Goal Setting Exercise

Creating an Action Plan

By: Michelle Hobbs

Date – June 5, 2015Goal: To create teachers who are proficient in a variety of different technologies that can help our

elementary school student population learn how to read and help them in this ever changing world for the future.

(that being said, technology is a tool and this understanding should be implicit through all workshops and learning sessions)

Motivation: Smartboards are in every classroom but many teachers do not know how to use these boards to the best of their ability. Likewise grade 1-5 classroom contains Mac computers, many teachers are not aware of many websites that might be of use, and do not know much of anything about assistive

technologies. The library also subscribes to websites, but many teachers do not know about all these websites and their functions.

Action steps: Tuesday is the professional development/meeting day at the school. Students leave an hour early and teachers are expected to stay a half our later on this day, to account for professional

development and meeting activities. These could be half our sessions occurring over several months of time.

Training Sessions: Smartboard required weekly training sessions for those who profess that they know little about using the boards, required session where librarian goes through the usernames, passwords and offerings of all reading websites the library/school subscribes to, optional session about resources

available in the physical library and how to use the online catalogue, specialist from Awasaj (special needs school) could come in and talk about various programs they use to support teaching reading at their school, teachers could each be required to find and explore one or two online reading websites

and write a summary of what is on the website, and when it might be appropriate to use this resource – this will then be compiled onto a document with the library websites, training in google classrooms and

how this resource might be used to support reading and the classroom in generalObstacles: lack of time, which is why this should be time built into Tuesday’s after school from the beginning of next year and placed in the school calendarClaims of “I already know this” which is why certain workshops (eg. Smartboard) will only require attendance if the teacher professes to not know a lot about / anything about the topic at handWorkshops/training sessions being “sprung” on teachers last minute will not be an issue as teachers will know about them and can prepare for them months in advance – preparing powerpoints, videos, handouts and files if necessaryThe network does go down a great deal at the schoolResponses:Teachers might find it a struggle to attend the sessions, but it should be stressed that this will help them to reach all students.Students will probably enjoy having a greater variety of resources to help them/engage them at school and at home.Administrators will probably appreciate that teachers can utilize the technology that is present to a greater extent.Teachers will probably be further angered when plans need to be changed because the network is down yet again.

Most parents will probably be appreciative of having additional options to use in teaching reading at home.Resources: teachers (IT, library, English coordinator, English teachers, Reading Room Teacher, IT specialists) , websites such as starfall, abcya.com, readinga-z, National Geographic Kids, funbrain.com, tumblebooks, QAK library online resources - http://qakseclib.weebly.com/online-resources.html, potentially teachers at other Qatar Foundation schools or at the head officeAction Starters: present goals and action plan to head of English department for consideration, meet with principal and head of school if necessary to discuss plan, try to get events scheduled onto calendar for next year in order to improve the understanding of teaching reading through technology, get other teachers excited to be involved and present information to teachers, research some websites myself and be prepared to present what I have found and how it might be applied to readingMini-goals and Milestones: That teachers might be made more aware of the breadth of technology options that exist for them to access and what the functions and resources on each website are,That teachers better know how to use their smartboard and can then use the functions of their smartboard to help them teach readingNext Steps: Share information gathered about reading relating websites with all Qatar Foundation schools in order to support all schools to create strong readers. As most students attending Qatar Foundation schools are Arabic first language learners, many of the websites we find that consistently work for our students will very likely help students at other schools as well.