Project Infusion: teachers, training, and technology

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1 Journal of Information Technology for Teacher Education ISSN: X (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: Project Infusion: teachers, training, and technology Patty Leblanc To cite this article: Patty Leblanc (1996) Project Infusion: teachers, training, and technology, Journal of Information Technology for Teacher Education, 5:1-2, To link to this article: Published online: 13 Nov Submit your article to this journal Article views: 105 View related articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at Download by: [ ] Date: 23 July 2016, At: 06:00

2 Journal of Information Technology for Teacher Education, Vol 5, Nos 1/2, 1996 Project Infusion: teachers, training, and technology PATTY LEBLANC Barry University, Miami Shores, USA ABSTRACT This paper describes a teacher training project at Barry University in Miami Shores, Florida. The purpose of this project is to develop, implement, and evaluate a model for providing district-wide teacher training in the use and integration of instructional technology to achieve curricular goals that are competency-based and designed to be world class standards. The project was funded by the US Department of Education's Fund for Innovation in Education for a period of three years. During that time, 284 elementary teachers received graduate credit at Barry University for participation in an intensive course on the infusion of technology across the curriculum and for conducting teacher training at their own schools. This paper describes the teacher training model and preliminary results of the project. Introduction In August 1992, Dade County, Florida, was dramatically altered by Hurricane Andrew. Ten schools were completely destroyed, 80 schools were damaged, and thousands of dollars of equipment and teaching materials were lost The rebuilding of schools and replacement of equipment and materials afforded the school district a unique opportunity to refurbish" its schools with state-of-the-art technology. This technology, however, involved the sudden need to learn new hardware platforms, new software, and the use of networks. Before the full benefit of this unexpected infusion of technology could be realized, teachers had to be trained to use it effectively. Project Infusion, funded by the US Office of Education's Fund for Innovation in Education, sought to address the teacher training needs created by these changes and proposed a training model that had the capability not only of meeting the needs of hurricane-impacted schools, but also of directly influencing the training of personnel in instructional technology at the elementary school level across the entire school district. 25

3 PATTY LEBLANC Submission of the grant application was made by the Educational Computing and Technology department of the Adrian Dominican School of Education at Barry University, in collaboration with Dade County Public Schools (DCPS) in Miami, Florida. Dade County, Florida is the fourth largest school district in the nation and has 189 public elementary schools with 162,670 students in grades PK-6. In addition, there are 109 nonpublic elementary schools with approximately 12,000 students in grades K-6. The purpose of this project is to develop, implement, and evaluate a model for providing districtwide teacher training in the use and integration of instructional technology to achieve curricular goals that are competency based and designed to be world class standards. The project objectives are: 1. to develop an effective teacher training model for integrating instructional technology within the district's newly developed Competency-based Curriculum (CBC); 2. to implement the model district-wide; 3. to assess the model's effectiveness in assisting teachers with the integration of technology in the classroom and in students' achieving new competencies; and 4. to disseminate information regarding the model and the results of the project. Barry University proposed a training of trainers model to conduct system-wide teacher training to help teachers utilize and integrate available state-of-the-art technology in the teaching of math, science, social studies, language arts and English as a second language. The key components of this model include: best practice in teacher training/professional development; levels of training: university, school based, and parent; competitive recruitment of teachers to be trained; intensive, graduate level training of project teachers; administrative involvement at all levels of project; and 'clinical' follow-up of trained teachers responsible for training personnel at their school sites. These components will be elaborated upon in this paper in order to describe the project and its implementation. Best Practice in Teacher Training The first three months of the first project year were set aside for planning, recruiting both students and two project staff members, and developing curriculum for the two graduate courses offered to project teachers. During this period, the project director conducted an extensive review of the literature on effective teacher training and effective teacher training in technology. The seminal works by Joyce (1990) and Joyce & Showers on 26

