5.3: Program Evaluation:
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Artifact
Action & Evaluation Plan Reflection The Action & Evaluation Plan was completed as a culmination of findings-based initiatives after I conducted a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of my school’s technology implementation. The Action & Evaluation Plan utilizes SWOT findings to establish success indicators and specify evaluation methods. The five SWOT-based success indicators are e specific strategies, timelines, funding, and responsible persons necessary to more meaningful and impactful technology integration. I designed the Action & Evaluation Plan in order to present potential solutions to the hurdles to technology integration facing my school. These hurdles include the need to develop teachers’ pedagogical skill by encouraging the use of technology-enhanced standards-based instruction that would increase student learning. The first success indicator, informed by the SWOT analysis findings that teachers do not know what the district’s technology plan is and do not have a sense of what is expected of them by administrators, is an example: “Teachers will create unit and lesson plans incorporating new technologies” (Irving, 2015). This indicator requires that teachers adopt and implement new technology-enhanced pedagogical strategies and demonstrate that adoption throughout the semester on collaboration team wiki logs and in lesson plans. Evaluation of the indicator’s success is the responsibility of teacher collaboration teams and the administrator in charge of curriculum. Implementing the strategies associated with the success indicator requires no changes in budget allocation but does require significant emphasis on technology integration during the already-established collaboration meetings. It deepens teachers’ content knowledge by encouraging them to explore meaningful ways to implement technology that supports student-centered learning of content. In a traditional setting, teachers present content the same way repeatedly and thus do not have to consider deeper relevancies; by designing lessons in a new and collaborative format, teachers will be able to share and reflect as they re-think content and content presentation. The completion of this artifact taught me how to systematically align organizational and instructional weaknesses with specific, manageable goals. I also learned to use areas of strength to provide support for these goals: teachers’ skill with collaboration and lesson planning documentation, for instance, supports the implementation of the success indicator explained above. To improve this artifact, I could provide examples of effectively implemented models for each success indicator. The impact of this Action & Evaluation Plan would be felt by the school in a variety of ways. Teachers would finally understand what exactly is required of them by nebulous “innovation” (XYZ High School: School Strategic Plan, 2014) terminology. Students would experience an increase in structured and meaningful usage of their mobile devices. Families with economic disadvantages would be connected with one free cell phone per household to aid students in attaining equitable access to technology during and outside of school. The impact on faculty development could be easily ascertained through collected walk-through data and oversight of collaboration log entries. The impact on student learning could be measured using data collected from assignments and student blogs as well as teacher assessments of OneDrive portfolios. References Irving, S. (2015). Action & evaluation plan. Unpublished manuscript, Department of Education, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA. XYZ High School: School Strategic Plan 2014-2015. (2014). Some City, GA: Some County Schools. |