ISTE Live ‘24 with Utica Community Schools

Join Georgia and Jessica as they share with the community at ISTE Live ‘24. Join the Utica Community Schools team as they share the ways in which they have built capacity within their educators for technology use through coaching cycles. 

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ISTE's The Edge with Utica Community Schools

[00:00:00] Georgia Terlaje: We're recording now. Okay. I'm in the right spot. Excellent. All right. Here we go. It's time for the edge, a podcast brought to you by ISTE community leaders, whether you're a seasoned educator, a visionary administrator, or a passionate education enthusiast. Fasten your seatbelts, plug in your earbuds because this podcast is tailor made for you.

[00:00:22] Georgia Terlaje: Get ready to embark on an exhilarating journey as our ITSD community leaders take you behind the scenes and into the dynamic world of education. And the episodes ahead will unveil stories from the front line, showcasing the relentless dedication and innovation that fuels the transformative field of education.

[00:00:38] Georgia Terlaje: Buckle up and brace yourself for an adventure. Coming up today, we're super excited. We are here at the place where all the magic happens. It's DLive24. I'm excited to meet some of our guests in real life. I'm one of your community leaders, Georgia Terlahi. I'm a TK5 instructional coach and educator of 35 years.

[00:00:56] Georgia Terlaje: And I'm here with my favorite partner in crime, the Thelma to my Louise, the Abbott to my Costello, Jessica Paxson. 

[00:01:03] Jessica Pack: Thank you, Georgia. It feels absolutely incredible to be recording here with you at ISTE Live. I'm Jessica Pack, a middle school teacher and an ISTE author, and today's episode is a little bit different.

[00:01:16] Jessica Pack: Since we're here at ISTE Live in Denver, We're going to take advantage of the geographic proximity of so many amazing people with incredible stories. Today we're joined by Courtney Conley, who will be talking about establishing an ed tech cohort in her district. 

[00:01:33] Courtney Conley: Welcome to the edge, Courtney. Thank you so much, ladies.

[00:01:37] Courtney Conley: I am so excited to be here with my team. My name is Courtney Conley. I am a. instructional technology coach for Utica Community Schools. We are located in Michigan, just north of Detroit. We are the second largest school district in Michigan and we are one of the only ones that actually has technology coaches in our district, which is pretty cool.

[00:01:56] Courtney Conley: So I have with me today, my, my three boys that I work with every day. They're awesome. I have Corey Widener Trapper Hallam and Jerry Anderson. So I, we do a lot Trapper and Corey and I. Do a lot of the tech trainings and then Jerry comes in because he's assistive tech. So he does a lot on the assistive tech piece to make us have a nice inclusive environment for our teachers and our students.

[00:02:21] Georgia Terlaje: So that we can get used to people's voices. Can we start with Jerry? Can you just introduce yourself a little bit? You can add a fun fact or something, something maybe Courtney did not mention. 

[00:02:29] Jerry Anderson: Oh, sure. I'm Jerry Anderson. I am the assistive technology coordinator at Utica Community Schools. I I've had over 30 years of experience in the education field and I'm loving the assistive technology.

[00:02:47] Georgia Terlaje: And next to you is sitting 

[00:02:50] Trapper Hallum: Hi, I'm Trevor Hallam. I'm an instructional technology coach with these guys. I have been in the district for 25, 27 years. 28 years. Fun fact about me is that my namesake is kind of exactly what it should be. My name is Trapper and I was born in Alaska. So there's a little fun fact if you, if you listen to the podcast.

[00:03:10] Cory Widener: Hi, my name is Cory Widener. Also one of the instructional coaches in Utica community schools. Fun fact about me is I went to Michigan state, so go green. All the Spartans out there listening to the podcast, go green. 

[00:03:20] Georgia Terlaje: Awesome. So first question we always like to ask people we have on. I know there's four of you.

[00:03:24] Georgia Terlaje: So if you want to delegate, delegate to one person, what's the origin story of how this crew came together? 

