February 2005 — Features
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The Impact of the AACTE-Microsoft Grant on Elementary Reading & Writing
Accountability for student learning and support of evidence-based instructional approaches are critical responsibilities for teachers. Both are particularly significant with the current reliance on state standards, assessment tests and the No Child Left Behind Act (Shanahan 2002). Every elementary teacher must have research-based resources to help improve student writing; therefore, we implemented a professional development initiative.
Acknowledging this need, a proposal for an AACTE (American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education)-Microsoft Innovative Teachers Grant was written and accepted. The intent of the program was to build a partnership, or community of professional expertise (CPE), between the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Western Illinois University (WIU) and the elementary teachers (grades 2-8) at V.I.T. Community Unit School District #2 in order to develop a database of online writing activities. This article will discuss the first five workshops that were held from January through May 2003. It will also cover the district’s technological implementation, as well as teacher perceptions of the workshops and the database to which their work contributed.
The purpose of the grant was for teachers to gain and apply writing skills by designing technological activities for their students. The technology workshops provided teacher training and student activities designed to improve student composition and writing scores on the Illinois Standards Achievement Tests (ISAT).
Initially, teachers developed an online database of student activities to network their writing instruction among elementary classrooms. The first five workshops were conducted to introduce new instructional techniques that would address student motivation and interactive dialogue, reader response, and writing composition skills. The writing skills elements were focus, elaboration (support), organization, integration and conventions. The techniques used in the workshops were supported by evidence-based research, which was found by reviewing journal articles and books used to assist struggling readers and writers.
Another aim of the program was to improve teacher technological competencies by developing a database of writing activities to share through the CPE network. Teachers were motivated to design and implement online activities in adherence to state testing requirements. The planning efforts for the teachers’ network and the community online resources were designed to implement technology in order to increase student learning as reported by Simkins et al. (2002). The writing skills were research-based and founded upon state reading and writing standards, as well as technology goals for the AACTE-Microsoft grant workshop implementation.
District Implementation
The district’s technology director and superintendent coordinated district-level technology applications and teachers’ writing needs assessments. The initial entry meetings and correspondence by letter and e-mail were conducted to ensure an appropriate technology commitment that would fulfill grant requirements. The participants were to attend writing and technology workshops, develop materials for their own writing curriculum, and add them to an online database of writing activities for their school. Prior to the workshops, a needs assessment was conducted that revealed technology had not been used for writing composition or student practice.
