Instructional Coaching: Driving Meaningful Tech Integration (Transcript)

Jeff Finch: Not only do we integrate technology to the best of our ability, but also we integrate the idea of instructional coaching. And we’ve found that this pays dividends.

Andrew Halter: It is important that the idea comes before the tools. You need to have a good solid instructional idea and then find out how you can enhance it with technology.

Jeff Finch: As a coach we asked them to meet with teachers and understand the big ideas. What are your instructional goals? What competencies do you want to see these students perform?

Andrew Halter: How do you hope the technology would enhance the relevance? Does the technology allow students to collaborate beyond the classroom walls? Does the technology allow for a certain kind of transparency so a teacher can see more individually how a student is perceiving a concept. When you start to look at all of these new technological approaches and you can’t wrap your mind them, when you have someone else who can lead you through the process, show you some examples that other teachers have created that were successful, it helps people kind of bridge that resistance.

Gregory Mihalik: When the school it was already into utilizing technology in a classroom, I was a little behind everybody.

Andrew Halter: Yeah, so you could use the Flubaroo to grade it.

Gregory Mihalik: Right.

Gregory Mihalik: Obviously, it could uncomfortable situation for students to talk about certain topics in our wellness class. This is an STD project.

Andrew Halter: We had the students design their own websites to teach peers about a specific STD.

Rachel: Doing multimedia with pictures and good statistics can really, I think, make people listen more.

Andrew Halter: On our project tips page we have “How to create videos”, different ways that they can actually create a cartoon character. They do pressies, which are kinda Powerpoints.

Andrew Halter: If you’re using a graphic that has a lot of text on it, Animoto brings it up so fast that if it’s a graphic that somebody needs time to think about and interpret, put it on the wiki instead of on the Animoto.

Andrew Halter: They’re pulling in from various sources and they have to transform that content into something that is visually engaging and is presented in a way that will reach students.

Andrew: We just have to create a wiki space that explains it and we present it to our class and then they have to fill out a quiz based on our research. Well, for me, at least this is our first time creating a quiz for our peers. So it’s kinda cool. It’s intriguing.

Gregory Mihalik: And this has gone from kids being timid and not wanting to even raise their head in class and make eye contact because of the things we’re talking about to where you see them take ownership in it and have fun with it. As far as technology, you know, it got to the point where I became more comfortable with it. It’s had an effect that I want it to have. So it was worth it.

Andrew Halter: There’s no definite mandate of who I’m going to work with. It’s really based on teacher need. Sometimes I’m just there to help support them, give them ideas and let them run with it themselves. A lot of times it’ll be to map out a lesson that we will be teaching together.

Gregory Mihalik: The whole point of the lesson is to introduce them to themes and the history on “The Great Gatsby” so they can look at the pictures and interpret them as a warm-up.

Andrew Halter: Maybe we could do three-two-one with them– three observations you have, two questions you have about what you see in this photo, and one connection you can make with today. Putting this in an EarPod will be easy once we have all the images collected, which will let them zoom in on them and they can really examine the group of pictures.

Gregory Mihalik: In the novel there’s the three different sections of New York that are based on wealth.

Andrew Halter: Okay.

Gregory Mihalik: So that could be the transition into the distribution of wealth.

Andrew Halter: Do you want to do a survey with them, then?

Gregory Mihalik: It would be interesting to get a graphic of their beliefs.

Andrew Halter: As soon as they respond you get a nice pie chart–

Gregory Mihalik: Yeah.

Andrew Halter: And you can shoot that back out to them, which really gives good discussion, but you can do it one question at a time.

Gregory Mihalik: That’s great. I say yes.

Andrew Halter: I kind of act as a conduit of best practices. I take one idea from one teacher, bring it to another teacher. I help them with relevance ideas as well. Teachers don’t have to know themselves all the ins and out of how things work, but they need to understand the collaborative tools that are available to students. There’re ways that they can create a lesson to engage these different types of learners who’ve grown up with technology.

Teacher: You can all pull up everyone’s work as they go. You’re sharing your work with the group, you’re asking questions and you’re discussing.

Trace: Teachers don’t try to push some kind of technology project on you just to say they did. And whenever they use it, it makes sense, it’s beneficial to what we’re learning.

Jeff Finch: I took a teacher who was very creative and put him in a coaching position where he was freed of the bell. He could continually explore the use of technology and then co-plan all the way through to teaching and reflection. It is building our capacity for collaboration. It is building our capacity to integrate things thematically and we’re seeing the threads that connect us as educators.

Schools That Work

Hampton High School