EDL 631 – Learning Validation
Christopher Shively

My career goal is to be an instructional technology coordinator. The role of this person is to coordinate all facets of technology use in the district. These include: aligning technology with curriculum, purchasing the appropriate software or software subscriptions and to provide strategies to integrate technology into lessons and units. With this in mind, my supervisory goal for this task was similar to a principal providing formative feedback after a teacher observation.

In my view, the supervisor is much like a National Park Ranger. When one visits the Grand Canyon there is the option of going to a park ranger information session. This session provides the visitor with a richer experience because the subtleties of the park are explained. The visitor’s experience at the park improves. The educational supervisor can also reveal secrets to teachers after observing a lesson and thus provide a richer experience for the visitors of their school – the students.

In the past, I have worked with teachers to design learning experiences, but I have never actually observed teachers teaching with technology and critiqued their work. The design of this learning validation has refocused my thoughts about teaching teachers strategies. I decided to speak with my principal colleagues and ask their advice about observing teachers before actually doing it.

All four of them showed me the observation form that they use – a form that must be used because of contract. Nothing on the form reflected Charlotte Danielson’s teaching domains, so I ignored the form. They each explained their approach to observations – their approaches were all over the place – the only thing I really learned was that our principals can do what they feel will work as long as they use that form. So I decided to craft my own approach to observing in my own way and learn from my mistakes.

The procedure that I followed was this:

• I would observe a lesson being taught
• I would reflect on Danielson’s domains
• I would offer suggestions – I call remedies – from problem areas – I defined a problem area as something that did not enable the lesson to run smoothly -or prevented students from being active learners.

Here are the results of two observations.

Observation #1
Building: High School
Teacher: Jean W.
Subject: Movie Production Class
Resources: 10 iMac computers, iMovie, digital video cameras
Objective: Jean wanted her students to take raw footage from a digital camera, create a few clips in iMovie and share the clips with fellow classmates to make on cohesive movie.
Jean’s Procedure: She walked around the room with a jump drive, put it into the computers, saved the iMovie clips and then went around the classroom again to load the iMovie clips for the students who needed them.
Charlotte Danielson’s Domain(s) of focus & my remedies

• Domain #1 – Demonstrate Knowledge of resources – Jean was not aware of Lacie Hard drive – hard drives with huge amounts of storage. These devices can be attached to any computer. Students could browse the network for these devices and save and retrieve their work and their fellow students work.
• Remedy
• I priced out a Lacie Drive for Jean, we made the purchase and attached it to her Mac laptop.
• I came in and taught her students and Jean how to access the Lacie hard drive and how to import iMovie clips from each other’s projects
• Domain #2 – Manage Classroom Procedures – Jean did not know how to leverage the network
• Remedy
• I taught her how to secure her laptop by creating a student account
• I taught her how to attach the Lacie hard drive to her computer
• I taught her how to use the network feature on the mac to browse the network and locate the Lacie hard drive
• I taught her class how to use the network to locate the Lacie hard drive

Observation #2
Note: I did not observe a lesson with students here. This was a workshop that I facilitated and the teachers designed a lesson, I observed the lesson and made my suggestions.
Building: Intermediate School
Teachers: 6 fifth grade teachers
Subject: ELA
Resources: 40 Dell laptop computers connected wirelessly to the Internet – the Firefox web browers – the QuickNote firefox extension – Causes of the Revolutionary War web site
Objectives: The teachers wanted to design a jigsaw lesson that would enable students to share information about the causes of the Revolutionary War.
Their Collective Procedure: The teachers designed a lesson that took students to a web site about the Revolutionary War. They then broke the kids into groups and assigned them parts of the site so that they would become experts on a particular cause. Students had to take notes on paper and then share these notes with their fellow students in small groups.
Charlotte Danielson’s Domain(s) of focus & my remedies

• Domain #1 – Demonstrate Knowledge of resources – The teachers were not aware of the Firefox extension QuickNote – a notetaking application that sits in the sidebar of the Firefox web browser. They also did not know how to use the Message Board feature of MyTeacherPages – a web site develpment tool we bought at Alden
• Remedy
• We redesigned lesson to include HOW TO take notes using QuickNote
• I taught them how to use tabbed browsing and how they will need to have multiple web pages open (the cause web site, the message board web site and quicknote)
• I taught them how to copy/paste from Quicknote to the Message Board
• Domain #2 and #3 – Manage Classroom Procedures & Engage students in learning – The teachers did not realize that sharing on a message board enables students to see all ideas at one time.
• Remedy
• I showed them how 20 ideas on a message board can be used instead of the paper sharing method
• Since all students will be working and not just passively listening to each other, they will be engaged in their learning
• Domain #3 – Demonstrate flexibility and responsiveness – Teachers used paper to share ideas. Paper limits the products students can create with the new information
• Remedy
• By posting information on the message board, students can then copy and paste the information into: a word processor, a presentation too like PowerPoint, a spreadsheet or print it out

The outline presented above has become a model that I am now sharing with the technology integrators at our BOCES technology integrator forum meeting. I am meeting with the Board of Eduction on the 30th to share this model, as we look to restructure the way we integrate technology.