Module 3 - Part 1 & 2 (V. Clay)

Question: Where do the ISTE, NBPTS, and WVPTS "speak" to or promote teacher leadership, particularly leadership for technology integration?

    ISTE developed the National Education Technology Standards for teachers (NETS-T) in order to set a standard to evaluate teachers in the digital age. The NETS-T is a standard for “learning, teaching and leading” in technology education and was developed to evaluate the skills and knowledge teachers need in 21st century learning.
    The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is an additional certification teachers can earn that are based on national standards for excellence in teaching in 16 subject areas. The NBPTS addresses teacher leadership through its 5th core proposition: Teachers are members of learning communities. Which includes collaborating with other teachers, building partnerships with community groups and other professionals, working on curriculum and staff development and engaging with parents. Although I found little mention of technology integration specifically, I found the NBPTS Core Proposition 2: Teachers Know the Subjects They Teach and How to Teach Those Subjects to Student; to be a place I would hope the certification process would address technological integration. The NBPTS also referenced videos that showcased NBPTS standards in practice, to be used by principals and other administrators as a benchmark for teacher evaluations. However, I did not think this was an appropriate model of technology integration. I found this to be an example of "amplification" of current practices as addressed in the "Technology as an Agent of Change in Teacher Practice" reading.
    In the West Virginia Professional Teaching Standards (WVPTS) teacher leadership is promoted through Standards 4 & 5. Standard 4, Professional Responsibilities for Self-Renewal encourages teachers to engage with each other for critical feedback in order to “contribute significantly to the learning of others as a member of a collaborative team.” Standard 5, Professional Responsibilities for School and Community, promotes leadership by encouraging teachers to work collaboratively with each other and their communities in order to bring about positive changes in the school. Technology Integration is a key component of Standard 1, Curriculum and Instruction. This standard calls for integrating 21st Century skills, which heavily includes technology and digital literacy.

Question: There are typically three pathways to teacher leadership for practicing teachers: a pathway for teachers who leave their classrooms to move into formal administrative positions as school leaders, a pathway for teachers who remain in their classrooms to develop and share a deeper knowledge base about teaching with their students and colleagues, and a pathway that  bridges the two previously mentioned paths, that is for teachers who spend part of their time in a classroom and part of their time taking on additional administrative and professional development responsibilities. If you were designing a program or professional development intended to prepare teacher leaders to take advantage of these multiple pathways, what would it look like? What learning experiences would you include?

Response:
This question is very unclear to me. I am new (I started in September) in my position as an Adult Basic Education instructor to be fully aware of existing pathways for professional development beyond the basic workshops and trainings I am encouraged to attend. I am additionally not versed enough on how accessible these three pathways are in a K-12 school to have an idea of what the shortcomings of the current professional development systems are. I have several questions I’d ask in order to ascertain this information. How is professional development encouraged at the moment? Is there time in a work-day set aside for professional development. What incentives exist for teachers to earn professional development beyond the core requirements for ongoing education? What other professional demands do the teachers in a school system have place on them already (i.e. extracurricular clubs, after-school responsibilities, sports etc.)? I suppose if I were designing a program, it would take all these questions into consideration. For instance, providing time built into the school day for professional development, as was outlined in the PLC standards reading, is critical. This could mean altering the school day’s schedule, or allowing for a half-day once a week. Also providing incentives for professional development, such as salary increases, is an important feature I would include in my design.