I’m working on a technology self-assessment for our faculty. We’ve collected a number of surveys from the Independent School community and are using them as a base to create our own. I’ll publish that on the School Computing Wiki when it is done — hopefully by the end of the month.
Our assessment is surveying application skills: Wordprocessing, Spreadsheets, Presentation Software, E-mail, Internet, our Student Information System. Our next step is to use the NETS standards to give us real world examples of how to apply technology skills in the classroom. Once we have the results of our skills survey, we’ll offer 1 hour professional development sessions that are focused on applying technology skills for in the classroom.
It is my opinion that there need to be clear expectations on faculty that they keep up to date on current research on teaching and learning, and within that, there is an expectation that they know what technology is out there to use as a tool to enhance the learning in their classrooms. Our goals of these 1 hour sessions is to give them technology skills and a way to use technology to enhance the learning in their classrooms.
I would love to see how other folks are training and evaluating faculty. My feeling is that evaluation needs to be based upon faculty teaching and student learning. Within this evaluation of teaching and learning, tools such as textbooks, worksheets, technology, etc. are critical as they are tools to enable the best possible learning results for all students.
What do you think of this?
If you have good examples, add them to the School Computing Wiki – Teaching with Technology space.
