Running Head: PLANNING FOR TECHNOLOGY 1

Planning for Technology Professional Development:

Needs Assessment

Catie Lemley

Bowling Green State University

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Need Assessment

Professional development is most successful when it encompasses a topic that is relevant

and useful to all participants. In order to access the professional development needs of Wauseon

Exempted Village Schools, a questionnaire based off of the School Technology Needs

Assessment (STNA) was given. The goal of this survey is to collect information to help

determine the best professional development plan to improve the timing, content, and types of

opportunities provided.

There are a total of 81 questions within the survey given. These questions were broken

down into 4 different categories. The four categories include teaching practice, supportive

environment for technology use, professional development and teaching and learning. The first

section, teaching practice, focused on what the teachers are currently doing in their classrooms in

the way of technology use and how technology has changed student outcomes. Next, in the

supportive environment for technology use sections, the questions pertained to what their district

is doing to assist their technology use. The following section asks teachers about their

professional development experiences. Lastly, the survey asks about how the teachers and their

students use technology on a regular basis.

The survey was sent to third grade through high school teachers (could not get access to

primary building emails) within Wauseon Exempted Village Schools and twenty-one teachers

completed the survey. Of those twenty-one, one was the Athletic Director, seven teach high

school courses, eight teach middle school and five teach in the elementary. The questions that

they were asked can be found in the appendix, along with the answer that were given through the

google form survey.

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Results

Within the first section, the responses about the current teaching practice that were being

used, all of the questions had the majority of teachers responding a 3 or above (on a scale of 0-5,

0 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree). This means that overall, the teachers are

using the technology that is offered to them in some way. The question that had the least

variation was the very first question which stated ‘My teacher practices emphasize teacher use of

technology skills to support my instruction’. Twenty out of the twenty-one teachers rated

themselves at a 4 or 5 on this question. There also seemed to be an agreement that students have

been able to work better in collaborations due to the technology within the classroom as well as

that the technology has increased student engagement. These questions had fourteen to fifteen

teachers rating these as a 4 or 5. In other sections, however, teachers showed that they still had

plenty of room for growth. These sections mainly discussed how the teachers asked their

students to use technology within their classroom. In questions two and three, teachers rated

themselves lower on using technology to ‘emphasize student productivity’ as well as in teaching

strategies such as ‘project-based or cooperative learning’. Many also seemed unsure if the

technology impacted their students in a way that brought about a higher confidence level and

more positivity.

The following section, supportive environment for technology use, is composed of thirty-

one questions. The access to technology and the environment for technology use seems to be

fairly good based off of all of the responses. The questions that received the most strongly agree

responses was number seventeen that asked if there was enough technology for two students to

share one device for an activity. The middle school and high school are all 1:1 and the

elementary is going 1:1 in the upper grades next year, but currently has a cart to share between
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two classrooms. Beyond that question, there was an unanimously favorable response to the

quality of the network in terms of internet speed, the amount of technology to communicate with

other teachers as well as parents and community members and the access to technical support. As

wonderful is it is to have all of these technological needs being met, the teachers did not feel that

there was an adequate assessment in place to see how successful the technology was in terms of

student outcomes. They also did not seem to be aware of many supplemental sources being

seeked out in order to help support the current technology or to implement more. Lastly, it was

clear in question five that teachers do not receive much recognition for piloting or pioneering

new technology ideas within the district.

The professional development section was a little shorter with twenty questions. The first

fourteen pertained to what type of professional development would be the most useful and

relevant. Personal reflection and using data to reflect on technology use are two categories that

were deemed to have the lowest amount of need. On the other side, the teachers seem to all agree

that they would benefit the most from professional development pertaining to using technology

to differentiate instruction, learning about online security and safety, use technology to create

and give more performance based assessment and collect and analyze student data through the

use of technology. The professional development that has taken place in the school has been

found to be relevant (about 72% rating a 4 or 5) and ongoing (about 62% rating a 4 or 5), but

they do not feel that the impact of the professional development is monitored in a way that

determines how it is affecting classroom practices or student learning (most of the votes were a 2

or 3 in these categories).

