Leveraging Impact with Professional Development for SMART Boards

"The visual presentation helps teachers reach students with different learning styles, and students can see and appreciate what the teacher is trying to do with a given lesson. " 
Nancy DeBettencourt

For nearly 100 years, St. Roch School has served their Skinker-Debaliviere neighborhood of St. Louis.  Thanks to an ITEF grant, St. Roch’s enters its second century of educational service with the Catholic Elementary School SMART Boards Technology Outreach Program (CESSTOP).  The $25,000 grant funded a pilot program to provide educators with a low-cost option to learn how to effectively use technology in their classrooms.  The CESSTOP program was created by Nancy DeBettencourt, St. Roch Computer Teacher and Gloria Openlander, Principal.

Held during the 2009 summer break, St. Roch’s facilitated four weekly workshops for 25 educators from non-public elementary schools.  Designed to enhance the SMART Boards skills for beginning users, the interactive workshops detailed the SMART Boards features and explained the SMART Notebook software.  Participants were surveyed in advance in order to customize the course content to their needs.  Several St. Roch faculty members were involved in the program, leading breakout sessions to provide more curriculum-specific resources. A CD containing lessons, templates and educational resources was provided to each CESSTOP participant at the end of the program.

Knowing the sizable financial investment a school makes to provide SMART Boards technology, administrators want to know it’s being used in the classrooms, says Gloria Openlander.  It takes time to incorporate the SMART Boards technology into lesson plans, explains Nancy DeBettencourt, so teachers must have the training to back up the technical investment.  In St. Roch’s case, the investment began in 2004, and by 2006 there was a SMART Boards in each classroom.  Today, St. Roch’s teachers make periodic “field trips” to each other’s classrooms to discover new ways to use the technology.  Nancy often prepares SMART Boards lesson plans and posts them on the faculty network.  Through the years, Gloria and Nancy have learned that the successful use of SMART Boards is the product of sufficient training and support for teachers and pro-active expectations for use from administrators.  For many educators, it is a stretch to break out of comfortable teaching styles and experiment with SMART Boards.  The faculty and staff and St. Roch’s will tell you it’s worth the investment and effort.

Gloria and Nancy have seen tremendous benefits to students and teachers with the use of SMART Boards technology in the classrooms.  The visual presentation helps teachers reach students with different learning styles, and students can see and appreciate what the teacher is trying to do with a given lesson.  Teachers notice an increase in students’ attention spans, greater clarity in communication, and a heighten ability to grasp information.  Plus, students enjoy the interaction with the board and pick up the tools and features of the software right away.  Nancy commented that students often will ask to repeat lessons they enjoyed. 

Through the CESSTOP program, Nancy and Gloria look forward to seeing how the other participating schools integrate their new learnings.  Each school is in a different stage of SMART Boards implementation, so the progress will vary.  They plan to follow up with each participant throughout the school year to stay abreast of the SMART Boards status in each school, and to provide sample lesson plans and additional resources where needed.  Nancy is looking forward to the December 2009 visit from several rural schools who are exploring options for SMART Boards technology.  Through this ITEF grant, St. Roch’s has also acquired a SMART Boards for the art room, installed projectors, and secured 4 laptops.  CESSTOP is just one of many programs initiated through ITEF funding.  ITEF, says Gloria, “is a very valuable resource to parochial and religious schools to support professional development.”  Through this collaboration, teachers and students grow personally and professionally, in the classroom and beyond.