Student achievement increasingly depends on teacher technology fluency.
Even prior to COVID-19, technology played an increasingly central role in schools’ instructional programming. From Canvas to Google Classroom to SMART Boards, projectors, and Chromebooks, student engagement with educational technology is fundamental to the experience of most students in American K-12 schools.
Having this technology available, however, is different from knowing what to do with it, and that’s where CTS comes in, supporting schools in leveraging their existing technology resources to drive instructional outcomes. While online instructional platforms like BrainPop or Newsela are great, they’ll do little to impact student achievement if neither the teachers nor, of course, the students know how to use them properly. Similarly, classroom technology like SMART Boards, projectors, and even staff laptops have several, maybe dozens, of capabilities with which teachers rarely engage.
CTS’s technology PD offerings help drive instructional outcomes.
CTS bridges the gap between a school’s existing technology and the unique instructional mission it seeks to achieve. Working together with school leadership, we’ll devise a professional development program that gets teachers from point A to point B, identifying and addressing any gaps in teacher understanding through targeted professional development sessions.
Our offerings range from Google Suite how-to sessions to student information system deep dives, educational software training, and overviews of the key features of common classroom technology systems, like SMART Boards. We firmly believe that with the right training, teachers can make the most of their classroom and school technology to improve outcomes for students, all while aligning their practice with the school’s unique instructional model.
Our technology PD programming helps teachers better understand their instructional content management and student information systems.
Teachers who improve their fluency in the school’s content management and student information systems can add tremendous value to classroom programming. CTS’s knowledge of the most common student information systems, including PowerSchool, Illuminate, and Infinite Campus, is unmatched. Our professional development sessions ensure your teachers’ and support staffs’ understanding is as well.
Our sessions similarly address best practices in instructional content management systems, such as Google Classroom and Google Drive, as well as the multiple integrations each of these platforms provides. Gmail, Google Calendar, and Keep, for example, can all be integrated to varying degrees with Google Classroom and Drive, further synthesizing instructional content and practice so that teachers can find what they need when they need it. Learning the ins-and-outs of these systems also supports archiving of valuable instructional content, ensuring the school doesn’t reinvent the wheel with each successive year.
We also address classroom systems that teachers use on a daily basis.
Of course, teachers are rarely standing over their computers for an entire day. Our professional development sessions necessarily address best practices in some of the most common pieces of classroom technology, including interactive SMART boards, projectors, and audiovisual displays.
Our team recognizes that these tools can not only drive instructional outcomes for a class of students as a whole but are also particularly effective at reaching students with learning disabilities or those who might otherwise disengage from content presented through more traditional methods.
By giving your teachers everything they need to unleash the potential of their classroom hardware, we can not only improve students’ instructional outcomes but also increase teacher confidence in their daily practice, providing them with the know-how they need to make full use of their classroom technology.
Teachers should know their school’s educational software just as well as their students.
The same is true for teachers’ knowledge and use of the school’s online instructional platforms. Our professional development sessions ensure that your teachers know the ins-and-outs of your school’s educational software. From pulling reports to create small group rosters and tracking student engagement in real-time, we expose teachers to the full range of capabilities their school’s educational software has to offer.
These sessions can also improve teacher organization, addressing commonly used platforms like Microsoft Office and SMART Notebook that help instructional staff keep their eye on the prize and minimize unnecessary distractions.
At CTS, we use technology PD to help schools achieve their unique missions.
More than any single thing, our professional development sessions support teachers in supporting their students, providing them with additional tools to reach children who may not respond to traditional instructional methods or whose level of engagement can skyrocket with the right technology.
Our experience working in a diverse array of schools ensures we have a solution that meets the needs of your school, as well as the technical know-how to conduct impactful professional development sessions for your instructional staff. Contact us today to learn more about our technology PD offerings and how we can help you achieve your school’s unique mission.