[00:03:31] Courtney Conley: Gosh, that might be, I'm going to start, but Trapper might have to chime in a little bit because Trapper is the OG of the group. A few years ago, kind of when, right just before COVID hit it was envisioned that they wanted to kind of start some kind of technology coach training for the teachers.

[00:03:47] Courtney Conley: And so I believe. You got hired right before COVID, correct you and Jackie. So it was actually Jackie who was left to be a principal and Trapper was hired and, and then COVID hit. So what had happened there is they kind of called on other teachers to support our staff because we are a huge staff.

[00:04:06] Courtney Conley: Everybody was getting devices. I mean, you know, it was, it was a hodgepodge, right? So that's where Corey and I came in. I think Jerry was already in. Kind of assisting with assistive tech. So we came in and we were known as the gang of geeks. There were quite a few of us that were getting on Teams. We had Teams chats going and trainings all day long.

[00:04:24] Courtney Conley: We were, you know, on the phone and on Teams till late at night. Just making sure that our teachers felt successful and our students felt successful. And so kind of moving on from there, they opened up additional spots and that's where Corey and I came in. We were previously media center teachers in the district.

[00:04:41] Courtney Conley: And so we kind of came in together and now we've got this awesome group and we have a really good time together. What, what do you want us to, did I say everything right? Sounds good to me. Oh, wow. Okay. He's the one that makes our videos, so he's really meticulous. So I don't want to say anything that, you know, may, you may have seen his videos.

[00:04:59] Courtney Conley: He's got a big YouTube channel, right? 

[00:05:03] Jessica Pack: Well, you know, we're here at ISTE Live and this is really our huge community moment to all come together and share common interests, learn and grow together. Can you tell us a little about the motivation for creating an edtech cohort in your district?

[00:05:23] Cory Widener: The, our first thought when we put this together was teachers always talk about how they need more time when we give professional developments. We would In service them on something and then they would go away, get immersed in their classrooms with everything that was going on and never have time to come back to what they were in service on.

[00:05:40] Cory Widener: So this was nine separate days throughout the school year where we could. Work with them, have them come back, work with them, with each other, to dive into topics, to go back and teach lessons in their classrooms, come back with us. So it was really out of the need of seeing teachers in the time they spent and maybe using that time with one another to develop lessons at integrated technology.

[00:06:04] Cory Widener: Along the same lines, we had two main focuses when we went into this. We wanted them to grow professionally. There wasn't any type of evaluative type of approach. Feeling to this. We just wanted them to feel better about integrating technology. And then the second part of that was student growth. We just wanted them when they use the technology to see that the students were engaged and that they were growing at their pace, the best they could with the technology.

[00:06:28] Cory Widener: So that was kind of one of a couple of our focuses as we moved through the process. 

[00:06:35] Trapper Hallum: Some of the other focuses, I think we're kind of looking at as what you said, there is like a grassroots movement, like getting the teachers as a leader out there. And having them bring it into their schools.

[00:06:44] Trapper Hallum: Because again, there's four of us, three and a half, if we You know, as we call Jerry cause he's part time with us. So he still has to do as assistive tech as well. So that was, that was kind of a big initiative part. Additionally, we looked at adding in Microsoft training as well, cause we're a Microsoft district, so we're looking for more buy in, finding different ways to kind of get them invested.

[00:07:02] Trapper Hallum: And I think personally, for me with this, I wanted touch points inside the building, people that we could go to the count on. To have conversations with, to maybe even kind of have them start initiatives or try things that we wanted to do throughout the district and get better feedback. Because again, getting into a classroom in a district our size one on one and doing a coaching cycle or some version of it was difficult.

[00:07:24] Trapper Hallum: The teachers don't have a lot of time to invite us into the rooms. And so this was a nice way for us to have a good group of solid people of all ranges in it. They were, you know, tech savvy to no tech at all. So we really got a nice picture of what that looked like. So. 

[00:07:39] Cory Widener: Just one clarification. When we say a district our size, we have 25 elementary schools, seven junior highs, four high schools, over 20, 000 students.

