ISTE Seeks Feedback on Second Draft of Teacher Standards

• By Richard Chang
• 02/03/17

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is seeking feedback and recommendations on the second draft of its Standards for Teachers. ISTE is inviting input from the global education technology community through Feb. 28.

The teacher standards “refresh” is intended to be open and inclusive. To help educators participate in the process, ISTE is providing a free toolkit to host feedback forums, an individual response survey and an easy way for educators to share information about the refresh. The toolkit includes a facilitator’s guide, surveys for gathering feedback and annotated presentation slides. More information is available on ISTE’s Teacher Refresh page.

The ISTE Standards provide a framework for learning, teaching and leading that is amplified by technology. These digital age standards are not “technology standards,” but a road map for educators worldwide as they navigate decisions about curriculum, instruction, professional learning and how to transform pedagogy with technology. These standards are refreshed every seven to 10 years to ensure they remain relevant and continue to prepare students for the future while also allowing schools, districts and states to have time to adopt, implement and show an impact on learning.

Here are the members of the technical working group to refresh the teacher standards:

• Clara Alaniz, instructional technology specialist, Plano Independent School District, TX;
• Amanda Armstrong, graduate assistant, Learning Games Lab, New Mexico University, Las Cruces, NM;
• David Barr, independent education management professional, Chicago, IL;
• Jessie Butash, assistant principal of teaching and learning, Cumberland Public Schools, Providence, RI;
• Trina Davis, associate professor, College of Education, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX;
• Steven Hauk, assistant principal, Half Hollow Hills Central School District, Melville, NY;
• Kathy Hayden, emerita professor of education, California State University San Marcos, CA;
• Mindy Johnson, instructional designer, social media and communications strategist, CAST, Boston, MA;
• David Marcovitz, associate professor and director of education technology, Loyola University, Baltimore, MD;
• Curt Mould, director of innovation, assessment and continuous improvement, Sun Prairie School District, Sun Prairie, WI;
• Cathy Poplin, executive director, AzTEA (Arizona Technology Education Association), Phoenix, AZ; and
• Sarah Thomas, regional technology coordinator, Prince George's County Public Schools, MD.

ISTE received important and timely feedback on the first draft of its teacher standards. Some of the key changes as a result of this feedback include:

• Streamlining and simplifying the language;
• The Citizen Standard (No. 3) now includes an indicator designed to address critical consumption of media, such as resources that appear to be news; and
• The concept of cultural competency has been moved into the Collaborator Standard (No. 4) and now includes information for students, parents and colleagues.

The refreshed teacher standards will be released in June 2017 at the ISTE Conference & Expo, June 25-28 in San Antonio, TX. At that time, ISTE will begin the refresh process for the ISTE Standards for Administrators.