Sunday, January 24, 2010
How Leadership and Instructional Support Affect Student Success
My blog’s purpose is to explain the importance of Key Area III; Leadership, Administration and Instructional Support; of the STaR chart in reaching the goals of the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology, 2006-2020.
The Leadership, Administration and Instructional Support Key Area encompasses 6 focus areas: Leadership and Vision, Planning, Instructional Support, Communication and Collaboration, Budget, and Leadership and Support for Online Learning. I would summarize these areas by saying that administration needs to:
- take the lead in modeling the use of technology.
- ensure that their faculty has access to and uses emergent technologies in the classroom.
- create a Campus Improvement Plan to implement technology goals.
- set up collaborative groups to support each other in employing different types of technologies.
- make sure all parties involved in the student’s success have a variety of communication methods available.
- use discretionary funds to meet the Campus Improvement Plan goals.
There have been improvements over the last two school years, but Kingwood High School still remains at the Developing Tech level which is in the lower 50% of the state’s schools. The number of schools in Texas that were Advanced Tech and Target Tech increased between 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 based on the Campus Statewide Summary by Key Area. The school has the Infrastructure as proven by their Advanced Tech classification in this area. After analyzing the scores in the Leadership and Instructional Support focus areas, I recommend the following:
- Putting a team together to facilitate a Campus Improvement Plan.
- Partnering more technology-savvy teachers with less advanced teachers to assist in implementing technologies into learning.
- Allocating discretionary funds for emergent technologies needs to be a priority.
- Promoting the use of distance learning and online tools to connect teachers, students, parents, and the community.