4 INFUSION OF TECHNOLOGY PROJECT effective in-service education (1983, 1988) and Joyce, Showers, & Rolheiser-Bennett (1987) served to guide the development of the Infusion training model. Joyce & Showers's model (1983, 1988) was originally developed as a result of a meta-analysis of research studies on effective in-service training for teachers. From their analysis, Joyce & Showers were able to identify a number of teacher training components that contribute to the transfer of knowledge or skills into actual classroom practice: 1. Presentation of theory or description of skill or strategy; 2. Modeling or demonstration of skills or models of teaching; 3. Practice in simulated and classroom settings; 4. Structured and open-ended feedback (provision of information about performance); and 5. Coaching for application (hands on, in-class assistance with the transfer of skills and strategies in the classroom). Joyce & Showers conclude that for maximum effectiveness of most training activities, it would be wise to include several or all the components listed. The design of Project Infusion itself and each of the nine training sessions developed by project staff focus on modeling desired technology integration strategies and providing frequent, consistent practice of skills in the context of classroom based scenarios. In addition, learning theory and cognition are emphasized as part of the reflection on the class activities and the rationale for the process used. Finally, coaching is implemented throughout the two courses offered to project participants. Levels of Training Each project year, elementary school teachers are selected from applications from Dade County Public Schools and interested private schools. We believe that by focusing on elementary school teachers, we can maximize impact and provide more generic integrative strategies in the training. Because elementary teachers typically are responsible for all the subject areas, they can more easily integrate technology across the curriculum in a holistic way. Using grant monies, selected teachers receive tuition remission at Barry University for 6 credit hours in Educational Computing and Technology which they can apply toward 1) a master's or specialist's degree in Educational Computing and Technology and/or 2) state re-certification requirements. These teachers are called the Level I students or teachers. Barry offered four 9-week cycles the first year of the project, and five 9-week cycles during the second and third years of the project In this way, four groups of Level I students with 20 students per group were trained in the first year, and 5 groups of 20 students per group were trained in the second and third years (a total of 280 teachers). 27

5 PATTY LEBLANC The first course the teachers take is ECT 680, Integrating Technology in the Elementary Classroom, a three-credit course that includes a comprehensive examination of instructional technology, learning theory and research in the field, competency-based curriculum and technology, models of teaching and learning with technology, and integration of instructional technology across the elementary curriculum. The second three-credit course, ECT 690 Teachers, Training, and Technology, is designed to be a practicum during which Level I project teachers are to: 1. develop, with their principals and/or school management teams, teacher in-services at their school sites; 2. carry out teacher training at their schools in collaboration with Barry University staff; 3. implement their personal technology infusion plan and evaluate its effectiveness; and 4. collaborate with teachers at their school sites to develop classroom infusion plans and parent training activities. The teachers to be trained at the individual schools (called Level II teachers) receive Teacher Education Center (TEC) credit to apply toward re-certification. The Level II teachers, in collaboration with the Level I trainers, are responsible for developing and implementing a personal technology infusion plan for their own classroom teaching and for providing technology training to interested parents as part of their course requirements. Level I trainers are supervised and mentored by project staff during the practicum course in a type of 'clinical' followup as they conduct in-service training at their respective schools for their colleagues. The followup training.is conducted collaboratively with project personnel present to provide feedback and encouragement to the trainers and to ensure that the quality of the training provided to Level II teachers is high. In some cases, in-services are videotaped for review and analysis by Barry faculty and Level I teachers. Competitive Recruitment of Teachers Eighty teachers from the school district and private schools were selected to participate in the first year of the project, with 100 teachers participating during each of the second and third years of the project. Another element of the teacher trainer selection process which we believe has enhanced its success is the selection of two teachers per school. In this way, support during the initial training and the follow-up training can be generated and sustained. The intensive training which the Level I teachers receive makes it necessary for prospective participants to have an intermediate level of knowledge and sophistication in the use of instructional technology in order 28

6 INFUSION OF TECHNOLOGY PROJECT for the infusion program to be successful. Prospective participants are required to provide documentation of the following: satisfactory completion of an introduction to computers or computer literacy course or commensurate experience; proof of current activities using technology (student products, project descriptions, or narratives); and principal recommendation. Participation in the project is open to all applicants who meet the eligibility requirements regardless of race, color, national origin, gender, age, or handicapping condition. Intensive Graduate Level Training Level I training is conducted at Barry using Macintosh, DOS, and Windows platforms. The training content for the first three-hour course was designed as nine topical modules. All of the modules emphasize ways in which state-of-the-art technology can be used to strengthen instruction in the core subject areas: Session 1: Introduction to Technology across the Curriculum Session 2: Teacher Tools Session 3: Desktop Publishing for Teachers and Children. Session 4: Databases across the Curriculum Session 5: Multimedia Session 6: Authoring and Presentation Packages Session 7: Telecommunications* Session 8: Putting It All Together Session 9: Visioning; Best Practice in Teacher Training [* Telecommunications is actually a strand that cuts across each session.] Instruction for each of the sessions is provided by the project director, who is a faculty member from the Educational Computing and Technology department at Barry University, and the teacher on special assignment from Dade County Public Schools. Administrator/School Management Team Involvement A key component of the Infusion model is active involvement of the school administrator and/or the school management team (for school-based managed schools) in all phases of the project Project applicants must be recommended by the school principal. This recommendation is based not only on the teacher's level of expertise in technology and potential for graduate work, but also on the applicant's ability to train others. At the same time, the principal must sign a document stating that he or she is committed to collaborating with the teacher trainers in 29

