Throughout my most recent graduate class in digital education, our cohort worked on a project focusing on ISTE standards for coaches #3. This standard consists of 4 indicators: a, b, c & d. As I wrote my blog posts looking at each of these indicators, I simultaneously developed a conference presentation. Each individual chose the subject of our conference presentation from something we felt would be beneficial to our colleagues or maybe something we had already created for a presentation. Our school, this past year, chose to implement Canvas as an LMS (Learning Management System). Not surprisingly, it was met with quite a bit of resistance. The resistance wasn’t due to the software itself, but each teacher watched many videos and tried to figure out how to set up their classes. The struggle was very real as many teachers let the “assignment” to create their courses fall by the wayside. Knowing this, I thought it would be helpful to develop a presentation to simplify everything for my colleagues and future colleagues while implementing ISTE standard 3.
Not to reduce the standard to something too basic, but one thing that resonated with me throughout researching and studying each indicator is the relationship aspect of ISTE 3. Of course, this is the basis of the standard, which says, “Coaches establish productive relationships with educators in order to improve instructional practice and learning outcomes” (ISTE). Creating good working relationships with co-workers is vital to meeting this standard because many professional relationships never work out because of pride or arrogance. The pride comes from the co-worker who isn’t willing to admit they need help, so they avoid ever really learning something because they already feel inadequate learning from a colleague. The arrogance comes from the person who holds on to their knowledge and training, believing themselves to be better than their colleague because they are more skilled and knowledgable. As long as these two traits exist in the workplace, the standard can never be met.
I may have said this already, but my goal as an educational technology leader is to help people. I may be more knowledgeable in this area, but my colleague is probably more knowledgeable in another area. My ability to help them learn something new comes from a desire to help them, see them succeed, and benefit the same place we share our job. It’s a win-win situation!
