Dive Brief:

• As the proliferation of tech tools into classrooms continues to expand what's possible in a learning environment, administrators must ensure that teachers' need for ongoing support in this transitional period is not overlooked, according to EdTech: Focus on K-12.
• A key support area is guiding teachers through necessary improvements and adjustments to pedagogy and lesson plans to better incorporate tech, using models like the Danielson Group Framework for Teaching to consider how ed tech can be used to boost students' engagement and provide differentiated learning opportunities.
• Additionally, administrators should seek areas where educators could benefit from additional professional development opportunities focused on incorporating tech and other innovational strategies when evaluating them.

Dive Insight:

While identifying tech tools that enable students to do amazing things they wouldn't otherwise be able to do and putting it in the classroom is key, administrators' roles obviously don't stop there. As Glenwood Elementary School Principal David French told a packed session at the Future of Education Technology Conference last month, “We can’t ask our teachers to do new things if we as school leaders sit there and do the same old, same old. If you know your 'why,' your 'what' has more purpose and power.”

French makes a point of trying to model uses for various technologies now readily available to educators, in addition to using technology to expand outreach and provide information to parents and the rest of the district. Ensuring that adequate PD options are available, ranging from microcredentials to conference opportunities, is also key. And, perhaps most important of all, administrators can keep in mind that support is a two-way street in terms of communication, as teachers often tend to be a school or district's greatest untapped innovation engines. Simply feeling that you have support can sometimes provide all the encouragement needed to come up with and test out some of the most successful ideas.