this project.
8. Sustaining improvement – For this part of my project, I would identify the positive aspects of the results of the project. These positive outcomes will need to be addressed in order to continue with the results from gathering the data for this project. Finding and maintaining positive views for new teacher retention will be a key asset for the future teachers of our campus and district.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Week Two Reflection
As I reflect back to my week 2 assignment, I find that there is an area that really concerns me on my campus that I would like to research further. We have a growing number of economically disadvanted students that have been turned away at lunch time because of no money or paper work has been completed for their free lunch program. I may change my topic of my research paper to this after I look into it more with my site supervisor.
I really enjoyed the interviews with the three administrators as part of the first assignment. I learn a lot more when I can hear and visual what people say. These adminstrators gave an insightful testimony on what is going on within their school districts.
I really enjoyed the interviews with the three administrators as part of the first assignment. I learn a lot more when I can hear and visual what people say. These adminstrators gave an insightful testimony on what is going on within their school districts.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Blogs in Education
Blogging allows you to be able to communicate with anyone, your ideas or information. In the education world, you can use blogs to communicate with your students, administration and stakeholders. Blogs can be set up as a community forum where you can comment and express your ideas or feelings toward the subject being discussed. One area I do not like about blogs is that someone can express false information. Blogs are a very powerful tool that can be utilized by educators.
Action Research
Action research is described by Dana as: "the process of a principal
engaging in systematic, intentional study of his/her own administrative
practice and taking action for change based on what he/she learns as a
result of the inquiry". This process can have a great and immediate impact on how a principal is able to run his or her campus on a daily basis and also for future decision making. Action research reflects on experiences of the principal or even a colleague's experience to help better serve their campus in a positive way.
My research project will look into why my campus' reading scores have fallen on recent TAKS tests. I want to be able to reflect on the past and use these reflections to help determine the cause of the falling scores. Our campus has very successful teachers in the area of reading and they have been a part of our school system for several years. This trend of falling grades has our principal and our teachers very concerned and they have spent the majority of the summer trying to work out a plan to help these students become successful. Using action research will help me better understand an important area of concern with my campus and I hope to be able to reflect on this experience and use it in the future when I become and administrator.
engaging in systematic, intentional study of his/her own administrative
practice and taking action for change based on what he/she learns as a
result of the inquiry". This process can have a great and immediate impact on how a principal is able to run his or her campus on a daily basis and also for future decision making. Action research reflects on experiences of the principal or even a colleague's experience to help better serve their campus in a positive way.
My research project will look into why my campus' reading scores have fallen on recent TAKS tests. I want to be able to reflect on the past and use these reflections to help determine the cause of the falling scores. Our campus has very successful teachers in the area of reading and they have been a part of our school system for several years. This trend of falling grades has our principal and our teachers very concerned and they have spent the majority of the summer trying to work out a plan to help these students become successful. Using action research will help me better understand an important area of concern with my campus and I hope to be able to reflect on this experience and use it in the future when I become and administrator.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Course Reflection
When I started this course on technology, I really thought that I knew a lot about technology in education. I am the Early Middle School technology teacher and have access to many different areas of technology. Boy was I wrong. After starting this course, I looked for different outcomes.
Researching through our Campus and District Improvements Plans has brought many new things to my attention. I really didn't understand what those meant to technology until this course. I knew improvement plans were meant to help our campus in the way of regular classrooms and curriculum, but including technology has become a new experience for my classrooms. We are having a growing number of students with learning disabilities and our school district is researching every possible angle to aid in their learning. My campus has found numerous resources for our students with learning disabilities to be able to function in a "regular" classroom. Our campus has had several students diagnosed with dyslexia and we have found a voice recognition program that has tremendously helped with students. My classrooms have also had a number of vision impaired students where we have found keyboards with larger letters and a program that enlarges the screen so the students can function in the classroom.
After starting this course, I found that what I wanted to get out of this course was to learn more about resources and what other educators thought about education in the school system. The articles that were supplied during this class provided an unbelievable insight to what is going on in the technology/education world. As a technology teacher, I know technology changes everyday. What I have to do is work with our campus and district technology directors to keep up with the changing trends to transfer that to our students.
