Four Strategies for Aligning the Curriculum with Technology

Curriculum alignment is one of the 14 Essential Conditions for leveraging information and communication technology in education, according to the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). Curriculum and technology alignment is one of the toughest challenges and obstacles facing educators and school leaders around the world today. Many research studies in educational technology have informed us that simply placing a device into the hands of every student and every teacher, although a major step towards digital equity, does not necessarily guarantee effective technology integration in learning.

Terms like 21st-Century Learning, Creative Learning, Innovative Learning, Individualized Learning, Project-Based Learning, and performance-Based learning have been thrown around in education today. Regardless of your adopted framework for learning, the common goal is always to prepare global citizens with transferable skills and knowledge to tackle global problems. Regardless of your belief about educational technology, studies have shown us that technology-infused learning is an important component for helping learners develop the 21st-century skills necessary to tackle real-world problems. The biggest challenge, however, that educators are continuing to face is aligning the technology with their curriculum. This article offers educators and school leaders four research-based strategies they can use to help align technology with their given curriculum in their schools.

Curriculum

Curriculum: Merriam-Webster defines curriculum as the “courses offered by an educational institution”. To me, a school's curriculum is much more than the courses offered by an educational institution. After-school programs, extra-curricular activities, cultural events, curriculum nights, parents’ nights are all part of an educational institution’s curriculum.   All planned activities and initiatives aimed at increasing student achievement, increasing student achievement motivation and engagement, improving attendance and behavior, attracting and retaining staff, developing innovative students, decreasing dropout rates, and engaging communities are part of a school’s curriculum.  

Educational Technology

Wikipedia defines educational technology as “the combined use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning.” I am using this definition of educational technology for this article.  Aligning the curriculum with information technology is the true meaning of educational technology. Effective and successful technology integration in learning occurs when the curriculum is aligned with the technology.  

Closing the gap between the curriculum and information technology is one of the biggest challenges facing educators and school leaders in their quest of leveraging technology for learning. It is, regardless, one challenge they must tackle effectively since technology is here to stay and will always be a part of the teaching and learning process. As mentioned previously, equal access to technology in schools is an important step in leveraging technology in learning. However, without aligning the curriculum with the technology effectively, teaching and learning will not yield the full benefits of technology integration, which is to equip learners with the 21st-century skills needed to solve real-world problems.

Here are Four Strategies for Aligning the Curriculum with Technology in learning:

Strategy 1: Closing the Gap between the Curriculum Department and the IT Department

Too often, the curriculum department and IT department are not aligned with the institution's shared vision for technology in learning. They do not collaborate as often as they should. The two departments often operate under the false belief that they live in separate worlds. They are often treated as two separate entities. The curriculum department goes about its business planning and implementing curriculum changes that increase student achievement. While the technology department goes about its daily business of providing technical support and managing the data systems and the infrastructure to ensure the continuation of the business of teaching and learning.  As a result, an enormous gap exists between the two departments that negatively impact the institution's vision for technology integration in the classrooms.

Educators and school leaders must be aware of such a gap and adopt measurable and calculated strategies to close it. One strategy is for both departments to develop and to work towards common goals for educational technology.  These goals should be listed in the institution's strategic plan and the educational technology plan. Another strategy adopted by many schools is forming tech communities that include members from both departments when deciding about the combined use of hardware, software, and pedagogical practices for increasing student achievement. Finally, yet importantly, both departments should collaborate on strategies for increasing teachers’ technology pedagogical knowledge through coaching and technology professional development initiatives and strategies. All the above strategies will help close the gap between the curriculum and instruction department and the IT department. 

The curriculum department and the IT department should not be pinned against each other, nor treated as separate entities.  Curriculum directors and IT directors must work together towards achieving common goals for technology integration in learning.   Both leaders must ensure that both departments are treated as one entity working towards the organization’s shared vision for educational technology.

Strategy 2: Technology Professional Development

Several research studies on educational technology have cited technology professional development as both a benefit and an obstacle to technology integration in learning. Technology professional development is an obstacle when it is nonexistent, limited, and irrelevant to the teachers' present needs.   It is a benefit when it is aligned with the shared vision for technology in education, when relevant to the teachers’ professional needs, and when it supports specific instructional goals.  Other studies have also reported teachers’ expressed desires for increased technology professional developments, especially PD initiatives that are tailor-made according to their needs.  Educators and schools leaders must provide ongoing training to their personnel to ensure effective and successful implementation of their organization’s shared vision for technology. Technology professional development is an excellent strategy to ensure that all stakeholders have the skills and knowledge necessary to infuse technology in the learning process. 