[00:07:46] Cory Widener: So that's when we talk about, you know, hitting all of those different sizes. That's how big we are. 

[00:07:53] Georgia Terlaje: So when you decided to start the cohort group, how did you, did you go recruit teachers? How did you decide who was going to be in your kind of trailblazers for this project? 

[00:08:04] Courtney Conley: Well, we actually sent out an application on Microsoft Forms, so just various questions in regards to, you know, are they, how do they feel about technology?

[00:08:14] Courtney Conley: Do they use it technology? Do they know what, you know, TPAC is, or SAMR? Are they familiar with those pedagogies? Are they familiar with the ISTE standards? All those types of questions, and knowing to, is Are they going to be someone like to trappers point to bring things back into the classroom because that was a huge piece for us.

[00:08:32] Courtney Conley: We don't just want him to sit and get and then leave. And you know, it's gone. So we ended up doing that. And then depending we were grant funded. So depending on how much money we had, we could pick. And I think we took what 29 teachers. So, and it was pretty much half elementary, half secondary. So it was a really, really strong group.

[00:08:51] Courtney Conley: I felt like, you know, And you know, and then we did a survey at the end to see, you know, how they felt about everything. And it was very positive. We had some really good results. So it's good. 

[00:09:03] Jessica Pack: So then what has been the impact on teaching and learning in your district? You have maybe some specific success stories that you could share with us about the transformational effect of the EdTech cohort?

[00:09:19] Courtney Conley: Yeah, we are, Bemis teachers did a video using Canva, kind of creating an onboarding for their students for the fall. And it was great. And it's actually went viral through our, our district. Our assistant superintendent was so proud of it and he sent it out. And I thought that was, that was really an aha moment.

[00:09:37] Courtney Conley: And honestly, when we see these teachers and it's not even in a, like teaching atmosphere, we could be out at a restaurant and you bump into somebody or whatever, it's constantly, I loved your cohort. I got so much out of it. I loved collaborating with other teachers. From different areas, and it's so nice to see as a secondary teacher what an elementary teacher feels like or is doing, and we all kind of have the same issues, and even though we're, you know, in different buildings, so I, I feel like that just the positivity of it as a whole, and, and we're actually starting one in the fall as well, so I think that that generated a lot of a lot more people joining us, and we're actually starting another one for specialist teachers, so our PE, music, art they'll have an opportunity to in our media center teachers to join their own.

[00:10:24] Courtney Conley: So 

[00:10:25] Jessica Pack: Georgia and I are actually from a district of a similar size, and we know that it can be really challenging to have effective communication channels. And what I really love about what you're saying is that you're onboarding a lot of people and making a huge impact in a way that is empowering teachers, making them feel like they're not alone, because I think that's the impact of poor communication structures is that you end up feeling like you're a silo by yourself.

[00:10:49] Jessica Pack: So that's really cool. 

[00:10:52] Georgia Terlaje: I was just curious, were you able to have like assisted technology teachers in the cohort? 

[00:10:58] Jerry Anderson: Yeah, I have a touch points already in the building. I've been an assistive technology coordinator or leader for about, excuse me, for about eight years now. And so I've already got all the touch points in, in the building.

[00:11:11] Jerry Anderson: And, and so it was great to bring it into the classrooms and and have them take it back to their grade level partners and things of that nature as well. 

[00:11:20] Georgia Terlaje: It's such a great deployment method because I think of it like putting food coloring in water, you know, how it just keeps going out and then people want to be part of the excitement when they see what's going on.

[00:11:30] Georgia Terlaje: So that's it. I think that's a really great model. What what are some challenges you face? So if we have listeners that maybe think like this is a cool idea, I'd like to try this in my district. What are some challenges you've faced that you could share with people? 

[00:11:44] Jerry Anderson: I think the biggest challenge when the idea was pitched was the fact that we wanted to pull 30 teachers out on a monthly basis and trying to get sub coverage because of the teaching shortage.

[00:11:57] Jerry Anderson: I think that was our biggest hurdle or obstacle that we came up with. 