The survey finished off with twenty-two questions on teaching and learning. The

questions were split into two categories within this section The first fourteen asked about what
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the teacher does to learn about and utilize technology, while the last eight pertain to how the

students use technology. A majority of the teachers said they use technology in order to increase

their own professional productivity, and keep in contact or collaborate with other teachers and

guardians. They also stated that they felt they find and use technology resources themselves.

Some of their biggest areas of growth include incorporating not only the content standards, but

the technology standards as well. One way they could possibly do this is by incorporating more

action research projects using technology as many of the ratings on this question were lower than

on other questions.

Conclusions and Recommendations

There were a few areas of growth that stood out throughout all of the results of the STNA

survey taken by the Wauseon teachers. These areas include aligning current curriculum to the

NETS for students, using technology to differentiate instructions, incorporating project-based

learning and collaborative learning opportunities that were not possible before technology (or

enhancing previous ones with the added use of technology), applying technology in collecting

and analyzing student data and incentives for teachers who implement innovative technology

within their teaching practices. The following paragraphs will give recommendations on how to

incorporate professional development, new positions and a reward system for teachers who are

working towards creating a 21st century environment in order to alleviate the needs in these

areas.

The first item that needs to be addressed immediately is the lack of using the technology

standards in collaboration with content standards. To begin, the technology department should

start by sending out the standards to all of the teachers in order to make all of them aware of the

requirements. Next, there should be a new position created. The district currently has a
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curriculum director and a technology department director, however, the two do not coincide.

They are completely separate entities and there needs to be a new job created in order to have a

person that will strictly work on helping teachers implement technology into their content

curriculum. This newly hired position can begin by creating a resource that shares the NETS-S

and NETS-T as well as resources (found or created) to help teachers understand the standards

and examples of how to begin implementing them. David Hancock stated that “technology does

not stand still” and that “current and emerging technologies will quickly become tomorrow’s

artifact’s of the past” (2010). In order to stay current all of the time, teachers need added support.

By creating this position, the district would be offering their teachers a helping helping hand in

the already full time job of teaching, in order to creating the best learning experiences.

The next three areas of weakness are all topics that require teachers to continue their

learning. They can only be achieved by teachers doing their own personal research or

participating in professional development to understand and discuss how to use technology to

differentiate instruction, enhance student-centered learning through project-based assessments

and collaborative learning and lastly collecting and analyzing data. However, even though these

needs can be met through professional development, that does not mean the professional

development has to look the same for all of them, or even for all of the teachers.

Professional development can take many forms nowadays. The district should offer

opportunities for teachers to attend conferences. This is not something the district currently

allows unless the teachers pay for it themselves and use personal days making it a chore for

teachers rather than an exciting event to learn and grow as a teacher. One potential possibility

would be the district allowing for one teacher from every building (decided through an

application process) go to a professional development workshop such as PBL 101 Workshop at

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the Buck Institute for Education. Within this workshop, the teachers would learn “the skills and

knowledge needed to design, assess, and manage a rigorous, relevant, and standards-based

project” (BIE, n.d.). From there, the teachers could return to the district, take time to implement

what they learned into their own classroom and then collaboratively provide a professional

development for the entire district. If the district would not like to provide the financial support

for teachers to be able to attend such workshops and conferences, the teachers selected to attend

could begin by writing grant proposals in order to fund the experience themselves. These

experiences are ones that help to “ [ensure] that teaching standards remain both high and current,

with a focus on best practices, fresh strategies, and in particular how to use technology in and out

of the classroom” (Firn, 2016).

Other options for professional development include events that are closer to home and

sometimes without fees. This could include opportunities to attend local, in-house, or online

professional development. There are ongoing workshops at the Northwest Ohio Computer

Association housed with our local Educational Service Center. The district could begin a county

wide professional development experience that would allow teachers to meet with surrounding

districts to discuss how other teachers that teach the same grade level and/or content are

implementing technology in the areas that they are individuals need to demonstrate growth.

