40 TFA Teachers In the Appalachian Region Partnering With Others

I am very excited to share that we welcomed twenty capable and committed leaders to our region this school year. These 20 leaders are joining 20 other 2nd year teachers and fifteen alumni working alongisde leaders, educators, parents, and community members in doing great things for our kids from Lawrence County down to Knox County and almost everywhere in between.

These 20 leaders come from all over our country- from California, to Maine, to Pennsylvania, and right here in Martin County. They're a diverse group working hard for their kids each day. 47% of our corps received Pell Grants in college and 36% were the first in their family to go to college. I share these statistics because it's important to know that it takes all types of people (from Appalachia, not from Appalachia, white, black, gay, straight, etc.) to work together to shift the narrative of our Appalachian region.

I, along with our many community members and partners, are excited to welcome our new corps to the region. Their commitment to our students, our communities, and our families continue to inspire me each day and I know their impact in our region will be strong.

Last year, our teachers reached nearly 5,000 students across the region. Collectively, our students in reading grew on average 1.5 years according to the Gates-McGinitie reading assessment. In math, our students grew their average ACT scores almost 3 points in a year (in case you didn't know, one point of growth is very signficiant). Two of our alumni founded the Appalachian Global Service Corps and has provided students from across our region the opporutnity to travel and serve abroad for the past three summers. Our teachers are working right alongside other community members and veteran teachers to truly empower our students to create the Appalachia they want in the future. It's an exciting time to be an Appalachian.

TPACK Framework

Have you ever found yourself in the following conundrum: you have technology in your school and classroom and student academic outcomes don't improve? Or, you have plenty of professional development focused on pedagogy and student outcomes aren't rising? Or, you have pacing guides and content curriclum coaches and student outcomes stay stagnant? If you have or are experiencing this, you are not alone.

Far too often, we take a silo'd approach when it comes to increasing student outcomes. We often think if we have technology in classrooms that enables students to learn independently on programs like Kahn Academy, etc. that we're checking off the box that says students have access to technology. However, that isn't the case and ultimately could be detrimental for student learning.

Here comes the TPACK framwork. You can think of this framework as a way that merges both pedagogy, technology, and content into one. For teachers to be effective and for students to meet high expectations, all three components must come together to form a cohorent strategy in the classroom. Technology must enhance strong pedagogy skills and content-delivery. Technology can't be a substitute for strong content-delivery and pedagogical skills.

Here is a diagram that explains this framework and the intersection between the three components from www.tpack.org:

So, if you're a school leader, consider where your teachers are at and where you need to go in order to hit the TPACK sweet spot.