[00:12:02] Courtney Conley: And I do feel like, you know, some teachers I think that came in, were apprehensive on some technology and, and they really came as that being a challenge for them. And for us, they did come out of their comfort zone to, and try new things.

[00:12:17] Courtney Conley: And it was nice to see a seasoned teacher. Who's, you know, doesn't need that technology, does, is trying something like a OneNote in the classroom or a CuraPod lesson. I thought that that was really good and I mean, I don't think we had a ton of challenges, would you think? 

[00:12:34] Cory Widener: One thing, and it's not really a challenge, it's, it's teachers just kind of get so ingrained in what they do and how they do it.

[00:12:42] Cory Widener: To get them sometimes to believe in themselves, that they can try something new, that they can take something and, and energize it with technology I think was kind of a challenge for us because we all, the four of us have an attitude of like, anything's possible. Like we can make this work. It might not be the, we'll enhance it.

[00:12:59] Cory Widener: We'll make it better. But to get a teacher to just embrace that process and then, you know, See the look in their eyes when they get done it and how good they feel about themselves. Like when they looked at like in projects and they looked at, they looked at their own projects, they were very excited at what they had done.

[00:13:15] Cory Widener: And I think they have a stronger belief now in themselves moving forward. So that, that was, I mean, at the beginning, Getting them to just come on. You can do it. You can do it. 

[00:13:22] Courtney Conley: And don't you think that the smile book helped with that? I'm sorry. Don't you think that the smile book helped with that too? So we use Lori Guillen's book, Smile Learning, and it's just a, like a chill, easy read book.

[00:13:36] Courtney Conley: And it just kind of brought people back to how tech really started. And I think that they really embraced that, where it was kind of a fun read, but they still, Took some great pieces out of it. So I think that that really helped you with, with the people that were worried or nervous, I think it kind of opened them up a little bit to be able to challenge themselves.

[00:13:57] Jerry Anderson: We use two different books in that book study, correct? We the other one was make the move, making the move. 

[00:14:04] Trapper Hallum: Yeah, not so much a challenge for us. Obviously in the way that we design stuff, but I think for the teachers dedicating that amount of time out of their classrooms was unique for them because a lot of them are encased in their classrooms and they don't come out very often and coming out to that kind of stuff So some did but like a vast majority of them that was a giant commitment for them to make to make the lesson plans, to get everything ready.

[00:14:23] Trapper Hallum: But I think once they did get involved and they felt empowered, that they, they really kind of saw the value in it. And by the end, I think all of them, you know, it kind of said, you know, this is worth the time and effort that we did. 

[00:14:34] Jerry Anderson: I guess what I was just going to mention is, I mean, we're continuing this first year cohort into a year two, and I think we had 95 percent apply to come back for year two.

[00:14:44] Georgia Terlaje: Well, and I think that's such a great model to have that kind of like personalized peel. And so you were talking about some of the reluctant teachers to have another teacher to lean on. Not that people don't love the ed tech coaches, but sometimes it's daunting because they might feel like, you know, so much.

[00:15:01] Georgia Terlaje: I don't want to ask this question because it seems really dumb. And maybe to have someone in their same skill set to be able to lean on to get that confidence, right? I 

[00:15:10] Courtney Conley: think that Like especially being a teacher in a classroom. A lot of times I think that they're almost threatened when somebody else comes into like, this is my own private Idaho.

[00:15:18] Courtney Conley: I know what I'm doing. I don't need somebody to come in and we have seen now, which has been so nice. I think that we're building that trust and that relationship with these teachers so that they'll call Corey and say, Hey, I'm doing this. Or, you know, one of us will say, I'm doing a you know, a near pod, can you come in and just walk around and help me?

[00:15:35] Courtney Conley: Or I'm doing something with Apple classroom or one note. And so I feel like when we're just coming in and we're not, you know, telling them what to do, but maybe suggesting some things or what they really did. And I just feel like that trust is really changed like from September to now, like I, they are really invested in trusting us.