One area that I really enjoyed was the examining of our campus Star Chart. As a campus we are always reminded to complete these charts but I did not really understand the outcomes from them. I always knew what the chart was asking for, but I did not know what exactly is was used for. After reviewing our Star Chart, the results showed that our campus scored lower in the areas of professional development. Our district has taken strides over the past three years to provide professional development for technology to improve this area in the classrooms. Our educators are required to complete 12 hours of professional development over the summer in the area of technology. As a result of our professional developments, our numbers have increased over the past three years.
Another area of this class that I really received a lot of information is when I was completing my assignments. These assignments allowed me to be able to explore areas of technology within our school system that I never really looked at before. As a technology teacher, I know the technology TEKS and how they are applied to my classrooms. But as far as the Star Chart and other assessments, I did not truly understand how those were applied to my campus. This courses assignments gave me the opportunity to explore the data that has been assessed from my campus and school districts. I also learned a lot from examining our school and district's Campus Improvement Plans. Through the interviews that I conducted with my principal and Campus Improvement Plan committee member, this allowed me to receive a better understanding of what the CIP committee does to help improve our campus in the area of technology. One area that I had trouble in when completing my assignments was some of the lengths of assignments. As a teacher\coach, it was really hard to complete all of the readings, assignments and watching the videos in a timely manner. What made it easier for me was that I am a technology teacher and this area really interests me. I found myself spending some late hours completing the assignments and for the most part the assignments and readings really intrigued me and I found myself not realizing it was 1:00 in morning!
Some of things that I learned from this course was how important technology is to our district and how it will be shaping the future of education. I have already seen first hand how technology is becoming integrated on my campus with our students with learning disabilities, but through this course I was able to see how technology will be shaping the classrooms, communities, educators and students to have a better overall educational experience. On my campus, I can go to any classroom to see some form of technology becoming integrated into that classroom. Through this course's readings, I have gained valuable information to be able to share ideas and web site's to my colleagues.
Another area of this course that I really enjoyed was blogging. I have always read blogs but never created one for myself. Blogging allows you to be able to communicate with anyone, your ideas or information. In the education world, you can use blogs to communicate with your students, administration and stakeholders. Blogs can be set up as a community forum where you can comment and express your ideas or feelings toward the subject being discussed. One area I do not like about blogs is that someone can express false information. You have to be able to trust the source to make sure the information they are providing is true.
Overall I really enjoyed this course. The readings were very informative and I will save them for future reference. I believe this class has covered a broad view of what technology means to education and where technology will push the future of education to.
Researching through our Campus and District Improvements Plans has brought many new things to my attention. I really didn't understand what those meant to technology until this course. I knew improvement plans were meant to help our campus in the way of regular classrooms and curriculum, but including technology has become a new experience for my classrooms. We are having a growing number of students with learning disabilities and our school district is researching every possible angle to aid in their learning. My campus has found numerous resources for our students with learning disabilities to be able to function in a "regular" classroom. Our campus has had several students diagnosed with dyslexia and we have found a voice recognition program that has tremendously helped with students. My classrooms have also had a number of vision impaired students where we have found keyboards with larger letters and a program that enlarges the screen so the students can function in the classroom.
After starting this course, I found that what I wanted to get out of this course was to learn more about resources and what other educators thought about education in the school system. The articles that were supplied during this class provided an unbelievable insight to what is going on in the technology/education world. As a technology teacher, I know technology changes everyday. What I have to do is work with our campus and district technology directors to keep up with the changing trends to transfer that to our students.
One area that I really enjoyed was the examining of our campus Star Chart. As a campus we are always reminded to complete these charts but I did not really understand the outcomes from them. I always knew what the chart was asking for, but I did not know what exactly is was used for. After reviewing our Star Chart, the results showed that our campus scored lower in the areas of professional development. Our district has taken strides over the past three years to provide professional development for technology to improve this area in the classrooms. Our educators are required to complete 12 hours of professional development over the summer in the area of technology. As a result of our professional developments, our numbers have increased over the past three years.
