Educators as Learning Catalyst Analysts

Analyst- Educators understand and use data to drive their instruction and support students in achieving their learning goals. Educators:

• Provide alternative ways for students to demonstrate competency and reflect on their learning using technology.
• Use technology to design and implement a variety of formative and summative assessments that accommodate learner needs, provide timely feedback to students and inform instruction. 
• Use assessment data to guide progress and communicate with students, parents and education stakeholders to build student self-direction. (ISTE Standards for Educators, 2016)

As a parent of two daughters that really struggle with test anxiety, I am thankful that technology can often create opportunities for alternative ways to assess. Having students create presentations of their learning allows for alternatives to the traditional formative and summative assessments of "test day." Creating rubrics can both guide students in understanding what they will be responsible for learning as well as creating an upfront knowledge of what will be assessed and how. As a sometimes Type A personality I have a daughter that truly does better on any paper or project if the parameters for expectations and evaluation are laid out clearly. Technology can aid in that.

One of the major efficiencies for technology in the classroom is in relation to digital assessments. Technology used for grading assessment gives faster feedback than ever before. Self-grading assessments, speed graders like in the Canvas LMS, and the ability to see all answers in one place allows educators the opportunity to truly use assessment data to guide their instruction not just to evaluate learning of the instruction.

Digital assessments create a series of data points that can readily be evaluated for individualized purposes. This can mean anything from competency based mastery path individualized learning plans to adjusting whole classroom instruction to best meet the classroom needs for the next day due to assessment results. Digital assessments allow for quick responses to all stakeholders- students, teachers, and parents. If it is in the form of formative assessments, it can show gaps or weaknesses that need more attention before a summative assessment takes place.

In today's world of adaptive software that adjusts to student learning, algorithms can serve the role of analyst for the educator while the educator spends more time in collaborator, designer, and facilitator  roles as learning catalysts described in the ISTE Standards for Educators.

Educators as Empowered Leaders (Blog 3 of 8 in the series on unpacking the ISTE Standards for Educators)

Empowered Professional

2.  Leader-Educators seek out opportunities for leadership to support student empowerment and    success and to improve teaching and learning. Educators:

• Shape, advance and accelerate a shared vision for empowered learning with technology by engaging with education stakeholders.
• Advocate for equitable access to educational technology, digital content and learning opportunities to meet the diverse needs of all students.
• Model for colleagues the identification, exploration, evaluation, curation and adoption of new digital resources and tools for learning.  (ISTE Standards for Educators -2016)

I have learned over my lifetime that titles don't make leaders, leaders become leaders because they have attributes worthy of following. As we all know, just because you use technology in a classroom does not make you a leader. But this series of blog posts are about those educators among us that lead others to see the value of technology integration. I'll be honest I know I've been seen as both a leader and a troublemaker. I've been valued for my knowledge in instructional technology and I have been devalued because I was not seen as balanced. I will say that both views have turned me into the better educator that I am today. I know that my administrators sometimes get tired of my barrage of emails about latest research, tools, and tweets. What they don't know is how often I want to send things but don't! Yeah, if you are reading this...believe it or not I do try to be discerning with my shares! 

For me, I try to keep my focus on what I believe good technology integration can do for students.  My constant connection to education stakeholders in my district is to give them a glimpse of things out there. It's not an easy job to be the one pushing others towards visionary technology integration. In fact, sometimes it can feel professionally deflating. I am a passionate person and I believe in personalized learning. For most of my life, that wasn't practical in the educational arena because of the number of students a teacher has but with the advancements of technology, we now have the ability to work smarter in digitizing repetitive tasks and using technology to aid the learning. 

While I happen to work in a very tech rich school system, I still find myself lobbying for equitable use of technology because some teachers don't value and do not want to use technology in their classrooms. By creating some technology expectations for our students to have at graduation, it puts the onus on everyone to make sure our students are graduating with skills needed in this digital age. I know many teachers that would give their eye teeth to have access to technology for their students. If you are in this type of environment, you need to become a prophet to your district so that the digital divide doesn't impact your students.

