Leadership and Planning (565) - Week 5

This week as I read chapter 6, Improving Student and Teacher Achievement I thought about ways that I can begin observing teachers in their classrooms.  All teachers have been given the Information and Technology Literacy Benchmarks and have had professional development on a regular basis but I think it would be beneficial to observe some lessons.  This would be extremely difficult to schedule because this would include all teachers in grades K-8, about 80 teachers but I could see myself visiting the schools and just stopping in.  I would let them know ahead of time what my intentions are and I would work with the principals to make sure the teachers know that I am not coming in to evaluate them.  I typically meet with all grade levels on a yearly basis so I could take time during these days to provide staff development on specific needs that I observed during my time in the classroom.

The final section in chapter 6 focused on assessment and data analysis.  I agree that we should not only assess our students but teachers need to take time to look at the data after it is collected.  This is a great opportunity to set goals and develop strategies to improve instruction.  One of my big goals for this year is to do this with the 8^th grade teachers after their students take the Simple Assessment (pre-assessment).  I would like them to look at the data so that they can set some information and technology literacy goals for their 8^th grade teams.