7 PATTY LEBLANC designing an in-service action plan and implementing Level II training at the school site. Principals are also asked to attend at least one training session provided by the Level I trainer and to provide feedback to Barry personnel regarding the quality of training. Clinical Follow-up of Trained Teachers The second three-hour course, a 45-hour practicum, consists of: 1. co-development of an action plan for in-service at the school site with the principal/school management team; 2. implementation of the in-service plan at the school site under the supervision of Barry faculty and the school administration; 3. evaluation of the implementation at the school site; 4. collaboration with Level II teachers in the development of their infusion plans and parent training activities; 5. development and implementation of a personal infusion plan designed to integrate technology into the competency-based curriculum for delivery in their own classrooms; and 6. preparation of one of the following: an article about the project and its effects for publication; presentation of project model or results to interested persons at local, regional, state, or national conferences; or development of a multimedia presentation on the project. The content of the Level II training conducted at the school sites is determined collaboratively by the Level I teachers and the school administration/management team after a careful review by the project director. Most teachers opt to receive in-service points for their participation in the training activities, ranging from points toward re-certification. As part of their inservice requirements, the Level II teachers are asked to 1) design, implement, and evaluate a personal infusion plan for integrating technology in their classrooms, and 2) to design some type of parent training. The latter requirement frequently takes the shape of a 'technology night' or a Saturday class where parents and children interact together with a specific piece of software, or a hands-on training session for parents, or a number of creative ways teachers can devise to deliver training. The Level I teachers supervise the Level II teachers' implementation of their action plans and often serve as mentors to novice and intermediate users at their schools. 30

8 INFUSION OF TECHNOLOGY PROJECT Evaluation Plan The evaluation model used by Project Infusion includes formative and summative evaluation processes, with the goal of measuring progress towards project objectives and ensuring the smooth operation of the program. Formative Evaluation Procedures Progress toward the project objectives is established for Level I teachers in the following ways and kept in individual folios: course grades for each of the two courses taken; course evaluations completed by project teachers on the effectiveness of their training at Barry; a pre/post checklist designed to assess level of use of technology in the classroom before training and 6 to 12 months later; an evaluation form designed to measure the effectiveness of the in-service training provided by Level I teachers; an examination of the action plan developed by each school partnership for their school sites for feasibility; administrator rating of the effectiveness of the training provided at the school site; evidence of publications, presentations, or product development that indicates extended activities in the use of technology in the classroom; and evidence of additional course work or professional development activities related to the use of technology as a classroom tool. For Level II teachers, similar measures will be obtained and kept in folios: satisfactory completion of the TEC component(s) at their school sites; course evaluations completed by teachers on the effectiveness of their training by Level I trainers and Barry staff; a pre/post checklist designed to assess level of use of technology in the classroom before training and 6 to 12 months later; the development and implementation of a technology infusion plan for their own classrooms; an examination of the action plans developed by teachers for training parents and the results of training; and a report on the challenges of using technology with students and how those challenges can be addressed. Summative Evaluation At the end of each project year (September), the project administrator is responsible for completing a report of progress toward project goals and 31

