The Types of CTSC Projects

The Center for Technology and School Change (CTSC) offers schools and districts two types of professional development projects for their teachers. Both are customized to meet the needs of participants, their schools, and their districts. The workshops reflect the needs and desires expressed by school administrators and practitioners in preliminary meetings, and take account of the available technology resources. In designing the workshops for urban schools, a particular strength of CTSC, facilitators are sensitive to the environment of the teachers' schools. They work hard to ensure that workshop participants will have all the resources they need to conduct the lessons they construct.

The CTSC Technology Workshop Series

This series is designed for practitioners who want to create a single technology-infused lesson for their students. Through a series of four workshops conducted by CTSC facilitators, teachers learn which tools will accomplish this instructional goal, how to use those tools, and how to introduce them into their classroom practice.

The CTSC Technology Infusion Project

The infusion project is for practitioners who are able to commit to a more intensive training experience. Participants in this project seek to create a technology-infused curriculum unit which consists of several lessons and which uses a variety of technology tools. Teachers not only attend CTSC workshops, but also receive personal instruction from CTSC facilitators who follow them into the classroom to help them implement the project with their students.

In both professional development projects, CTSC facilitators spend considerable time working closely with teachers, discussing each teacher's current practice-specifically, how the teachers' practice might be enhanced by the infusion of technology. This process of learning how to integrate technology fosters knowledge-building conversations; indeed, the process requires teachers to rethink what they typically do in the classroom.

After implementing projects developed through CTSC, teachers and facilitators are able to keep in touch through online communication. Online environments enable teachers to share, with each other and with the CTSC facilitators, their knowledge, questions, and frustrations. Equally important, as they experience a new teaching and learning situation the teachers have the opportunity to receive and provide appropriate support as needed.

The CTSC Technology Workshop Series

The workshops are designed to accommodate both participants with little exposure to using technology in education and those participants with strong backgrounds in technology infusion. The goal is for all participants to develop a technology-infused classroom lesson based on the "essential question" design. In general, the workshops are designed to allow teachers to try out technology applications that can be used as thinking tools in the classroom. Teachers are encouraged to bring their questions and challenges to the workshops, so that CTSC facilitators and their peers can work to solve them.

The workshops may be conducted on site for teachers at a single school, or they may be rotated among the schools in a district for teachers in all the district schools. Typically, there are four workshops in the series. Some schools and districts opt to host several workshop series; different participants may attend each series, or the series may contain different workshops so that the same participants may attend more than one series.

Sampling of Workshop Series

The titles of the workshops in series conducted recently by CTSC facilitators in the New York area demonstrate the wide range of technology topics and academic subjects covered:

• Develop Problem Solving Skills with Kidpix
• Mathlish
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• Inspiration
• Presentations with Pizzazz: Images, Sounds, & Video
• Using Software in the Research Process
• WebQuests

CTSC Technology Infusion Project

The infusion project workshops assist teachers in developing a technology-rich curriculum unit. Teachers come to the workshops to learn a variety of technology tools and then pick an area of their curriculum of great interest or one that they wish to improve through the infusion of technology. During the first part of the infusion project, teachers design lessons during after-school professional development classes. In the next part of the infusion project, CTSC facilitators provide classroom-based support as teachers implement their lesson in the classroom.

After-School Professional Development Classes

At after-school classes teachers learn about many types of technology resources. Teachers have the opportunity to:

• explore a variety of computer tools (including software, such as Inspiration, Kidspiration, and PowerPoint; CD-ROMs, the Internet, digital cameras, and scanners)
• design a technology-infused lesson or project framed through an essential question design
• share their professional development activities, questions, and concerns, and their classroom experiences with like-minded colleagues
• receive personalized instruction and support related to the use of resources from the CTSC facilitators
• view model teacher and student presentations
• develop more effective classroom management techniques, organize learning time more efficiently, and equitably distribute resources among the students
• engage in productive collaborations with colleagues who have different levels of technology proficiency

Classroom-Based Support from CTSC Facilitators

After teachers design lessons during the after school workshops, CTSC facilitators work with teachers in their classroom as they implement their projects with their students.

Facilitators also meet on a regular basis with teachers to answer their specific questions and to provide a variety of types of support. They help teachers with professional concerns such as:

• solving software and hardware problems
• mastering the use of software
• articulating their technology needs to school and district administrators
• acquiring internet searching skills
• developing their students' technology expertise