Since “there has been a shift toward school-embedded professional development”, the district

could also implement a program within the district where teachers present on ways they are

using technology (SETDA, 2010). This could be offered by weekly after school or during the

summer so that all staff members would have a chance to present and/or attend these sessions. Or

if there are enough teachers willing to present, the district could present its own conferences style

professional development during an inservice day where teachers could choose which session
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most related to their needs. As long as educators are learning how “technology can help [them]

shape and deliver instruction to meet the needs of all students, assist in improvement of student

thinking, provide for research and presentation product, and improve communication”, it does

not matter where the professional development takes place (Smith & Throne, 2007).

Hancock stated that when dealing with technology in the classroom “teachers themselves

have to demonstrate their commitment to the lifelong learning they seek to instill in their

students” (2010). In order to maintain teacher's enthusiasm for this lifelong learner commitment,

the district needs to begin to incorporate two new components to their professional development.

First, there needs to be an continual assessment of needs and how success the professional

development is after they have had a chance to implement it. By doing this, the district will be

creating an endless discussion of what challenges the teachers are facing along with how the

district has been helpful and what they can do to show continued support. If the district only

offers professional development that they believe is important without asking for any teacher

input, the outcome will be that the topic of discussion will not be relevant to all staff members

and teachers will become frustrated and bored with continued learning.

The second thing that the district can begin to implement is incentive for teachers that are

interested in maintaining a current classroom that meets the needs of a 21st century learner.

Teachers normally will not ask for it, but do appreciate recognition for their hard work. This

could be as simple as including them (and their classroom practices) in the newsletter that is

distributed to the community. However, in order to sustain interest, there should be a reward

system. This system should entice teachers to take an active role in professional development

and could be as followed:

1 point- Leading a professional development workshop (must be approved)

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*Note: Could be ½ point depending on breadth and depth

¼ point- Participating in a professional development workshop (that is not required)

1 point- Grant writing to support continual professional development (must be approved)

Every two points results in an added personal day or the teachers could turn in one point for a

$50 reimbursement towards classroom supplies. This system will help motivate teachers that

might typically move towards repeating the same lessons year after year to learn about new ways

to support students needs.

In all, this improvement plan will help teachers to be more successful in meeting the

technology standards. It will also support areas that need growth including using technology to

incorporating more differentiated instruction, enhancing current teaching practices to include

project-based assessments and collaborative learning along with continual collection and analysis

of student data. Lastly, it ensures that there will be constant progress through the future as there

will be assessments to measure the needs of the teachers and incentives to motivate lifelong

learning within the staff members. If these suggestions are implemented, the district is likely to

see an increase in the technology use as well as an increase in student engagement. In SETDA’s

National Educational Technology Trends: 2010 report, they state that “the reality is that today’s

students grow up with technology and expect to use it to get information, solve problems, and

communicate” (SETDA, 2010).

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Bibliography

Buck Institute for Education. (n.d.). Core Services. Retrieved June 02, 2017, from

https://www.bie.org/services/core_services

Firn, G. (2016, February 02). Professional Development Grants for Teachers. Retrieved June 02,

2017, from http://www.dreambox.com/blog/professional-development-grants-for-teachers

Hancock, D. (2015, November 20). The Alberta Teachers’ Association. Retrieved June 01, 2017,

from

https://www.teachers.ab.ca/Publications/ATA%20Magazine/Volume%2090/Number4/Pages/

Transformational-Change-in-Education.aspx

State Educational Technology Directors Association. (2010). Innovation Through State

Leadership.National Educational Technology Trends: 2010. Retrieved June 2, 2017.

Smith, G. E., & Throne, S. (2007).Differentiating Instruction with Technology in K-5 Classroom.
Retrieved June 2, 2017, from http://www.iste.org/images/excerpts/diffk5-excerpt.pdf
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Appendix

Survey Questions

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_zuW4fbJZSnckJ5VUhtWWhhbDA/view?usp=sharing

Survey Results- Note that the questions were based on a scale from 0-5, 0 being strongly

disagree and 5 being strongly agree

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13Rmk1DR2nuDFmwz0ImYEYbqKW6rqnUH_I89-

VFLGP5E/edit?usp=sharing