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Individual Teacher Technology Assessment Narrative

Chris Brock

Kennesaw State University

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The United States History professional learning committee (PLC) at Paulding County

High School, was asked to complete two technology questionnaires. The goal of the two

questionnaires was to determine the PLC’s comfort level with technology and their desire to use

instructional technologies in the classroom. Out of the four members of the U.S. History PCL, I

choicse to research Mr. Scott. He is a veteran teacher, with 7 years of completed teaching

experience. Mr. Scott is currently teaching U.S History for the 3 year in a row and is 28 years

old. His 11th grade classroom is equipped with two student computers, one teacher computer and

a Smartboard. Teachers have access to a mobile computer lab and two traditional computer labs.

The three computer labs are designated for Social Studies use and are provide on a first come,

first serve basis.

Levels of Technology Use and Change

On the Levels of Technology questionnaire, Mr. Scott documented that he has a strong

understanding of instructional technology and the importance of digital resources in a 21st

century classroom. Data from the questionnaire indicates that he uses Microsoft PowerPoint,

Microsoft Office 365, Infinite Campus and other desktop software on a daily bases to provide

and support instruction. Mr. Scott discussed that he is “currently working to incorporate a

learning management system (LMS) called Canvas to improve student and instructional

technology use in and outside of the classroom”. (B. Scott, personal communication, October 5,

2017). Another technology Mr. Scott is using in the classroom is his Smartboard and student

response system. He develops knowledge and understanding based multiple choice questions

using the Smartboard software and allows students to take tests using the school smart response

systems. Mr. Scott noted that some of the digital resources that he uses are not visible on a daily

basis. One resource that is hard to see, is the Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS). Mr.
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Scott use SLDS to research students previous levels of academic achievement on high stakes

tests.

Mr. Scott shared that one of his biggest issues with implementing technology in the

classroom is his comfort level with his current instructional practices. Over the last few years, his

students have outperformed the state average for the U.S. History End-of-Course test. Mr. Scott

worries that if he modified his instructional practices to include more technology, the result

would be a decrease students achievement the levels. Mr. Scott noted that thirty percent of his

teacher evaluation is based on student achievement on high stakes testing and a very little of his

teacher rating depends on his use of instructional technologies. Based the data from Mr. Scott’s

LoTi questionnaire, his understanding and implementation of digital resources into instructional

practices would put him in LoTi Level 2 Exploration. At this level, the instructor uses digital

technologies as “extension activities or as enrichment exercises to the instructional program

and/or generally reinforces lower cognitive skill development (Moersch, 1995).

The second questionnaire was an adapter survey to determine how Mr. Scott tends to

embrace innovation and change when it comes to new technologies. His youthful age and his use

of social media such as Instagram and Twitter would probably put him in the early adaptor

range. He considers himself to be a leader when it comes to his personal use of technologies,

which would put him in the early majority range. Mr. Scott consistently ranked himself in the

late majority when measuring his desire to take a chance on or use innovated technologies.

Finally, he claimed that his use of innovative technologies in the classroom has been limited by

school resources and his inability to find time to develop the skills needed to use the technology

during instruction. Based the data from the adapter survey I would identify Mr. Scott as early

majority or late majority.

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Technology Perspective

Although Mr. Scott understands the positives of incorporating instructional technologies

into the classroom setting, he suggests lack of time, practice, school resources and comfort level

play a large role in his unwillingness to use digital resources during lessons. One the issues that

continues to hinder Mr. Scotts use of technology is the time required to become proficient at

using a new digital resource. He is constantly impressed by instructional technologies presented

during professional development, but finds the training insufficient and he never continues to

develop the skills needed on his own time. The lack of school resources, specifically WIFI

access, limits Mr. Scotts desire to use Web 2.0 application during instruction. He mentioned that

he would really like to use formative assessment apps such as Socrative or Formative for

instructional opening and closing, but he continues to use paper quizzes instead of taking a

chance on student phones and apps. Finally, his comfort level and student success rate using his

current instructional strategies make change a difficult process for Mr. Scott.

Based on the questionnaires and conversations with Mr. Scott, he does not seem to be

digitally challenged and he understands how student use of technology could benefit their

academic achievement. At the age of 28, Mr. Scott is still completely capable and willing to

using most modern technologies on his personal time. He understands that he is currently only

using instructional technologies that he is comfortable using in the classroom. In many instances,

he believes that his students are more that capable of using modern resources to gain a better

understanding of U.S. History. The only thing truly limiting Mr. Scott and his student’s use of

digital technologies is his unwillingness to change.

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Technology Training Needs and Coaching

When asked what his greatest needs for coaching were, Mr. Scott stated that he would like to

know more about Canvas LMS. He especially wants to know how to used Canvas to meet the

needs of his co-taught classrooms. The plan for coaching will start with one-on-one meetings to

gain a better understanding of Mr. Scott’s comfort and awareness level with Canvas. After

finding a skill and knowledge baseline, we use our professional learning committee time to work

on individualized instructions. Mr. Scott has agreed to use a collaborative model for instructional

training. Mr. Scott wants to watch others use Canvas, but he wants to make sure that he develops

the skills needed so that he can continued to design instruction on his own. In my opinion,

collaborative planning mixed with instructional modeling will give Mr. Scott a chance to develop

the technical skill needed to make a change in his instructional planning. According to Orr, “for

good or bad, change can be promoted rather easily in a social system through a domino effect.”

(Orr, 2003). Given Mr. Scott’s current technical ability and his desire to change, I believe he

could dramatically impact the other teachers desire to integrate instructional technology into their

daily practices.

We will begin with assessing Mr. Scott’s knowledge and understanding of Canvas LMS.

After the needs based assessment, we will determine the skills Mr. Scott will need to create a

website that will benefit his special needs students. From here, we will set professional

development goals that we will use to assess Mr. Scott’s progress over a two week period. Every

two weeks we will discuss our strengths and weaknesses and develop a new set of objectives for

the next few weeks. After goals have been established, I will develop a professional learning that

will assist Mr. Scott with meeting the weekly instructional goals and objectives. During weekly

meetings, I will give Mr. Scott examples of exemplar Canvas websites and model how the sites
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can be used to meet the differentiated learning goals of special needs students. After providing

exemplars and modeling instruction, Mr. Scott and I will develop a collaborative lesson to help

him develop instruction in Canvas and use the resources during in co-taught classes. If needed I

will model how to use Canvas during instruction class time in Mr. Scott’s class. After Mr. Scott

delivers instruction to his classes, we will meet during planning on the following day to discuss

the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson and our planning. Over the next few training sessions,

Mr. Scott and I will continue to develop his technical ability until he is comfortable with

designing and implementing his own instruction. Once, Mr. Scott has complete confidence in his

understanding of Canvas LMS, he will provide a professional development training for our U.S.

History professional learning committee.

Adapter Survey
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References

B. Scott, personal communication, October, 2017

Moersch, C. (1995). Levels of Technology Implementation (LoTi): A Framework for Measuring

Classroom Technology. Use Retrieved October 07, 2017, from

http://siop.pbworks.com/f/LoTiFrameworkNov95.pdf

Orr. G. (2003). Review of the book Diffusion of Innovation. Retrieved

from https://web.stanford.edu/class/symbsys205/Diffusion%20of%20Innovations.htm