Technology Working Group Proposal #5 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Need/Purpose/Fit to TPI Mission University faculty members who prepare teacher-education students with relevant technology skills must, themselves, model the integrative use of technology. Substantial creative effort is invested in development of new technological tools and competencies within a subject-area expertise. In order for SCSU graduates to enter the teaching workforce with relevant, integrative technology skills, faculty who innovate with technology must count on the support of administration. This proposal aims to reconcile the performance incentive structure for promotion and tenure with the value that technology is important for new teachers.

Objectives The goal of this proposal is to secure formal recognition that SCSU faculty members’ achievements in technology integration and development, within their areas of specialization, will be seen as valid and equal to traditional examples of activities accepted as indicators of the five criteria for promotion as outlined in Articles 22 and 25 of the IFO Master Agreement (with emphasis on creative work, instruction and service). Faculty members will be able to receive feedback and recognition, as part of the PDP/PDR process, indicating that a long-term agenda of technology development or integration, one which substantially benefits the faculty member’s area of professional specialization and expertise, will be counted in a like manner as established indicators (e.g., a published journal article as evidence of creative work; an editorship as evidence of service, and other benchmarks).

Methodology An advisory team of faculty, recruited on the basis of their demonstrated accomplishments in technology creative work and service, will be formed for the purpose of identifying examples of appropriate technology integrations and products that should be seen as valid and equal to other indicators of Article 22 development. This team will dialog with the provost and deans to raise awareness of the benefits this would provide to the university, specifically for students in teacher education programs. If accepted by the Deans, this proposal would be communicated by the 1

Provost for discussion among department EPT committees and faculty. The result would be awareness by faculty about the value of technology development and integration as a means of demonstrating achievements as defined by Articles 22 and 25.

Expected outcomes of the proposal This proposal will result in SCSU faculty members’ increased commitment to technological developments that matter within their professional specializations. (Possible examples of such creative products might include a wiki, software program or iPad app that could be applied to a P-12 environment, higher education, or both.) In turn these discoveries would be available to teacher-education students, who would benefit (1) from tangible access to representations of new knowledge, and (2) from reflecting meaningfully on the experience of synthesizing, integrating, and evaluating the technological knowledge and skills necessary in the 21st-century classroom.

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Narrative Description Need/Purpose/Fit to TPI Mission University faculty members who prepare their teacher-education students to use new and relevant technologies are preparing a generation of new teachers ready to meet the challenge of the 21st-century classroom. SCSU faculty who can facilitate this growth build on the standards of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and its instructional competencies (“21st-Century Skills”). However, faculty are not passive consumers of innovative tools, techniques, and technologies, but also skilled producers and creators of knowledge. The work of creating new technologies and mastering new competencies is not cursory or superficial, but thoughtful, integrative and reflexive. In order to fully empower SCSU faculty to integrate technology within their content areas, the administration must recognize technology development within faculty members’ content-areas of expertise as an established way to meet the creative-work criterion used to evaluate faculty for tenure and promotion according to the IFO Master Agreement, Articles 22 and 25.

Unifying Goal This proposal asks that the SCSU administration formally recognizes the time, effort, and scholarship invested by faculty in the development and integration of new technologies, relevant to their field of specialization on a scale that places these efforts and products as valid and equal to traditional examples of activities accepted as indicators of the five criteria for promotion (with emphasis on creative work, instruction and service). This proposal asks that Faculty members receive the assurance that scholarship and service which results in the development and application of technology tools, skills and knowledge will be measured according to its beneficial usage within a training content area, much as the publication of journal articles and service activities currently is evaluated within the framework of meeting programmatic, departmental and school identity and goals. Rationale The landscape of educational technology changes rapidly. SMARTBoards and iPads, now ubiquitous, will give way to something new soon. Yet the danger faced by “early adopters,” those who embrace new technologies and seek out their potential uses, is that of simply parroting the claims of marketing departments: For good or ill, for-profit vendors exercise tight control over the design of most hardware and software. University faculty who educate teachereducation students are reluctant to produce automatons, graduates who unquestioningly push buttons in blind faith that operating the latest software program is part of being an effective new teacher. Something more is needed: University graduates must be able to reflect, evaluate and 3

critique their utilization of computer technology, a subset of their critical thinking regarding all aspects of essential teaching. To fully model these reflexive attitudes and higher-order skills, faculty themselves must apply technology purposefully and mindfully in the educational setting. One possibility is that faculty must become active developers and advocates of the newer technologies. For example, rather than wait for the ideal grade-level activity workbook to be printed, faculty can create an online wiki. Rather than wait for the ideal training video to be published, faculty can shoot and edit one with their students. Rather than wait for the iPad app sorely needed in a subject, faculty can create one, or commission, implement and evaluate one. The benefit of empowering faculty members to take an active role in technology development is that faculty have the experience, subject-area knowledge and pedagogical knowledge that technological experts per se do not have. In addition, because of the P-12/University partnership inherent within TPI, P-12 teachers, university faculty and teacher education students have the opportunity to work collaboratively on technology integration projects. University faculty, in cooperation with P-12 teachers and teacher education students have the potential to create a transformative work that will not only bring utility to a particular task, but also guide students’ conceptual development and encourage reflection, evaluation and innovation characteristic of higher-order learning. However, the consequence of faculty taking an active role is that technology development, much like traditional creative and service work, requires an investment of time and research energy. Formal description that technology development is appropriate for faculty who prepare new teachers, comparable to other Article 22 and 25 activities for creative work, teaching and service, will affirm that technology competencies are important for new teachers themselves -- and recognize that SCSU faculty who innovate are modeling higher-order reasoning, with direct and indirect benefits for teacher-education students.

