Looking Back to Move Forward

It’s that time of year again. Time to set professional goals as part of the appraisal process. It’s hard to know what to choose. But hoping this blog post will help me to organise my thoughts a bit better.

First, I’m looking at the responses to an anonymous survey I sent to teachers in May/June 2018, at the end of the last school year, as a way of gaining feedback on my first year in the role of ICT Integration Coach.

Approachability

Collaboration

Knowledge Base

My take-aways from those first three sections:

1. I am approachable.

2. I collaborate well.

3. I am a learner.

The fourth section asked ‘What should Sarah keep doing?’. Almost all of the responses mentioned ‘keep being approachable and helpful’. Some mentioned ‘keep working with teachers’ and ‘keep coming into classrooms’.

The fifth section asked ‘What should Sarah stop doing?’. Many people wrote ‘nothing’! One teacher wrote ‘stop saying yes to everything’ and one wrote ‘stop waiting for teachers to come see you for help’.

The sixth section asked ‘What should Sarah start doing?’. Overwhelmingly, a common theme was ‘be more proactive about coming into classrooms’. 

The seventh, and final, section asked for ‘Any additional comments’. A good array of positive, and encouraging comments. And just one negative comment:

I did not feel there was much integration with the units or with the grade unless we specifically asked.

No one likes negative feedback. Neither do I. That one negative comment was what I focused on, more than all the positive. Because it makes me what to be better.

The trend that I identify as coming through here is that, in general, teachers feel that I need to be proactive about being in classrooms. Is that enough of a goal?

Now to look back at my job description and think about how that fits in with the information above and the school’s strategic plan. I’ve written below the parts I’ve extracted from my job description that seem most pertinent to developing my goals:

1. Support and supplement the technological expertise of teachers by participating in collaborative planning

2. Co-teach technology-rich learning projects with the classroom teacher 

3. Encourage and support the elementary teaching staff to integrate new and existing resources and online digital tools in their classroom curriculum

Summary of my role:

The ICT Integration Coach works collaboratively with all community members, including ES School Leadership, teachers, students and parents, on a regular basis in order to build an understanding of best practices in teaching and learning with technology. Through this model, the ICT Integration Coach promotes a networked learning environment, emphasizing creativity and innovation.

So that’s what has been bothering me. Those last four words. Emphasizing creativity and innovation. I haven’t done that well.

The strategic plan of the school identifies three areas:

1. Personalised Learning

2. Engaged Community

3. Endured Sustainability

Personalised Learning and Engaged Community are most connected to my role in the school.

My struggle is that I’m not sure which direction I am supposed to be going in. The vision of where technology might be going in the school.

Anyhow… a quick list of possible ideas for goals, I’ll add more to this later (hopefully):

1. Be more proactive in my approach to technology integration

2. Develop better technology integration with teams

3. Support staff in developing stronger global connections with the wider community

Watch this space!!

#2018 #appraisal #goals