COVID-19 has forced many districts to go to either a full online teaching model or a blended learning experience of in-person instruction and online for the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year. Because of this new reality, the Indiana Department of Education recognized the need to build the capacity of teachers to deliver highly-effective digital learning for today’s classroom. The good news for BCSC is that our Technology Department saw an opportunity to support our corporation and recently earned a $98,000 Digital Learning Capacity Building Grant to help train teachers and staff.
The Digital Learning Capacity Building Grant is an innovative program that seeks to bring blended and digital learning training to teachers and staff. This grant project will create a micro-credentialing program for BCSC known as GEM (Growing Educators through Micro-Credentialing). GEM focuses on developing educator capacity for blended and digital learning by aligning with our core district values and educational technology competencies. “Our grant proposal sought to fund a new, innovative professional learning opportunity for ALL BCSC staff in order to improve technology knowledge, usage, and the design of learning environments that support innovative use of technology by our students,” Brenny Kummer, BCSC Coordinator of Instructional Technology said.
Teacher technology leaders representing all buildings, known as Tech Titans, and instructional coaches will help design micro-credential programs, earn micro-credentials, and help train staff in their respective buildings. The mico-credentialing development team earns the micro-credentials, advocates for them in their buildings, trains other teachers, serves as point people for reference, and earns stipends for developing the credential courses.
Staff members can work through the self-paced modules on our learning management system, itslearning, on their own. However, if they get stuck or have questions, they have options for getting support. They can reach out to the GEM development reps in their building OR they can attend a GEM workshop session offered at our monthly district workshops (offered once a month after school for an hour). When teachers earn their micro-credentials, they can include these micro-credentials as artifacts for their evaluations.
This grant can impact all buildings, and students, in BCSC, because the grant funds a professional learning opportunity for ALL BCSC staff. All staff would have the ability to learn and grow, and therefore create more engaging, 21st century, future ready learning experiences for the students of BCSC.
“I’m excited because teachers and staff have been wanting to do this but most professional development opportunities are after school and are usually voluntary. This grant will allow our teachers and staff to be paid to learn important skills that will help them be even better in today’s classroom. They will also have the chance to earn micro-credentials that will help them be recognized for their continued education,” Kummer added.
