April 2005 — SETDA
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Pennsylvania Provides Customized PETI Tools to Its EETT Grantees
Individual survey results are kept confidential. The teacher survey takes about 20-25 minutes to complete, while the administrator survey requires about 30-40 minutes. Once the surveys are complete, an administrator can access the results in several ways. The district also has real-time access to the raw data at the click of a button, resulting in a file download in Excel along with a corresponding codebook. Thus, the district or its EETT evaluator can mine the data in ways that are meaningful to them.
The result is that all grantees have a profile of their current use of technology as well as their state of readiness to use technology effectively. At the same time, the state has an aggregate profile of those same elements - both statewide and disaggregated by community type, grade level and type of program. Furthermore, all data definitions are consistent.
Site Reviews
Each time the surveys are adminis-tered, site reviewers visit a stratified random sample of about 10% of grantees using the PETI site observation tools to serve as their visitation protocols. As with the surveys, these instruments are customized for Pennsylvania, again maintaining reliability and validity. The site visits represent a chance to collect anecdotal information that can more fully inform what is going on in individual classrooms. Here are two examples:
Asked about the impact of the EETT program, a school administrator from a small-town district in eastern Pennsylvania commented: “Prior to this grant, one of our third-grade teachers had minimal technology skills and only used technology to type worksheets for her students. Following the ILS training we offered, she immediately recognized the benefits of technology and became a leader in her building in implementing the ILS program as suggested. She followed the same path after attending the writing workshop trainings in her school. ...
“Last summer, she was introduced to Palm technology where she quickly adapted many of the writing workshop activities to a graphic organizer program (which was a part of the technology integration training) and to documents that could be accessed on a Palm. To date, her entire class of third- graders is actively and independently using their Palms to retell stories, brainstorm for their own stories, prewrite and write utilizing writing workshop strategies. Students beam files and assignments to their teacher and to each other on collaborative works. When instructed, they successfully sync to their teacher’s laptop for final printing and evaluation. Technology is a significant yet seamless part of these students’ learning process and success. ...”
Another school administrator from a small district outside of Pittsburgh reported gains in algebra scores through EETT support: "The foundation of our middle and high school math program is the integrated math series. But because this series incorporates diversified areas of course content into each chapter, students sometimes have difficulty learning one concept and then transitioning to another that’s seemingly unrelated. The cognitive tutor sequence of algebra I, geometry and algebra II has brought stability and motivation to the learning process for these students. The interaction of student with computer personalizes the learning process and provides immediate feedback. The cooperative learning component provides students the [chance] to problem solve with peers about applied, real-world situations.