Objectives This proposal, if accepted by the Coordinating Team, would become the subject of a conversation among TPI, the faculty, the Deans and the Provost. In order to provide the incentive that is needed to properly support faculty who innovate with technology, this conversation should culminate in a written document accepted by the faculty, the Deans and the Provost. Such a document must provide clear guidance to all faculty members that technology development activities which are found acceptable by department EPT committees as evidence of the advancement of professional fields would also be acceptable to the administration. As such, the advocated outcome of this proposal would be a policy statement. No other materials, inputs, or further actions are specified. However, it is anticipated that the long-term outcome of this proposal will be enhanced support for technology development at SCSU which 4

relates to the subject-area specializations of teacher-education students; such an outcome will spring entirely from the clarified incentive structure embodied by Articles 22 and 25.

Methods 1. A team of faculty members, selected on the basis of demonstrated interest and expertise

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in technology integration, will be formed for the purpose of acting in an advisory capacity. This group will facilitate a presentation and discussion for the Provost and Deans regarding the application of technology in content areas, explaining how the use of technology would meet at least one of the five criteria of the Professional Development Report as per Articles 22 and 25. The faculty advisory team will generate a list of examples of content-specific uses/developments of technology that could potentially take place in the university colleges/schools and in P-12 schools. These would expand upon the prototypical definitions of “creative” work mentioned in Appendix G of the IFO Master Agreement. The distinction would be to clarify that technology products are a valid contribution to subject-area pedagogy and not exclusively artifacts of technology-focused disciplines. In other words, not only those faculty members whose discipline is computer science should be able to present computer software as a creative work; such a work should be a valid Article 22 or 25 indicator whenever it advances the state of the faculty member’s field, including faculty who prepare teachers. University faculty from each academic unit will meet with their respective Dean and EPT committee to discuss how the use of technology in their specific content area would meet the criteria of the Professional Development Report. The Deans would meet with the faculty and EPT committees in their respective college/school to inform them that the type of technology work noted would be appropriate for professional development activities leading to tenure/promotion. The EPT Committee of each department/academic unit would inform faculty submitting PDPs and PDRs that the use and development of technology in their content areas is an appropriate way to meet at least one of the five criteria under Article 22.

This proposal additionally relates to other TPI Working Groups: Recruit: The Recruit Working Group is developing a proposal for admission requirements to the teacher preparation program. One proposed requirement is an eFolio. It is possible that an innovative student may find an alternative program to use, instead of eFolio, to show that they have a certain level of technology proficiency. Flexibility and innovation in technology use among SCSU faculty should trickle down to SCSU faculty recognizing and accepting innovation in technology use among SCSU students. 5

Prepare: If there is a possibility that SCSU faculty will adjust their curriculum and teaching strategies to address the needs of 21st century students in K-12 teacher preparation programs, the faculty will need continual training and exposure to the relevant instructional technologies in their field. The Technology Working Group is willing to work with the Prepare Working Group to develop ways to integrate technology into the curriculum noting that the faculty themselves should decide which technologies would be most worthwhile to pursue. Support: While the Support Working Group is working on support programs for newly licensed teachers, faculty and P-12 teachers have the opportunity to develop innovative ways to use technology to providing this support. Assessment: Currently the Assessment Working Group is not developing an instrument to measure the performance of SCSU faculty integration of technology. By developing the procedure named in this proposal, a self-sustaining evaluation procedure will be created, therefore faculty mastery of technology professional development will be more effectively consolidated into the routine Article 22 and 25 process. In addition, assessment instruments can measure the endeavors of faculty concerning technology integration. Technology: Because the TPI Technology Workgroup is writing proposals on how to integrate technology into all levels of the teacher preparation program, it is logical for this group to propose the technological endeavors of SCSU faculty to be accepted and supported by administration.

Evaluation In order for technology development to be seen as valid within the Article 22 and 25 structure, it must be relevant and beneficial within the faculty member’s area of teaching expertise. Traditional scholarly products, such as journal articles, have a well-defined format; but technology developments, by their very nature, change shape constantly. The following list (not limited to these items) is presented as an imaginative guide to illustrate the miscellaneous nature of technology products that might impact teaching SCSU students: 1. A wiki or other website that gathers considerable content expertise into a repository; 2. A smartphone app that helps students learn vocabulary terms in a content area; or an iPad

app that helps students learn fractions; 3. An online assessment that allows teachers to evaluate their instruction in a content area; 4. A software program that helps teachers evaluate the reliability of quiz questions used in their content area; 6

5. A technology application that stimulates systems thinking, such as a computer game that

helps children with emotional and behavioral disabilities develop social skills.

Sustainability This proposal urges recognition of faculty member’s achievements in technology development pertaining to their field. The goal of this proposal to precipitate a dialog between the administration and the faculty on the topic. Formulated as a policy statement, the outcome of that dialog would represent the final stage of implementing this proposal. Therefore, it is selfsustaining.

Timeline The proposal would be presented to the administration at the convenience of the coordinating team, with a view to implementing any policy changes by the following academic year (20122013).

Budget No costs are anticipated.

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