Unlocking Excellence With Keys To Quality Align Appropriate Technologies Within Your Schools Strategic Improvement Plan
- 1. Unlocking Excellence with Keys to Quality: Align Appropriate Technologies within the Continuous Improvement Planning Process The leadership of today’s schools supports both students’ academic success and their preparation for employment in a global work environment. As stimulus funds become available to U.S. school districts, it remains critical that technology tools and resources are aligned with system_, school_, and classroom-identified student academic outcomes. In support of embedding technology solutions within the continuous improvement planning process, educational technology leaders acknowledge the need to become actively engaged in the dialog about proven research-based strategies supporting student success and the development of 21st century skills. Those strategies, valued school leaders across the United States, include: • Balanced assessments for learning with an emphasis on formative assessments • The development of professional learning communities that foster teachers’ ability to regularly collaborate together • Personalization of learning • Standards-based classrooms • The effective use of data analysis to formatively inform teaching and learning These strategies resonate with educational leadership organizations such as the Association for Supervision of Curriculum Development (ASCD), National School Board Association (NSBA), International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), and the Consortium of School Networking (COSN).
- 2. To align appropriate technology solutions, it is increasingly important that technology leaders have a common language with which to communicate about the continuous school improvement planning process and proven, research-based strategies. The research-based resources within the Georgia Department of Education’s (GaDOE) Keys to Quality: Unlocking Excellence through Georgia School Standards provide a platform upon which technology leaders can build such a common language. The Keys to Quality describe what Georgia’s schools need to know and be able to do, in the same way that Georgia Performance Standards describe what Georgia’s students need to know and be able to do. The Keys to Quality set resources, which Georgia has provided to every school in the state, define targets using rubrics and resources to assist educators in ways to periodically “take their school improvement temperature” to monitor the effectiveness of their school improvement plans. In the same vein, the Keys to Quality provide technology leaders with a common language about research-based strategies that school leaders’ value in the pursuit of student and school success. The Keys to Quality rubrics define the optimum target as fully operational. The areas of instruction, assessment, curriculum, and professional learning serve as examples of where technology leaders can infuse and align appropriate technologies and 21st century skills. Aligning appropriate technology tools and resources within the continuous improvement planning process positions technology leaders for engaging in dialog with system and school leaders who are also working towards the common goal of student and school success. Technology leaders can improve the process by considering the following action steps: 2
- 3. • Become knowledgeable and actively engaged in the goals and strategies in your system or school continuous improvement process • Embed technology initiatives within your system/school continuous improvement plan • Consider serving as an advocate for the development of technology infused professional learning within the strategies that your system or schools’ have identified within their continuous improvement plan(s) • Participate in conferences that foster research-based strategies, such as ASCD, NSBA, ISTE, and that provide opportunities to learn along with peers • Read and share journals such as ASCD’s Educational Leadership and ISTE’s Learning and Leading with Technology; • Consider becoming an active participant in your state’s technology leadership organization(s) • Consider mentoring or requesting mentorship, from state technology leaders who understand the significance of aligning their work to the continuous improvement planning process. Technology leaders are poised to become actively engaged with educational leaders’ ongoing commitment to student and school success. Take time from your busy days to meet with peers to share both proven practices and struggles in aligning your work with the continuous school improvement planning process. 3
- 4. In the accountability-oriented environment of our nation’s business and educational environments, the continued alignment of appropriate technologies within the continuous improvement planning processes provide opportunities to provide results supporting student academic success and the development of 21st century skills. 4