July 2004 — SETDA
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Tennessee: Technology Coaches in the Workplace: Professional Development Takes a New Spin in Tennessee
Selecting a coach from existing faculty is not without problems. The coach is thrust into a position of peer leadership, where coping effectively with quasi-authority issues is not always simple. However, a coach who is already part of the faculty and who has taught the same children in others' classes is far more credible and more readily accepted than an outside expert would be in a professional development role. Nevertheless, providing a classroom teacher with such responsibility in a new role could be a formula for disaster unless the state was confident that the coach really understood technology integration. Too important to leave to chance, and knowing that artfully worded grant applications can disguise reality, the state designed an intense training program for the new technology coaches in concert with instructional design specialists working under the auspices of our R*TEC (Regional Technology in Education Consortia). Conducted shortly after the grant awards, and then again as the school year is under way, the workshops build the spirit of community enterprise among the coaches.
As Tennessee awards its third year of technology coach grants, another key element emerges as critical to success. The school's new venture requires constant formative assessment practice so that the coach is able to adjust the program's focus over time. Thus, the grant requires all coaches to keep a weekly reflective journal that the state program director reads every month. The state takes seriously its responsibility to use the journals as a lens through which it develops a nurturing relationship with each coach. The rich dialogue between the coach and the director further helps the state steer the enterprise on a more global level; thus, emerges the future.
As the state works carefully with each EdTech grant school, it faces the question that begs every innovation: If such a program works, can it be taken to scale statewide? In deference to the fiscal realities that plague state governments everywhere, Tennessee cannot realistically promise a full-time tech coach and optimum hardware installations in every school. Sending half of the EdTech funds to districts under the formula award process further dilutes the degree to which the coach program can saturate the state. So how will the state cope with this reality?
The strategy is to invite the EdTech Launch schools, and their forerunner pilot schools, to apply to become professional development centers. Just as their own coach led them in using ordinary technology tools to enrich the student learning experience, so would teacher cadres who work with teacher teams from other schools in their geographic region. In keeping with the "launch" theme of the EdTech program, which Tennessee first piloted in the final year of TLCF, the professional development centers imagined for the 2005-06 school year are called "Orbit" schools. Rather than resting solely on the shoulders of a single technology coach, the Orbit centers will orchestrate teachers from various grade levels in a variety of disciplines to provide ongoing practical professional development to those who are ready. The Orbit plan will make it possible to come full circle in providing technical assistance to those districts whose EdTech formula money might otherwise be spent in unfocused ways.
