Educator Preparation

This area of the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology is divided into six categories to monitor: 1) how teachers are progressing with their technological skills and the implementation of those skills in the classroom, 2) how well the campus/district is providing and making accessible adequate professional development, and 3) are teachers being trained for online learning. When looking at the Campus Statewide Summary for the last several years the Developing Tech level of progress percentages are steadily growing but by larger numbers than the Early Tech level is shrinking. The reason is clear when you observe the Advanced level. The Advanced Tech level percentages are lowering almost point for point with the rise in Developing Tech levels. This raises concerns with the validity of the STaR Chart and if it can accurately be used to determine and fund professional development for teachers. Are we losing advanced level teachers and replacing them with developing level or is the technology moving beyond the level of training. I wish to believe the later and this is an indication that professional development in technology training is not keeping pace with the 21st Century learner needs. Unfortunately, this is the trend on my campus. In three years we have gone from advanced with a total of 16 to developing for the last two years with totals of 14 and 12 respectively. With our total dropping two points each year something needs to change in our professional development process even though we somewhat mimic the Statewide Summary. Two components that have remained the same over the last three years are: Levels of understanding and patterns of use, and Professional development for online learning. The lack of increase in these components of Educator Preparation and Development indicate that we are not moving forward in establishing learner-centered environments for our students. As the administrator on my campus this would clearly imply the need for change in our professional development approach. A systematic method of documenting individual teacher progress and providing opportunities to meet individual goals for each teacher. This would at least ensure that we keep progressing and moving forward as a campus.