Running Head: STANDARD 4: SYSTEMIC IMPROVEMENT 1

Standard 4: Systemic Improvement

George H. Warriner III

Coastal Carolina University

EDIT 760

1 July 2018
STANDARD 4: SYSTEMIC IMPROVEMENT 2

Introduction:

Establishing a culture of systemic improvement is an extremely important facet of the

NETS-A Standards that allows for the constant development of the integration of technology into

the learning process. In an age where technology is constantly changing and improving, it is

imperative that the processes by which technology are used and integrated is constantly being

improved. As noted in NETS- A Standard 4, educational administrators “provide digital-age

leadership and management to continuously improve the organization through the effective use

of information and technology resources” (ISTE, 2009). It is additionally important that, through

examining the indicators of this standard, educational administrators model effective practices

for integrating technology into best practice, collect and analyze data that will contribute to

continual improvement of best practices, recruit and develop only the best personnel, and create

partnerships across the board to help support the effective collection of data for improvement. It

is important that school administrators constantly revisit and utilize data to inform decisions

about improvements to the technology integration practices in their school or organization.

There are five key indicators that determine proficiency of an organization showing a

culture of systemic improvement. Firstly, it is important for educational administrators to be

agents that lead change that allow for the highest possible level of achievement for students in

their learning setting. Secondly, it is important that administrators collaborate and collect data

that will inform decisions to improve instruction. Thirdly, administrators must be able to recruit

the highest quality personnel to provide the highest quality instruction. One must also be able to

strike partnerships with cooperating individuals that will support a culture of systemic

improvement in the instructional process. Finally, in order for improvement to occur, it is

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important that a strong and robust technology infrastructure is established, as well as the ability

for that infrastructure to support the learning that is taking place in the classroom (ISTE, 2009).

Discussion:

The first indicator under the NETS-A Standard 4, states the important fact that

educational administrators must be able to lead change that will encourage the integration of

technology into the learning process and promote the appropriate use of technology (ISTE,

2009). If a school or organization is resistant to change, then it is not effective or meaningful in

its intentions for the effective integration of technology into the learning process. At Coastal

Carolina University, there is a constant sense of technology integration improvement in the

Center for Teaching Excellence to Advance Learning (CeTEAL). CeTEAL has taken a

leadership role in its promotion and development of faculty members’ use of technology into

their teaching practice. CeTEAL offers a litany of technology integration sessions, from

instructional theory to office productivity software, that aid to support faculty in their use of

technology in their teaching (CeTEAL, 2018).

At the university level, data is collected via technology tools that aid in the improvement

of courses across all disciplines. At the end of every term, course evaluations are administered to

determine not only the effectiveness of the instructor, but the overall quality of the course

materials, and technology resources are included in such evaluation. Students submit their course

evaluation digitally, online, and the data is extracted from the evaluation along with type-written

comments, and these comments are given to the instructor later to help inform their teaching for

future terms. This data is extremely important for future improvement of courses.

Indicator 2 of this standard discusses the need for collaboration in how administrators

collect and interpret data that can be shared with other administrators, thereby contributing to
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this sense of systemic improvement (ISTE, 2009). This is an extension upon the first indicator of

this standard. In many cases, to justify change, some sort of data trend is evident that encourages

changes to instruction to help either bolster a positive data trend or help support faculty to rectify

a negative data return. This reactionary response to data trends is very common in educational

settings as it makes sense that, for change to be warranted, data must show a trend in one way or

another. CeTEAL has monthly team meetings that help to make sure not only we are developing

our sessions with the same guiding research and principles, but to ensure that faculty and staff

reaction to offered sessions and tools taught are consistent with the needs of the faculty attending

those sessions.