9 PATTY LEBLANC objectives. A comprehensive summative evaluation report will be submitted at the end of the third project year. At a minimum, the final evaluation report will include the following: number of Level I and Level II teachers trained; number of public and private schools involved in training; course evaluations of Level I and Level II teachers; descriptions of training content; descriptions of formative evaluation data which influenced policy or practice; descriptive/evaluative summaries of Level I and II student folios; data analysis from the pre/post checklist on integration of technology in classroom activities; evaluative data derived from the videotaped training sessions; evidence of publications, presentations, and products developed as a result of the project; and evidence of numbers of students seeking additional coursework or professional activities related to technology as a classroom tool. In addition to the above mentioned processes, monthly budget reviews are conducted by the project director and the Controller's office at Barry. Project Results Data analysis for the summative evaluation began in the summer Preliminary evaluative data indicate that Project Infusion has been very effective in achieving its goals and objectives. At the end of the third and final project year, 284 teachers representing 142 elementary schools will have participated in Project Infusion. Approximately 2,000 teachers and parents at each of the represented schools will have participated in the Level II training and will continue to receive mentoring from the Level I teachers. These teachers will impact approximately 48,000 students each year. We believe that this model has proven to be a very cost effective method of achieving district-wide staff development in the use of technology across the curriculum. Last year, Project Infusion was one of nine projects statewide identified as an exemplary initiative in math, science, and technology related education in Florida's college and universities by the Florida Department of Education's Post Secondary Education Planning Commission. Other indicators of success are as follows: Observations of school-based training sessions indicate that they have been very effective in motivating teachers to use technology as an instructional tool. In addition, training materials developed by Project Infusion teachers are outstanding. Project Infusion students have written and received technology-based grants totalling more than one million dollars. 32

10 INFUSION OF TECHNOLOGY PROJECT Twelve Project Infusion participants have presented parts of their action plans at professional conferences and meetings. Several have added their materials to the Project Infusion WWW page. Twenty-five percent of the Project Infusion students who come for the initial Infusion courses enter the master's, specialist's, or doctoral programs in educational technology at Barry. Many of the Project Infusion teachers have become the technology coordinators or resource teachers at their schools, indicating Infusion's capacity building efforts. Dissemination Plans We believe that this project demonstrates an effective model for district-wide training of teachers in the use of technology across the curriculum to support world class curriculum standards. We hope to share the model, its implementation, and results with other educators and government agencies across the United States. Project information will be shared with the Bureau of Educational Technology of the Florida Department of Education, which has a broad dissemination function to both public and private schools, district offices, universities, and government agencies. This Bureau is responsible for the statewide telecommunications network called FIRN, which will also be used to share results. Each Level I student will be responsible for one of the following dissemination tasks: 1. submitting an article about the project and its effects to a newsletter, newspaper, journal, or electronic network; 2. presenting the project model, implementation, and/or results at PTA meetings, local, regional, state or national conferences, or other interested parties; 3. developing or codeveloping with Barry faculty a multimedia presentation or Web page for disseminating information about the project; or 4. assisting in the development of the application for review by the Program Effectiveness Panel. This dissemination model makes for information sharing on a broad scale and places Level I teachers in an active role of informing other teachers about technology and its uses in education. Barry faculty, in collaboration with interested students, will develop a multimedia presentation describing the project and its accomplishments, along with video clips of actual Level I and Level II training for dissemination to interested universities or school districts. This information, along with the Infusion training materials (coursepack), will be added to the Infusion WWW page ( 33

11 PATTY LEBLANC Finally, if the project's model and implementation prove effective, the university will make application to the Federal Government's Program Effectiveness Panel for review as an exemplary program. Conclusions Using the training of trainers model, 93% of all of the public elementary schools in Dade County could be in-serviced during a three-year period, with two people at each school having had graduate coursework in the integration of instructional technology across the elementary curriculum. We believe that this model has already proven to be a highly cost effective method of providing high quality teacher training in state-of-the-art instructional technology and that the benefits of this infusion of technology training will continue for many years to come. Note Project Infusion is funded by the Secretary's Fund for Innovation in Education, US Department of Education. Project funding amounts to $600,000 for three years. This level of funding represents 54% of the total cost of the project, with Barry University contributing the remaining 46% of the cost of the project Correspondence Patty LeBlanc, Adrian Dominican School of Education, Barry University, NE Second Ave., Miami Shores, FL 33161, USA. (pieblanc@bu4090.barry.edu). References Joyce, B. (Ed.) (1990) Changing School Culture through Staff Development. Alexandria: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Joyce, B. & Showers, B. (1983) Power in Staff Development through Research in Training. Alexandria: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ERIC document Reproduction Service no. ED ) Joyce, B. & Showers, B. (1988) Student Achievement through Staff Development. New York: Longman. Joyce, B., Showers, B. & Rolheiser-Bennett C. (1987) Staff development and student learning: a synthesis of research on models of teaching, Educational Leadership, 45(2), pp