We are recommending three guidelines for technology professional development.  First, technology professional development should be guided by at least one technology integration framework, such TPACk, SAMR, PICRAT, or TIM. Each one of these frameworks has been used to guide the planning and delivery of technology professional development. Each of the aforementioned frameworks provides educators and school leaders a tool to assess the level of technology integration into their learning environment.  Second, technology professional development must be relevant to the participants’ needs.  In order to do that, school leaders must apply strategies that capture the participants’ input in the professional development planning process.  Third, technology professional development must develop teachers' abilities to unpack their content standards in order to identify the expectations for technology use embedded in their particular content.  Both state standards and the common core state standards have specific expectations for technology use in each content area. The goal of technology professional development should be to develop teachers’ capacity and efficiency to select the best technology tool or tools for the lesson at hand.  

Effective technology professional development is necessary for leveraging technology in teaching. Teacher-led professional developments where teachers can share their success stories with technology in their classrooms with their peers offer excellent ways to build staff capacity and increase teachers’ willingness to apply skills learned. All technology professional development initiatives should be led in collaboration and coordination between the curriculum and IT department.

Strategy 3: Educational Technology Coaching

Coaching is an excellent strategy to close the gap between curriculum and technology in teaching and learning. The ISTE provides educators and school leaders with a set of standards for technology coaching that explicitly prescribe the role and importance of coaching in technology-infused teaching and learning environments.  This is an excellent framework to guide your technology coaching initiatives. Google Education offers very specific steps to become a certified technology coach via a designed curriculum that aims at empowering technology coaches with the skills and knowledge to provide individualized coaching to teachers that drives impactful infusion of technology in their instructional practices.  Regardless of the framework adopted to guide your coaching initiatives, school and school leaders must ensure that their teachers have access to highly qualified people who can support them in infusing technology into their classrooms. 

There are several strategies that many schools have adopted to provide individualized support to their teachers and administrators for technology integration in their classrooms. Some school districts are fortunate enough to have the budget to hire instructional technology specialists (ITS) and to assign them to specific schools. In the school setting, the instructional technology specialist collaborates with administrators, teachers, and students to provide one-to-one technology coaching to both teachers and administrators on best instructional technology practices. Some large school districts have the budget to assign an instructional technology specialist in each of their schools. This is an excellent initiative if you have the budget for it. 

The advantages of having an assigned instructional technology specialist to each school are time, consistency, familiarity, and individualized coaching.  Regardless of your situation, providing technology coaching to teachers is a necessary component in aligning the curriculum with technology. Another alternative is for schools to bring outside coaches, such as educational technology consultants or educational technology coaches, with the skills and knowledge to coach the personnel on best practices for leveraging technology in their classrooms. Both Google Education and ISTE have a hub of highly qualified technology coaches to assist you with your technology coaching needs. The challenges with this alternative are high costs, inconsistency, and lack or limited individualized coaching.  However, with careful selection and planning, outside coaches could empower teachers, administrators, and students with the skills to infuse technology in the classrooms.

Strategy 4: Understand Technology is Just a Tool

“Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.” ~Bill Gates

Closing the gap between curriculum and information technology depends on teachers’ strategic abilities to select among the many technology tools at their disposal the best tool for the lesson at hand. After all, the classroom is the actual location where the marriage between curriculum and technology lives. It is where it's the most important.

Let's take a carpenter, for example. One tool a carpenter has at his disposal is a hammer.  A hammer has a very specific use, which is to drive a nail down or to pull a nail out of a piece of lumber.   So when the carpenter needs to drive a nail down a piece of lumber, he brings out his hammer, not his saw. Educators must be like carpenters. There are many similarities between a carpenter and a teacher. They both have a job to do, a task to accomplish, or a project to complete. They both have a myriad of tools available to them. However, they must know which tool is used for what purpose. In that aspect, carpenters are ahead of teachers, and that may have to do with their training processes. The most important aspect of technology integrating technology in the classrooms is teachers' knowledge and skill at using various strategies for selecting the best technology tools for the lesson at hand. That is it. Teachers must be able to select the best technology tool for the lesson at hand. That is the actual definition of effective technology-infused learning. Likewise, learners must be offered the opportunities to select the best technology resources when completing learning tasks and presenting their learning. Developing teachers' and learners' knowledge and skills in selecting the best technology for the lesson at hand should be the principal driving force behind all technology initiatives in schools.

Conclusion

Aligning technology with the curriculum is one of ISTE's 14 Essential Conditions for leveraging information and communication in learning. Without this condition, infusing technology into teaching and learning would never reach its full potential in developing innovative, self-directed, and creative learners. It is one of the biggest challenges facing educators and school leaders around the world. Educators and schools leaders have the responsibility to establish the conditions for leveraging technology in learning. Closing the gap between the curriculum department and the IT department, technology professional development, educational technology coaching, and understanding technology is just a tool are four recommended strategies for aligning technology with the curriculum effectively and successfully.

About Me

I have been in education for about 18 years. I have an Ed.S. in Educational Technology. I have just completed and submitted my doctoral dissertation!!. My area of research is 1:1 technology. I am a technology consultant for Global Educational Technology Leader (GETL), an organization dedicated to helping educators and school leaders establish the essential conditions for leveraging technology in learning.