Discussion February 1-15, 2012: Navigating Politics (school and central office realities) Hosted By: Bill Bertrand

Bill Bertrand will be hosting a discussion on navigating politics at the District and School levels.  Bill is the State Supervisor for Technology and Engineering Education in the State of Pennsylvania.  Please join Bill from February 1-15, 2012. 

Discussion January 17 -31, 2012: Leading and Managing Facilities (new facility development and modernization – maintenance) Hosted By: Doug Wagner

During the next 15 days I will use this ITEEA / CSL Discussion Forum to showcase what we are doing here in Manatee County, Florida at the elementary, middle, and high school levels in regards to technology and engineering facilities.

Some background first…..Manatee County School District is ranked 99th in student population of the 15,000 school districts in the country.  We educate 47,000 K-12 students; in addition to the our post secondary technical institute (Manatee Technical Institute) which enrolls just over 7,000 adult students. Our district has 32 full time technology and engineering teachers at the K-12 level and over 100 technical teachers at the post secondary level.  

During the next few weeks we will look at the facilities at all four levels and spend a few days with each. Any comments will be appreciated and are encouraged to be shared with the group

Thank you,
Doug Wagner

Discussion January 2-16, 2012: Leading and Managing Programs (curriculum, instruction and assessment) Hosted By: Luke Rhine

To All:

The purpose of this discussion is to identify the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) to leading and managing technology and engineering education programs.  Our first comment is below as well as my response.   Click comment to reply to this message. 

Johnny J Moye said...

Good morning and happy new year everyone. I am not sure how this thing is supposed to work but I am going to throw a comment out there - Luke, please excuse me if I am doing this all wrong.

My comment is that to lead a program means more than performing the day to day management of that program (which already takes the whole day).

Program leaders, at all levels, must have a vision of where the program(s) need to be in 10 - 15 years and work towards that end. If a leader just responds to the day to day situations, his/her program will surly die.

Just my 2 cents. Any comments??

Johnny,

You are right on track and thank you for the comment. 

I think you have identified both a threat and opportunity.  I agree that the day-to-day business of running a program is very time consuming and we as a profession have the opportunity to define what technology and engineering education looks like in 10-15 years. 

My two cents:

Running a Program:  There is great disparity in what programs look like across the country and as such a lot of time is wasted trying to define what we do, what we teach and how we individually do business.  Until we can commonly define what technology and engineering education looks like at the classroom level there is little that can be done to reduce the day-to-day tasks. 

Resolution: Through Race To The Top, the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) is working with ITEEA and the STEM Center for Teaching and Learning (STEM CTL) to deliver a rigorous program of study in Technology Education as part of Maryland’s STEM effort.  Curriculum and assessment are delivered through online formats.  Professional development is delivered through both face-to-face and online formats.  The use of pre- and post-assessment data is used to inform instruction, expand curricular resources and to strengthen the professional development model.  All resources are being developed with the understanding that MSDE and ITEEA would develop a rigorous program of study that would serve as the baseline instructional model adopted by local school systems.  MSDE fully expects local school system staff and teachers to work across districts to further develop resources and share best practices.  Currently, 18 of 24 local school systems, 110 high schools and over 275 teachers are voluntarily participating in this project. 

As a result of the project and the resources provided to teachers, we have moved past the day-to-day management question and are focusing on where we collectively want to see technology and engineering education programs in 10-15 years.  More information on the project is posted in my next comment. 

Vision:  Our profession, like technology, is one that continually evolves and the next evolution of technology education needs to better serve students.  Our priorities are workforce development and expanding opportunities for all students.  As we revise technology and engineering education in Maryland we are focusing on pathway development and STEM.  Each technology education course should include the application of math, science and technology through a problem/project based approach.  Further, courses should be developed into a program sequence which offers students early college credit, advanced standing/weighted credit and the opportunity to see beyond their high school careers.  Programs should be developed collaboratively at the local, state and national levels.