Collaboration Coaches Make Up Cornerstone of Arizona District Tech Efforts

In Arizona, small groups of educators learn from each other as they create student-centered, project-based and technology-enhanced classrooms.

Collaboration coaches have become the cornerstone of everything besides the Apache Junction Unified School District's College Readiness For All plan, said Jon Castelhano, director of technology.

This is the second year the district has used the coaching model, based on Microsoft's peer coaching model. Instead of teachers staying behind closed doors, they're part of a professional learning community facilitated by fellow educators.

"The biggest impact is the teachers are coming together and working in small groups with other teachers side by side, and they're bringing out the strengths of everyone in the group," said Tracy Watanabe, technology integration specialist.

This coaching model goes way beyond technology training. As Castelhano puts it, they try to keep the emphasis off the shiny technology and on good teaching. Without good teaching, the technology doesn't matter.

Watanabe added, "It's about the pedagogy and the learning; it's not about how to use the device."

Because of the coaching model, teachers have been sharing resources and things they're learning throughout the district. For example, high school, junior high and elementary school teachers each have groups on Diigo, a social bookmarking site

They're also blogging. Every year, they have a teacher and a student blogging challenge. Before, people didn't really know what a blog was. But now many of the staff members are following, commenting on and writing blogs. And the enthusiasm is spreading to their students.

Over the past two years, the district has emphasized a college readiness plan that has seven different pieces. The three foundational tiles include relationships, rigor and relevance. The other four include 1:1 opportunity (computing), individualized instruction, project-based learning and 21st century classrooms.  

These pieces have changed the classroom environment along with the learning model. For example, two years ago classrooms mostly had rows of chairs. Now, they have clusters of tables where students create products and collaborate on projects. 

In a video this year, students shared what they liked and wanted to see more of in their schools. No one knew what they were going to say, but everything they shared corresponded to the district's vision.

"They hit every tile there, so it was very telling for the teachers to hear that on the first day back," Castelhano said.

This is only the second year of the district's new vision. But they're making progress.

"We're not there yet, but we're getting there, and so it is encouraging," Castelhano said. "And we're very open to working with others, seeing what others are doing, inviting others to share, because to me that's how we learn best." 

Resources:

Check out Watanabe's blog to see what they shared about these initiatives at the Arizona CIO/CTO Forum 2011 on Oct. 6. Disclosure: The Center for Digital Education and Converge sponsored the event.