EdTechspiration

Helping teachers prepare students for tomorrow, today.

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Connecting EdTech to Curriculum: Working with Performance Indicators

For technology integration to successfully support learning, it must be built upon a solid curricular foundation. Sometimes it is difficult to create projects which support curriculum and feel authentic.

So how do we design technology rich lessons which actually allow students to demonstrate mastery of curriculum objectives? One way of doing this is to use performance indicators. A performance indicator is a behavioral statement which describes what a student can do if they master a particular goal or learning objective.

For example, a typical Algebra I objective might read, “The student understands that a function represents a dependence of one quantity on another and can be described in a variety of ways.” An objective like this will actually be supported by a number of performance indicators describing skills or tasks that students should be able to do if they have truly mastered the objective. One of the performance indicators for this objective would read, “Interpret and make decisions, predictions, and critical judgments from functional relationships.

Where to I find technology resources that relate to this performance indicator? Fortunately, the staff at the Region 12 Education Service Center in Texas have created a web site that takes the mystery out of finding appropriate Web 2.0 resources to match specific performance indicators. Though this site is created to support CSCOPE, a widely adopted curriculum in Texas, it can be used for any set of content standards with performance indicators that your district happens to use.

verbs

Verbs from Performance Indicators

http://hightechcscopeverbs.wikispaces.com

To use this resource, simply find the verb in your performance indicator and click on that  same verb in the list. You will be redirected to a page containing a series of Web 2.0 resources that relate to that verb. For example, “Interpret and make decisions, predictions, and critical judgments from functional relationships,” contains the verb interpret. From the list of verbs, I click on the word, interpret.

 

verbs

Choose the verb used in your performance indicator

I am then redirected to a page of resources from which I can choose, or better yet, my students can choose, to demonstrate their ability to “Interpret and make decisions, predictions, and critical judgments from functional relationships.” The site actually groups the verbs into categories. Interpret is related to understanding, so when you click on that verb, it actually directs you to the resources listed for the verb, understand.

Web 2.0 Resources

Web 2.0 resources that students can use to demonstrate that they can “interpret” something.

You still have to establish criteria by which you will assess student performance, but this resource will at least take much of the ambiguity out of deciding where to start.

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A journey of a thousand miles…

depends on professional development.

Our school district recently decided that it was time to join the 21st Century. Sanger ISD, a small to medium sized rural public school district in Texas charged with educating the minds of about 2600 students. Similar to many districts our size, we have always done an excellent job teaching the core subjects. Recent administration decided that teaching the core is no longer sufficient to help kids succeed in the future. It was time that Sanger made the transition from analog teaching and embrace the digital age.

“Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.” -Will Rogers

From humble beginnings a colossal mess was made. We were excited; one could even say we were inspired. We knew the kinds of things we wanted to see happening in the classroom. We knew what kinds of things were already happening in classrooms. The road ahead lay before us, but the map is not the territory.

Just like learning to ride a bike, teaching others how to integrate 21st Century Learning into their classrooms is accompanied by its own set of bumps and scrapes.

A few fundamental insights came out of these painful first attempts at district wide training.

  • You have to teach the buttons and clicks
  • Teachers under 30 generally get technology quicker than teachers over 40
    • Make handouts if anyone in your audience is over 40
  • Elementary teachers speak a different language than Secondary teachers
    • Elementary teachers want to process and want you to see what a great job they are doing.
    • Secondary teachers want the same thing, but pretend they don’t.
  • Lather – Rinse – Repeat: Repetition is key for skill acquisition

“It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know ain’t so.” -Will Rogers

Anytime you move people’s cheese by promoting systemic change, you have to take the time to help them open to the possibility that there might be a better way.

Education changes all the time. Veteran teachers know that if they wait long enough, the newest, greatest innovations in education will go away. Then we can all get back to what we were doing before. The classic whole language versus phonics debate is an excellent example.  There is another fundamental truth: if you give a cookie to one kid in the class, all the others are going to want one too. We gambled on this and it paid off.

A core group of teachers with representatives from each campus was selected to participate in professional development from Apple. Apple generally only teaches 16 people in a session, so it created a VIP Only type of scenario. We chose teachers who were respected on their campuses, but not necessarily the most tech savvy. After training, this core group returned to their campuses, passionate about bringing some new innovative tools into their classrooms.

Other teachers noticed, and overnight interest in our program went through the roof.

“Always leave them wanting more.” -P.T. Barnum

Apple has mastered this concept. Whether you know it or not, iOS 6 and Mountain Lion will so significantly improve your quality of life, you will literally self-actualize from the moment you swipe your debit card. This concept is a basic tenet of showmanship. Let’s face it, there has to be a little razzle-dazzle in your teaching and professional development if you want to truly engage your audience. We designed our trainings in 50-minute sessions where teachers could work on or complete a really quick project to take back to their classrooms. Woven through each of the sessions were little teasers of what was to come in other trainings. Just enough to wet their appetite for the next session.

“The main thing, is to keep the main thing the main thing.” -Steven Covey

Teachers have to know how to take the skills they learn and put them into effective use in the classroom. They also have to know how to tie these skills to curriculum based performance indicators in order to see any gains in student achievement. The next article in this series will explore some very practical tools that help teachers do just that. So until next time, “stay thirsty my friends!”

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