Effective Projects Case Study

Laptops for Teachers at Bartlett School District

This is a story about a project that started 1/1/2007.

For more information, please contact: Amelia (Jimi) Emery at jemery@jbartlett.k12.nh.us.

We purchased 6 laptops to supplement our teacher laptop program and provided on-site professional development (NWEA Growth and Goals Training) required for successful implementation.  Teachers will use the laptops to access student assessment data, conduct research, and develop lesson plans linked to their classroom curriculum, New Hampshire state standards, and their Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP).  One of the main goals is to use the laptops to access Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) student data, skills improvement areas and growth target goals.

Funding: This project was supported by $10,000 from NCLB Title II-D (Educational Technology) and $2,000 in local funds. The project illustrates how federal funding supports “Data collection and analysis – Implementing individualized instruction by collecting, managing, and analyzing data to inform and enhance teaching and school improvement efforts.” The project addressed the following grades and content areas: 

PreK-2 Gr3-5  Gr6-8              Data Analysis

The Setting: Josiah Bartlett Elementary School (JBES) has approximately 300 students in K-8. Students in grades 1-6 are with their teacher for two years (looping). Kindergarten students spend one year with their teachers and middle school (7-8) has classes that rotate students through core blocks. Supporting these loops, we also have special educators and assistants. During the past several years, we have really started to collect, analyze and utilize student assessment data. With this concerted effort, we have noted a requirement for laptops for our teachers. Our teachers need the ability to move from room to room, go to conferences and take home the tool to help them accomplish the many tasks associated with data collection… 24/7 access. Laptops directly assigned to teachers also keeps student confidential data secure. Our students have a good technology base with an approximate 2:1 student to computer ratio. Our teachers, however, did not have personal access technology.

The plot: Our most difficult challenge was determining who would receive the first laptops as not every teacher in the school would be equipped. Our data team, and tech committee members came together to overcome this obstacle through several discussion periods. At first, our teachers were tentative with using this new personal technology, but after a few weeks most were actively engaged in using this compelling new tool. Another smaller challenge was small technology glitches such as home access to wireless and occasional problems with receiving wireless in the building. Learning how to find the wireless with the best signal was a bit of a learning curve as well.

The teachers: 6 teachers were directly involved. We decided to provide the six laptops from the grant to a teacher from each grade level. Our 5/6 team already had a laptop, so they were skipped. The laptops went to Kindergarten, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7/8.

The students: The goal for this project was to increase student achievement and we feel that was accomplished.  We feel the laptops provided part of the impetus for more in-depth data analysis and further refinement and development of differentiated lesson and unit plans.

The data: We asked each participant to complete an on-line survey prior to attending our NWEA Growth and Goals workshop in March.  After the workshop we asked participants to take the survey again to measure what knowledge they gained through the workshop.  This was a 19 question survey.  Each area on the survey showed growth.

The difference: As a measure of evaluation, our NECAP and NWEA scores are strong and our students have shown growth in skills development. For instance, our NECAP scores in Reading, Math and Writing we met or exceeded the state scaled scores in all 6 grades that took the test. On a state school comparison of other K-8 schools, we ranked 14th in Math, 8th in Reading, and 3rd in Writing. Although we strongly support this effort and are willing to share our story, we feel that the data to support providing laptops to teachers is well reported. There are many studies that can be found on the Internet and our research on the Internet was a basis for our request for funding this laptop effort.  According to many studies, students achieve at a higher level when teachers are giving the support of personal technology access.

Essential conditions: First, we had to have a willing group of teachers to participate. Second, we needed training to help the teachers gain a better understanding of how to retrieve their data, determine goals, and then differentiate instruction to meet individual students’ needs. We have found that professional development for each project we take on is very important. For us, we feel the presenter we had did not fully meet our goals, but did provide the foundation. We picked up what was missing from the presentation, through in-house trainings.

Changes for the future: To be honest, we felt this project worked very well for us and would not make additional changes. Having additional funds to fully meet our need would be amazing, but we are very happy with taking this implementation plan on in steps. Since receiving the funding, we have purchased additional laptops through other funding means, are near to reaching our complete goal of a laptop for all of our teachers. For this evaluation we used Survey Monkey and had no way of knowing who completed both the before and after surveys.  In the future we might find a way to track who takes the surveys so we have the same number of survey participants each time.

Recommendations: Do not plan training during Winter months.  Be clear of your expectations with your training facilitator ahead of time.

Telling our story: We have sent out a Success Report to our School Board, and to let our parents and community members know of the good news, we have included the information in our school report card that is given out to every parent and also distributed during our annual School District Meeting and Town Meeting. During the School Meeting our Board member reported out as well.

Documents to share:  none at this time