Another area of this class that I really received a lot of information is when I was completing my assignments. These assignments allowed me to be able to explore areas of technology within our school system that I never really looked at before. As a technology teacher, I know the technology TEKS and how they are applied to my classrooms. But as far as the Star Chart and other assessments, I did not truly understand how those were applied to my campus. This courses assignments gave me the opportunity to explore the data that has been assessed from my campus and school districts. I also learned a lot from examining our school and district's Campus Improvement Plans. Through the interviews that I conducted with my principal and Campus Improvement Plan committee member, this allowed me to receive a better understanding of what the CIP committee does to help improve our campus in the area of technology. One area that I had trouble in when completing my assignments was some of the lengths of assignments. As a teacher\coach, it was really hard to complete all of the readings, assignments and watching the videos in a timely manner. What made it easier for me was that I am a technology teacher and this area really interests me. I found myself spending some late hours completing the assignments and for the most part the assignments and readings really intrigued me and I found myself not realizing it was 1:00 in morning!
Some of things that I learned from this course was how important technology is to our district and how it will be shaping the future of education. I have already seen first hand how technology is becoming integrated on my campus with our students with learning disabilities, but through this course I was able to see how technology will be shaping the classrooms, communities, educators and students to have a better overall educational experience. On my campus, I can go to any classroom to see some form of technology becoming integrated into that classroom. Through this course's readings, I have gained valuable information to be able to share ideas and web site's to my colleagues.
Another area of this course that I really enjoyed was blogging. I have always read blogs but never created one for myself. Blogging allows you to be able to communicate with anyone, your ideas or information. In the education world, you can use blogs to communicate with your students, administration and stakeholders. Blogs can be set up as a community forum where you can comment and express your ideas or feelings toward the subject being discussed. One area I do not like about blogs is that someone can express false information. You have to be able to trust the source to make sure the information they are providing is true.
Overall I really enjoyed this course. The readings were very informative and I will save them for future reference. I believe this class has covered a broad view of what technology means to education and where technology will push the future of education to.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Texas Long Range Plan for Technology
I reviewed the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology and also my campus Star Chart and I chose the area of Infrastructure to discuss. Our campus has been in the category of Advanced Tech for the past three years. This category is described as having a campus where there are four or less students per computer, there is direct connectivity to the Internet in 75% of the classrooms and library, web-based learning is available, all rooms are connected to a LAN/WAN, there is one educator per computer and there are shared use of other resources. I have to agree with these findings because there are ample opportunities for our students and educators to use technology in every classroom. As a computer teacher, I have knowledge of what technology we have in the classrooms and help the teachers, if needed, to understand that technology.
Looking at our local campus results, it shows that our teachers have put us in the Advanced Tech category which in turn compares to the state average. The state average for 2007-2008 is 57.2% of schools are in the advanced stages. This shows that schools are experiencing a strong technology influence in their schools. I believe that is all campuses goals to reach the Target Tech but only 6.7% of the states schools are at this level now.
My recommendations for our school district would be to maintain the Advanced Tech level and shoot for the Target Tech level. I believe our campus has done an excellent job of keeping up with technology trends and our students are given an opportunity to succeed with the technology given. One area that I wish our administration would address would be for professional development. Our district has many technology opportunities but some of our teachers are having trouble with using and teaching that technology to the students. Some of our "old school" teachers are set in their ways and do not embrace the technology that is available. Having more professional development opportunities would allow them to see that advantages of technology and how easy it is to learn and integrate them into the classroom.
Looking at our local campus results, it shows that our teachers have put us in the Advanced Tech category which in turn compares to the state average. The state average for 2007-2008 is 57.2% of schools are in the advanced stages. This shows that schools are experiencing a strong technology influence in their schools. I believe that is all campuses goals to reach the Target Tech but only 6.7% of the states schools are at this level now.
My recommendations for our school district would be to maintain the Advanced Tech level and shoot for the Target Tech level. I believe our campus has done an excellent job of keeping up with technology trends and our students are given an opportunity to succeed with the technology given. One area that I wish our administration would address would be for professional development. Our district has many technology opportunities but some of our teachers are having trouble with using and teaching that technology to the students. Some of our "old school" teachers are set in their ways and do not embrace the technology that is available. Having more professional development opportunities would allow them to see that advantages of technology and how easy it is to learn and integrate them into the classroom.
Star Chart
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Star Chart
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