At the end of December 2019, we outlined 4 educational technology goals to add to your list in 2020. Now that we are a few weeks into the new year (and new decade) it’s important to implement Tech Coaching tactics to support your teachers and ultimately help you achieve these goals for the semester. Returning from Winter Break is similar to the back to school process for a new school year, so it is helpful to think about what Tech Coaching tactics you used at the beginning of the year, what worked and what can be improved. Here are some of the best Tech Coaching tactics you can implement to support your 2020 Ed Tech goals.
What are your 2020 goals?
These are the goals that we suggested you add to your 2020 list.
1. Have a Solid Tech Coaching Process
Although it is already halfway through the school year, it is important to reevaluate your technology coaching process and make sure you are prepared with a refresher process that works. Think about these:
- Preparation
- Bruch up training sessions
- Organize a calendar
- Offer professional development opportunities
2. Encourage Internal Teacher Collaboration
To help achieve your educational technology goals for 2020, encourage teachers to collaborate together by sharing tips and tricks on how they are using technology to enhance instruction. Your own Tech Coaching Tactics can help here to support and solidify their collaboration, but emphasizing teacher collaboration will give them the confidence that they are using technology effectively.
3. Engage in Your Own Professional Development
Learning how to overcome the challenges that arise with technology integration is important because it allows you to be informed when planning for the future. Join communities like the ISTE Tech Coach community to learn how thousands of tech coaches are maximizing their own technology integration. Additionally, there are many forums, webinars, blogs, and podcasts that have great information from people just like you.
4. Move Technology Management Closer to the Classroom
When educational technology is put in the classroom, one of the best goals you can have is to make sure the management of that technology is as close to the classroom as possible. Whether that is by having Tech Coaches at the building level checking in with teachers consistently, or implementing technology that can help your teachers manage devices.
Try these Tech Coaching tactics…
- Hold consistent, short professional development sessions for teachers. Melanie LeJeune, Tech Coach, has found that holding “lunch ‘n learn” sessions has been a successful Tech Coachingtactic at her school: “I started doing these lunch and learns where I asked them to bring their lunches into the library and we would have a quick little class hack, two or three minutes long, of information about something and then the rest of the time we’ll just have conversations and sharing and I would have some kind of little treat for them like M&Ms or something.” – Melanie LeJeune, St. Louis Catholic School
- Provide learning materials to help staff refresh on the Ed Tech tools they’ll be using. Here’s how Chad Lohmeyer, Tech Coach, does it: “We create a lot of slide presentations, that way teachers can have the slide deck but we also try and provide plenty of documentation alongside that information, that way they can have some hands-on resources to take with them and also, if at all possible, we create demo stations so they can refresh by using the tools.” – Chad Lohmeyer, Tippecanoe School Corporation
- Practice listening to teacher needs and feedback. To Chuck Holland, CTO, listening is the most important Tech Coaching tactic, especially when it comes to back to school. “We ask our tech coaches first and foremost to be great listeners and listen to what the teacher is trying to accomplish. And then to work towards getting the teachers to really come to the answer on their own without us telling them, because if you get them to come up with the idea on their own, whether they may have been steered in that direction with the questioning, they own that piece of information now.” – Chuck Holland, Richland School District Two
These Technology Coaching tactics can help you support your technology team and teachers at the beginning of a new semester. What other goals and tactics are you striving to implement in 2020?
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