Technology Competency Certification Plan (TCCP)

San Antonio Independent School District

San Antonio, TX
 

Introduction/Overview
Organizational Change
Budget & Finance
Professional Development
Technology Infrastructure
Outcomes
Evaluation
Contact Information
 

Introduction/Overview

San Antonio's Independent School District (ISD) has more than 5,000 professional staff members who service more than 90 campuses districtwide. The Technology Competency Certification Plan (TCCP) was devised to provide staff members with a recommended path for professional development. TCCP provides a progression of courses based on core content subject areas, creating a natural flow of staff development opportunities designed to enrich classroom teaching and learning. A Web site detailing all professional development opportunities by content area can be accessed at http://itls.saisd.net/tccp.

Through the program, San Antonio ISD strives to accomplish the following goals:

· Focus on research-based instructional strategies aligned with federal, state, and local standards

· Support the learning needs of all district employees for Instructional Practices and Technology Integration

· Support teacher and staff learning needs as identified in the teacher evaluation process

· Target all professional development to improve classroom instruction and student learning

· Support and encourage teacher collaboration

· Provide means for educators to observe and reflect upon instructional strategies and implementation plans

· Integrate Instructional Technology into the core content areas to meet the SBEC requirements for technology applications

· Provide new technology users with building skills to enhance instruction

· Provide enrichment skills and instructional strategies for experienced technology users

· Provide guidance in campus improvement planning for staff development

The key elements of the program include:

· An intensive professional development program tailored to meet individual educator needs

· Professional development opportunities tailored to core content areas to enhance technology applications integration into the classroom

· Educator collaboration

· Alignment with No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation

· Alignment with State Board of Educator Certification (SBEC) continuing education requirements

· Alignment with current district and campus improvement plan

Organizational Change

Technology integration and use followed a shotgun approach. Teachers and administrators could sign up for a wide variety of courses but were not sure how they fit into the big plan of moving them forward. As such, there was recognition from stakeholders that a more strategic plan was necessary. The TCCP was discussed and shared with campuses, discussed among campus technology representatives (from every campus), and shared with the superintendent’s cabinet. The impact of having the TCCP in place has been to minimize taking courses just to take them, and instead aligned everyone’s expectations to spend time and effort on those sessions that move them forward toward achieving NCLB technology literacy.

Budget & Finance

Due to budget shortfalls, this program was not funded but implemented in spite of that fact. Originally, the plan called for incentives for classroom teachers as they completed each stage. However, even without incentives, the TCCP is used by campus leadership teams and teachers to better plan professional learning in accordance with district needs assessments (e.g., TAGLIT, LOTI and STaR Chart).

Professional Development

As of the 2004–2005 school year, TCCP has been made available to all district employees. The professional development courses outlined in the TCCP have been made available—and correlated to workshops—through the online professional development planner.

Technology Infrastructure

Technology infrastructure needs are not in addition to current demands.

Outcomes

In the short term, San Antonio ISD strives to provide teachers with the needed skills to begin utilizing technology within their classrooms for administrative tasks and to slowly build upon those tasks over time to fully integrate the use of technology into all subject areas and in all lessons.

Through the use of technology in the classroom, teachers are able to provide students with authentic learning opportunities that could otherwise be limited due to traditional resources. The advent of technology provides an increased learning tool for students to utilize in conjunction with traditional resources. The TCCP has been structured to provide teachers with the knowledge and learning tools necessary to be able to seamlessly provide technology-integrated resources in the classroom.

Evaluation

The implementation of the TCCP is still in its initial stages. At this time, only about a third of campuses (total is more than 100) are using the TCCP in collaboration with the Office of Instructional Technology. However, we are continuing to monitor use of the TCCP as a way of facilitating campus professional development planning.

Contact Information

Miguel Guhlin
mguhlin@saisd.net
210-527-1400