Texas STaR Chart Presentation

This is my STaR Chart presentation

Texas S Ta R Chart

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My opinion piece on the Texas STaR Chart

Educator preparation and development is without doubt a very important part of the Texas Long-Range Plan (TLRP) in which my campus and district are lacking. This components refers to ongoing professional development to keep educators abreast of the latest technology implementation and how to apply them to their content areas. It is essential for all teachers engage in continuous professional learning in order to transform learning from teacher-centered to student-centered. The TLRP demands that teachers must "develop a new learning environment that utilize technology as a flexible tool where learning is collaborative, interactive, and customized for the individual learner." For this to occur, teachers must be well trained and demonstrate effective use of technology. The data from the Texas Campus STaR Chart Summary, further reinforces my point why this is an area of need. In the past three years, my school has received a classification 2 (developing tech). A lot of the teachers at my school need retraining. All professional development offered at my district should point toward this and each campus should have a set technology instruction leader who is there solely for that purpose and not just a teacher tech. There should be set nonnegotiable technology requirements that teachers must have, include in their lesson plans and demonstrate.

Pre-K TEKS Summary

The Prekindergarten TEKS lay the groundwork on which subsequent performance standards for students in future grades are coined. The Pre-K TEKS address many domains such as social and emotional development, language and communication, emergent literacy(reading), emergent literacy(writing), mathematics, science, social studies, fine arts, physical development, and technology applications. These TEKS dictate what student should learn in prekindergarten education programs in order to get them fully prepared for entry into school.

The TEKS for kindergartners specifies "End of Prekindergarten Year Outcomes", that is what children should be capable of doing upon successfully mastering a skill. These outcomes gauge how well has child has adapted to a certain domain. The TEKS in prekindergarten and the subsequent grades are scaffolding . They build up from the ground up with one setting the stage for the next. Paragraph X.A.4 of the pre-k TEKS states "Child uses software applications to create and express ideas." By the time a child reaches high school, paragraph 126.22(1a) states that "The student is expected to demonstrate knowledge and appropriate use of operating system, software applications, and communication and network components." These two examples indicate that student expectations in technological knowledge has a spiraling effect. The basics are learned in lower grades to set up for increasing skills in higher grades.

Although there are growing criticisms of using technology in classrooms, it is vital that we teach our students the importance of using it, embracing it and truly appreciating the benefits it can bring. Many critics pose that using technology might cause children to lose their ability to relate to others, inability to find appropriate information but I say that empowering our students with information will cause high order thinking skills, as long it is used in properly guided and interactive ways that would stimulate learning.

The Texas Long-Range Plan for Technology

The Texas Long Range Plan for Technology is admirable. It has a well-defined vision that states the need for creating such a "long-range" road map for the information-age student. It is well researched, gives professional development tools, while clearly stating instructional support and infrastructure needed to produce technologically savvy students who can compete on the world stage. However, it is just that, a plan. In many aspects, it is lacking because it does not take into consideration the socioeconomic status of students, their families or the funding available to schools. Technology is very expensive, in addition, the budget crises many schools and school districts face make it considerably difficult to meet the infrastructural demands of this "plan". The plan also stresses the values of "distributed learning environments" that is, other avenues outside of school that can enhance students technological knowledge, in other words, their homes. With 54.60% of Texas students categorized as economically disadvantaged, it is almost impossible for the so-called distributed learning environments to be truly effective. The plan is not all bad, it provides step by step strategies that will over time bridge Texas students over to where they need to be. Our state is at the front of many others when it comes to this sort of planning and there have been indications of progress which I believe stems from aligning the plan to the TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills).

Technology Assessments

After reviewing the SEDTA (State Educational Directors Technology Association) teacher survey and the technology Inventory, it is glaring how little technology is employed in communication, problem solving and information acquisition at my school. The SEDTA teacher survey indicated that although as a teacher I am capable of effectively using today's technology, no real efforts are made to measure student skills in ways that truly count. There are no measures to gauge information literacy, global awareness or self direction in students. Judging from the Technology Applications Inventory, I scored low in the problem solving domain. This survey surfaced an aspect of my knowledge I was not not aware in which I was lacking. I therefore have a fiduciary responsibility to hone my skills by enrolling in continuing education classes and further my professional development in order to better help my students in the classroom. Much must be done by me, as a classroom teacher and by my school and school district to provide adequate and up-to-date computer hardware, software and professional development to assist school technology application efforts.