[00:15:53] Georgia Terlaje: And you have to give yourself grace because it takes time to build trust because as an instructional coach kind of had to do the same thing of let them trust you because they don't want a stranger in their classroom when they realize you're an ally and you're here to play in the mess with them and we don't know it all.

[00:16:10] Georgia Terlaje: I think that lets them open the door, but it takes time because they're reluctant and, you know, have probably been party to, you know, people walking around with clipboards and, you know, shaking their fingers. And so 

[00:16:21] Courtney Conley: please don't come in my room. And that's, I think that you know, but yeah, to your point, I just think that they are just more confident come up with us coming in and I think they enjoy us helping them.

[00:16:33] Courtney Conley: I think that they feel more now that we are co learning with them. So. Yeah, very much a partnership. 

[00:16:41] Trapper Hallum: I don't think they saw us anything different. I think initially, obviously, that's the case, right? You speak, that was a great point, but like, I think as that session went along, I mean, they wrote us thank you cards, and they were very grateful for us, it was so heart felt warming at the end, like it was a giant group, and we just felt like one big group, and nothing different than that, and I think that's important, I think that's kind of what you're speaking about, is that we are with you, we are nothing different, you know, we're there with you, fighting, learning how to do this together.

[00:17:07] Jessica Pack: So Cory, you mentioned a growth in self efficacy for teachers. And Jerry, you were talking about the retention rate with wanting to sign up for another year of the program. Are there other ways you've measured success in this initiative or are there ways that you plan to continue to measure success in the future?

[00:17:24] Cory Widener: I think our, our, our. From the get go, like we did surveys at the end of every session. So we were, we were like, we always told them that was more for us to see what we could do to enhance your time with us, what we could do to make sure that we were getting everything that you needed to take back to your classroom to be successful.

[00:17:40] Cory Widener: So we did some surveys along the way. I guess the biggest thing is just the way it's expanding. We've got the year two that we talked about. We've got another group of year ones coming through, and then we've got another group of specialists. So now we had 29 teachers. We're gonna add in about another 45 this year.

[00:17:54] Cory Widener: So now we're gonna have upwards of 75 85 teachers that after this year can be touch points in those buildings. We've had at least six or seven of the people who went through the first year presented a staff meeting of what they learned at our meetings. So now you're talking about if we have all the staffs that are learning what we talk about now, there's a two, three hundred more that are so just getting them doing those things with technology, I think, is more in our eyes.

[00:18:23] Cory Widener: What we're looking for. We're looking for that to kind of be our momentum builder and the way that we kind Look at ourselves and say, yes, this is succeeding going forward. 

[00:18:35] Jerry Anderson: Yeah. From being in the the buildings before the cohort began. I know some of those teachers that were in the cohort and I knew how much they use technology before the cohort.

[00:18:45] Jerry Anderson: And now to see how much technology they're using, I know that it's working.

[00:18:52] Georgia Terlaje: So if we have some listeners that maybe would like to try something similar in their school district, what's some advice you would give them now that you've had this year in if they weren't wanting to plan something similar? 

[00:19:04] Courtney Conley: I think the first thing I would say is go slow to go fast. Like, Really kind of begin with that end in mind think of what you want them to get out of it and then kind of build Back and just kind of see and really evaluate where your teachers are because you don't want to overwhelm them You know, maybe starting with one thing and moving on any ideas guys 

[00:19:27] Jerry Anderson: yeah I think getting a feel for the the baseline of where the staff is because the last thing you want to do is bring staff In and show them things that they already know or go the opposite direction and be way over their head.

[00:19:39] Jerry Anderson: And so really, you know, making sure that you that you know your audience.

[00:19:47] Cory Widener: I was just thinking, as you were asking the question what I tried to do along the way was always stay on that focus that I kind of said at the beginning. This is about your professional growth, and this is about engaging students in their learning with technology. Just keeping that focus. And then from a coach's perspective, It's okay to be okay, right?

[00:20:06] Cory Widener: Like you don't have to get it. You don't have to nail it perfectly. Everybody doesn't have to take the, the, everything you told them during a session home with them, right? So it's okay. We there's four of us. We're bouncing ideas off of each other all the time. I can only imagine a single coach out there trying this kind of endeavor.

