The AECT Project's Technology Certificates

The AECT Project is designed to identify the knowledge and skills teachers need, and to certify teachers who possess and use them. The founding partners of this project believe that a nationally recognized, role-specific certification program will play three important roles. When we recognize preservice teachers who are prepared to use technology, and practicing teachers who do use technology effectively:

  • School districts will seek candidates with who have earned these certificates
  • Higher education institutions will feel a sense of obligation to see that their graduates are technologically prepared; and
  • Educators will have far more interest in attaining role-specific competencies, since they are composed of technology-related abilities identified as important to their performance by experts in their teaching role.

For these reasons, the AECT Project will soon offer four types of technology certificates:

Each of these certificates is described briefly below.

Comprehensive Technology Knowledge and Skills Certificates

As stated in the web page on "Role-Specific Competencies," 46 different expert panels will express and discuss their opinions and will review ongoing online discussions to determine what teachers of that subject and level should know and be able to do with technologies. The expert panels will:

  • review a set of topics classified as "prerequisite skills and knowledge," rating them on a nine-point scale.
  • review a set of technology strategies used by teachers to accomplish educational goals (using the same nine-point scale)
  • add new technology strategies they feel will be valuable to teachers in their teaching role (which will then go through the same review process)
  • review and consider the ratings assigned to prerequisites and technology strategies by other professionals, who are, and are not members of the expert panels
  • arrive at consensus about what teachers in that teaching role should know.

The "comprehensive set" of skills, knowledge, and strategies that emerge from this process will become the target for teacher preparation institutions. Any preservice or inservice teacher who demonstrates mastery of this set of skills will be awarded the Comprehensive Technology Knowledge and Skills Certificate. The certificate will be associated with the role and year in which it was earned (for example, a successful candidate might receive the "2001 Middle School Science Comprehensive Technology Knowledge and Skills Certificate." The expert panels will make and review suggestions to keep the set set of skills, knowledge, and strategies current, and teachers holding an earlier certificate can use an online database to identify any new requirements and can demonstrate these additions to earn an up-to-date certificate.

This certificate was designed primarily with preservice teachers in mind. We hope that colleges of education will modify their programs to include the content identified by the expert panels and will assess their students on these criteria so that their students will graduate with the appropriate certificate. To encourage this, we will work with the National School Boards Association (a partner on this grant) to encourage school districts to hire candidates who possess the appropriate skills, and will encourage state departments of education to incorporate these criteria into their requirements for initial teacher certification.

Because this certificate is designed to influence preservice teacher education, because the amount of time preservice teachers have with students is limited, and because the technologies they need to demonstrate the actual application of these skills may not be available in the schools in which they are assigned to student teach, this certificate assesses the students "readiness" to apply technologies, not the actual application of technologies in the classroom. The "Effective Technology Application Certificate" and the "Comprehensive Technology Application Certificate" are designed to identify and recognize teachers who have taken the next step and applied technologies to accomplish a real educational goal with students in a school setting.

 

Effective Technology Application Certificates

Today's modern technologies are powerful, flexible tools that can benefit teachers and their students in many important ways. The Effective Technology Application Certificates are designed to identify and honor teachers who have targeted important and educational goals and have put technologies to work to help them and their students reach these goals.

To earn an "Effective Technology Application Certificate," a teacher uses the AECT Project's "Technology Integration Tools" to identify an important educational goal, select at least one technology strategy related to that goal, and develop an action plan that will lead to successful implementation. Then, the teacherimplements the plan, learning the necessary prerequisite skills and knowledge, and assess ing progress using rubrics offered to assess the quality of products developed along the way. As a teacher implements the technology strategy with students, he or she gathers data or other evidence about how well the strategy works. Results are entered into a database online database, and become examples for other teachers to see. A certified AECT Project Assessor evaluates the information the teacher submits, using an online assessment tool, and communicates either a successful result, or ways the teacher needs to strengthen the response to earn the certificate. As described above for the Comprehensive Technology Knowledge and Skill Certificates, when a candidate has earned a certificate, he or she will be notified of completion and sent the web address of the certificate, and the teacher's school district will also be notified by mail and/or email.

 

Comprehensive Technology Application Certificates

Based on a review of the research on how teachers can improve student learning, the AECT Project's "Goal / Strategy Browser" describes nine "Educational Goals." The AECT Project's "Comprehensive Technology Application Certificate" is awarded to a teacher who has earned an Effective Technology Application Certificate related to four of the nine goals. This, the highest ranking of all the AECT Project certificates, might be considered the AECT project's equivalent of the "Eagle Scout." (-:

 

Technology Mentor Awards

The Technology Mentor Awards are a new addition to the AECT Project. Almost everyone we talked to had a story about someone who had "helped them over the bumps" as they took their first steps with technologies in the classroom, and/or someone else who had donated significant time, energy, or wisdom to help them use technologies more effectively. These teachers were grateful and wanted us to provide a way they could say thanks to their mentors, so we created the "Technology Mentor Award."

AECT Project Technology Assessments

Assessment of skills, knowledge, and technology strategies occurs on three levels:

  • self-assessments
  • peer assessments
  • and assessments conducted by certified, expert reviewers.

In general, assessment of basic knowledge and the most basic of prerequisite skills is accomplished through computer-based tests (for knowledge) and self-assessments. The assessment of skills that are a bit more complex is handled through peer assessments, in which peers use online tools developed by the AECT Project to appraise the candidate's abilities. The more complex tasks are assessed by expert reviewers, trained through an online course developed by the AECT Project, using online rubrics and checklists that automatically enter data about the student's accomplishments into the AECT Project database. The assessment tools can also be printed for off-line use, and the data entered later.

 

AECT Project Assessors

The "Certified AECT Assessors" will be individuals who are actively involved in the professional development of teachers. They will be teachers, technology coordinators, professors, teaching assistants, and others involved in the professional development of teachers. There will be a small fee associated with the certification process, to cover the costs of developing the online training course and the monitoring that is required of a formal certification program. When a reviewer indicates that a candidate has successfully completed an assessment, the assessor's identification number will be stored with the assessment data. If a certificate holder's abilities are questioned, it will be possible to determine who the assessor was and to check the validity of the assessor's work.

AECT Technology Certificates will bear the teacher's name, the subject and level, the year of issue, and the signatures of the AECT Project Director and the Chair of the appropriate Expert Panel. The certificates may be viewed and printed through the AECT Project Website. A database will allow searches based on any combination of name, teaching role, state, and zip code. When a candidate has earned a certificate, he or she will be notified of completion and sent the web address of the certificate, and the teacher's school district will also be notified by mail and/or email, if the appropriate contact information is provided by the candidate.