The Innovative Principals Affirming Classroom Technology (iPACT) project’s specific goal is to provide professional development, coaching and support for principals to help focus their efforts, through team teaching, on helping teachers enhance math and science classroom instruction through technology infusion. The most prominent research topic in the area of technology-infused teaching examines how it lends itself to constructivist pedagogies and engaged learning. The exploratory, collaborative, and hands-on nature of web-based instructional tools enables a pedagogical shift from an “acquisition orientation to a contribution orientation”.
With this research in mind, the six school districts in the Southwest region of the State and the Southwest Educational Development Center (SEDC) are working collaboratively to enhance education through this project. There will be a cohort of regional elementary school principals created who will receive hands-on professional development activities for the effective use of technology to enhance both math and science classroom instruction. Each district in the region has selected two to four elementary school principals (Washington-4, Iron-3, Millard, Kane, Garfield and Beaver-2 each) to participate in this significant project. Through district and state funding each participating school has many of the up-to-date technology tools already in place that will be utilized for this project. A combination of workshops, coaching, modeling and technical assistance will be utilized. Each participating principal will attend a two-day professional development event in the summer of 2009 that will focus specifically on the engaged learning instructional model and how they can help to support this type of instruction in their school’s math and science content areas. Every month of the school year, the SEDC technology staff will provide in-school follow-up training that will help each administrator gain the expertise and knowledge to successfully support teachers’ use of technology-infused instruction.
The goal of the iPACT project is to provide effective and sustained professional development activities for school administrators in order for them to help improve student skills and knowledge through the integration of technology and the use of research-based engaged learning instructional strategies.
- To increase the overall student CRT average score for the schools participating in the project.
- Teachers in participating schools will increase their utilization of technology-based engaged learning activities to enhance instruction in the classroom.
- Students will be more engaged in school instructional activities.