[00:20:23] Cory Widener: I would say, say, I would even say. Don't have 29 participants like that would you would want to start with a much smaller plc and you might even start maybe meeting with them a little less often and then see if it needs to build to more often because we there's four of us so it's something that we could work through and if somebody didn't have time for something we could always rely on the other one to pick it up okay i'll do this i'll do this tomorrow then and you'll pick up this piece The next time we meet with them.

[00:20:50] Cory Widener: So we were fortunate in that instance. 

[00:20:53] Trapper Hallum: I would say the one thing that kind of stood out to me that I think we were aware of, but it did, it kind of showed through as we were in the, in the throes of the cohort was, if they could be in pairs at the same building, that seemed to help a lot because then they had a working partner that they could go see and bounce ideas off like we were doing.

[00:21:10] Trapper Hallum: And I think we did try to pick, When it was coming through, we tried to make sure as much as we could, that there was partners that they could do that and they could work together. The crazy part was, and we go back and forth and we say, you know, I'm, you know, we're talking secondary stuff here and we're talking elementary stuff and do they mesh and can you get something from, that was one of the biggest feedbacks that we got, they didn't mind being, you know, between two.

[00:21:32] Trapper Hallum: So that pairing or whatever, finding a partner seemed to be a big piece of what they did and gave them just as much empowerment as being there with us. 

[00:21:42] Jerry Anderson: And I think when you mentioned elementary and secondary together I think that it helped in our district, just seeing what the counterparts do, because typically our professional development is geared, you know, grade level or building wise, and being able to mix the way that they did, it gave them a larger scope of what was actually happening.

[00:22:05] Jessica Pack: Thank you so much for this incredibly interesting conversation. I hope others will replicate your vision and what you've really built before we let you go, because I know is the live is a very busy place and you, I'm sure have many places to be, but could you maybe share some contact information or a way that listeners could reach out to you if they have follow up questions after listening?

[00:22:27] Courtney Conley: I always forget the email address. Why it's we have ITC geek support at Utica, which is U T I C a K one two. org. So it's ITC geek support at Utica K 12. org. So the nice thing about that email is it comes to all of us. So we all can respond accordingly. So we would love to hear from you. Oh, we also have our Twitter or X I'm old school.

[00:22:53] Courtney Conley: I still call it Twitter. No, I'm sorry. Like I can't, I can't go the other way. So we are also at ITC geeks on there as well. So definitely check out what, what is it? Oh, I'm sorry. ITC underscore geeks. 

[00:23:08] Courtney Conley: Yes. Trapper has a very good YouTube channel.

[00:23:11] Courtney Conley: He's got some great videos. Videos on there that he works really hard on.

[00:23:15] Courtney Conley: And the nice piece is a lot of his videos actually aren't just for Utica Even though you know, we are we obviously go in our bubble, but they other teachers use them as well a lot of good performance matters videos that other districts have looked at so he's yep. He's our video guy. 

[00:23:32] Jessica Pack: That's perfect I 

[00:23:32] Courtney Conley: tease him about it, but they are they realistically they are they're good videos.

[00:23:36] Courtney Conley: So 

[00:23:37] Jessica Pack: Well, thank you again for your time. That just about wraps up this episode of The Edge Podcast. We hope you had a wonderful time listening. My name is Jessica and you can find me at Packwoman208 on X threads and Instagram. 

[00:23:52] Georgia Terlaje: And I'm Georgia Cherlahi and you can find me at Georgia Cherlahi on X and you can find Jessica and I both at StorytellingSavesTheWorld.

[00:23:59] Georgia Terlaje: com. 

[00:24:01] Jessica Pack: On behalf of everyone at ISTE's The Edge podcast, remember to keep exploring your passion, fostering your creativity, and continue taking risks. All things that can bring you to the edge. Thank you guys. You're awesome. Go ahead, do your thing. Thanks. That's such an amazing story.