As for Indicator 3 of this standard, this indicator is centered around the concept of

recruiting and developing a highly competent team of individuals that will help promote the

integration of technology for achieving instructional goals (ISTE, 2009). Being the most recent

addition to the CeTEAL team at CCU, it quickly became evident the high competency of the

team on a variety of technology integration practices from both an instructional technology

theory angle and instructional technology tools. The team are constantly being asked to review

and write in journals. Our director was invited to China to present to a group of educators in

China. The team has been a consistent supporter of many different technology conference

groups. A couple members of the team attended and presented at the ASCUE Conference. This is

evidence of CeTEAL’s core value of Community as we share our expert knowledge with not

only our internal team, but those outside of CeTEAL to create a sense of support across

disciplines (CeTEAL, 2018). We all feed off each other’s strengths when it comes to developing

sessions and providing support on different instructional technology tools.

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Indicator 4 discusses the need to network and forge strong partnerships that aim to

support the sense and culture of systemic improvement (ISTE, 2009). CeTEAL has established a

partnership with each of the college on the campus of CCU. This partnership is evident through

the group known as the CeTEAL Advisory Board (CeTEAL, 2018). This board is comprised of

one member from each academic college to ensure that every discipline has input in preferred

methodology for developing CeTEAL session and how technology can be integrated into

instruction. The role of this advisory board cannot be understated as it is the primary method by

which CeTEAL connects directly to the heart of each academic college to best approach the

development of sessions to support best practices for integrating technology into instruction.

Finally, probably the most important and foundational aspect of this Standard is the need

for a strong and robust technology infrastructure that will allow the use of technology, and

support in the learning process (ISTE, 2009). Coastal Carolina University has a very robust

technology infrastructure in place to help support faculty, staff, and students in their academic

endeavors. CCU utilizes a network of over 2,000 access points around the campus to help keep

the campus connected to the internet to make sure everyone has access to all of the resources the

university has to offer. From a hardware perspective, there is a strong support network in the

form of the campus Information Technology Services (ITS). They manage the university server

network as well as making sure that basic server integrity is maintained. From a more practical,

software-based infrastructure support, there are several different support channels depending

upon the tool with which support is needed. The Coastal Office of Online Learning (COOL) is

responsible for making sure that faculty Moodle courses are properly populated and available to

faculty and students. Additionally, there is a separate support channel for the requesting and

maintaining of Echo360 based course content. These support channels are centralized through a
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service called the ITS Help Desk where you can submit a support ticket and it gets routed to the

correct person with the necessary tools to provide support.

Conclusion:

After analyzing the above evidence discussing how CeTEAL helps to develop and

support a culture of systemic improvement, the level of concern is low. CeTEAL, and Coastal

Carolina University does a relatively good job for creating and cultivating a sense of systemic

improvement to integrating technology into course instruction and best practices. There is a clear

infrastructure for the technology available at CCU with all the upkeep and maintenance kept up

by ITS. When done effectively, collecting data from instruction can aid to inform instructional

methods and lead to improvement for future instruction. The collection and analysis of data can

be a very rewarding experience for the instructor as it has been said that “good data are as much

a resource as staff, books, and computers” (Abbott, Wren, 2016, p. 38). This is especially true

with college-level courses as it is often only data collected from course evaluations or

assessments that inform instructors of effective instruction. The systemic improvement of

CeTEAL often derives itself from the constant changing of software tools available to the CCU

community. Not only are the methodologies of our instruction of sessions change with each

session, but the methodology changes based upon the demographic and disciplines represented in

the session.
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References

Abbott, A. L., & Wren, D. G. (2016). Using Performance Task Data to Improve

Instruction. Clearing House: A Journal Of Educational Strategies, Issues And

Ideas, 89(1), 38-45.

CeTEAL. (2018). Center for Teaching Excellence to Advance Learning. Retrieved June 28,

2018, from https://www.coastal.edu/ceteal/

ISTE. (2009). ISTE Standards Administrators. Retrieved June 28, 2018, from

https://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/20-14_ISTE_Standards-A_PDF.pdf