Should every teacher be an empowered leader regarding technology? In theory, yes. If we were all sharing the tools and the pedagogy behind using the tools with each other then our students would benefit from the combined knowledge of us all. One of the ways I share about the value of tools to our teachers is by giving them hands-on opportunities to participate with them as a student. For instance, having them create a flipgrid video for a fellow coworker allowed them to see the benefits of using it in their classroom for video formative assessment. One of the hardest roles for me is sharing the pedagogical advantages to using technology. For many educators, it is hard to accept that technology has transformational value. To hear it from me, the technology coordinator, seems like the Great Oz is really the little man behind the current. Therefore, I work hand in hand with teachers that believe there has to be a better way and prove that there is. I now have a trust bond with these teachers and they are much more likely to listen to me when I share things now. Modeling, adopting, trying and failing, and listening are all keys to becoming an empowered educator leader. But the biggest thing, and the hardest, is not to become discouraged when you don't feel heard or valued in your knowledge. Keep going and fighting the good fight for the benefit of your students! 

Interpreting the "ISTE Standards for Educators" (Series 1 of 8)

As a member of ISTE (the International Society for Technology in Education), I appreciate the vetting process that the student, educator, and administrator standards go through to support best practice digital age educational environments. These standards focus on learning and not the tools to learn. While the standards have concrete ways to address technology integration, all of these standards are goals educators should and do have for themselves in general.

This is part one of an 8 part series that gives my views and suggestions on how educators can use these standards as a catalyst for becoming significant adopters of the digital landscape in regards to educational technology. Each of the 7 areas designated give educators agency in creating meaningful opportunities in their classroom that encourages digital skills for our students. I have quoted and requoted this statement: "65% of children entering primary school today will ultimately end up working in completely new job types that don’t yet exist, according to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report." With that we need to prepare students with skill sets that will transfer to any job that they might have. The ISTE Standards for Students  create a framework to make that happen but in order for that to come to fruition, there has to be an understanding of the role of the educator in this digital age. 

The following outline explains the goals of the ISTE Standards for Educators (the dates by each section is when I will be blogging about that particular standard):

• Empowered Professional

• Learner (week of 10/9/17)
• Leader (week of 10/16/17)
• Citizen (week of 10/23/17)

• Learning Catalyst
• Collaborator (week of 10/30/17)
• Designer (week of 11/6/17)
• Facilitator (week of 11/13/17)
• Analyst (week of 11/20/17)

Often when people feel they are being held to a standard they immediately hesitate or push back. It feels like another box to check, lesson to learn or reason to feel challenged. As with any standard we are striving for competency in, excellence is not immediately expected but forward motion is the key. Unlike other standards, I feel these standards empower educators in the classroom to be recognized for their stepping out of the traditional framework of teaching and walking the plank of change but instead of an awaiting group of hungry crocodiles, freedom to work with students that desire to be self-motivated learners can await. To adopt the ISTE Standards for Educators means a willingness to see cultural changes from what has been the norm in education. I can tell you from firsthand knowledge, it won't come easy. Students aren't use to having agency in their learning in the way their ISTE student standards provide. Teachers aren't use to the lack of "control" that their ISTE educator standards suggest.

I do believe these standards will be accepted and widespread in 5-10 years as the norm. If you look at the "life expectancy" and re-writes of all the ISTE standards, they change based on the norm catching up with them...and like any good goal, the finish line moves again. Right now I look at some of the above subsections and think "we just aren't there yet" or "wow, is that who we want our teachers to be?" but I believe the gauntlet is there for competency to be had. I believe the empowerment teachers would feel if they were in this type of educational culture would make them feel both needed and successful.

Often teachers worry that they will be replaced by technology but the goals of the ISTE Standards for Educators is to create opportunities for teachers to truly touch every life in a personal way by leveraging the use of technology to give more time to the teacher's and student's day. These standards encourage teachers to model what lifelong learning looks like as they learn their students and lead them.