ISTE Standards for Educators: A Comprehensive Guide
Introduction
In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, educators face the challenge of effectively integrating technology into their teaching practices. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has developed a set of standards designed to guide educators in this endeavor. These standards provide a framework for leveraging technology to enhance student learning, promote digital citizenship, and foster professional growth. This article explores the ISTE Standards for Educators in detail, examining their key components and practical applications in the classroom.
What is ISTE?
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is the foremost organization in teaching technology in the classroom. As a result, they are uniquely positioned to articulate standards for using technology in classrooms and schools. ISTE has established a unique set of standards for educators, students, education leaders, and technology coaches to help ensure each of these four groups of individuals succeed.
ISTE Standards for Students
It may sound strange to have ISTE standards for students, but education is a two-way street. ISTE standards require every student to be a good digital citizen. Together, these criteria help students understand the rights and responsibilities that go along with using modern technology. It’s crucial for students to understand how their personal information works online, not to mention who has access to it.
Effective knowledge-building skills are critical in a technology-driven age. There’s also a shocking amount of misinformation (intentional or accidental) in the world that makes its way online every day. By self-qualifying data, reports, and connections, students can better understand what’s happening in the world and how they can fit into it.
To be an innovative designer, students must understand the basics of problem-solving. By taking this approach to learning, students acquire a taste for answering open-ended problems, supporting their designs, and refining those designs for the best possible solutions.
Read also: ISTE Standards Explained
To be a computational thinker, ISTE says students must be able to create and employ strategies for solving problems that use technology. Computational thinking requires students to become familiar with data collection, data analysis, algorithmic thinking, and data representation. As you can see, computational thinking emphasizes efficiency above almost any other quality. That’s because efficiency is critical to success when working with technology.
Creative communicators expresses themselves clearly and concisely through digital media. Creative communication is important for ISTE students because they’re around digital media all the time. Students learn about digital tools that can help them communicate, along with creating original materials that visualize their ideas. This makes the “creative communicator” requirement pretty open-ended, as each student will probably create a unique idea to communicate.
To become a global collaborator, students have to understand how their perspectives are different from others’ and work together to achieve a common goal. To become effective collaborators, learners must work on two levels: locally and globally. They work constructively in teams to achieve mutual interests while maintain a positive, helpful outlook.
The ISTE Standards for Educators: A Detailed Look
The ISTE Standards for Teachers are broken into seven roles that a teacher must fulfill. As learning sciences advance, teachers must advance as well. The ISTE (2017) Standards for Educators are proffered as a road map to deepen teachers’ practice, promote collaboration with peers, and challenge them to rethink traditional approaches as they prepare students to drive their own learning with the help of technology.
1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
Teachers use their knowledge of subject matter, teaching and learning, and technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning, creativity, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments.
Read also: Digital Frontier and ISTE
- Promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness: Teachers should encourage students to think outside the box and come up with original ideas. They can do this by providing opportunities for brainstorming, experimentation, and problem-solving.
- Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources: Technology can be used to connect students with real-world issues and challenges. For example, students could use online resources to research a local environmental problem and then use digital tools to create a presentation or website to raise awareness about the issue.
- Promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes: Collaborative tools such as online discussion forums, shared documents, and wikis can be used to encourage students to reflect on their learning and share their ideas with others.
- Model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments: Teachers should model lifelong learning by actively participating in learning experiences with students, colleagues, and other professionals.
Evidence of Implementation:
- Creating an instructional video that is engaging for students, aligned with learning standards, and can be implemented in a face-to-face environment. Posting the video online to provide students with easy access for learning at home. This serves as a great digital tool and resource because students get to engage with resources beyond textbooks that assist is satisfying a learning standard.
- Using tools like "Kidspiration" to reveal and clarify students' conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes. This tool is a great way to display large amounts of information into categories and subcategories that make it easier for students to recognize patterns and notice relationships. The visual aid promotes, supports, and models creative thinking and attentiveness because student comprehension rises when information is arranged in a graphic organizer.
2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
Teachers design, develop, and evaluate authentic learning experiences and assessments incorporating contemporary tools and resources to maximize content learning in context and to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes identified in the Standards.
- Design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity: Teachers should carefully select and integrate digital tools and resources that are aligned with learning objectives and promote student engagement and creativity.
- Develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning, and assessing their own progress: Technology can be used to create personalized learning experiences that cater to individual student needs and interests.
- Customize and personalize learning activities to address students’ diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources: Digital tools and resources can be used to differentiate instruction and provide students with multiple pathways to learning.
- Provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards, and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching: Teachers should use a variety of assessment methods to monitor student progress and adjust instruction accordingly.
Evidence of Implementation:
- Using Plickers, a tool where the teacher creates quizzes for her students. Once the teacher has submitted the questions and correct answers, it is time to begin. Students read the question on the board, and then the teacher will essentially "scan"each students' response cards with the use of a cellphone/iPad. The teacher is able to get instant feedback and responses from her students This is a great tool for a data driven assessment.
- Creating an EdPuzzle interactive video with guided questions throughout the video, and each student's response is instantly sent to me. The questions were aimed at showing the student's overall knowledge on the topic.
- Creating an activity where students use construction paper, markers, and play-doh to demonstrate their knowledge on literary symbols from a novel. Afterward, students use a tool called Videolicious to record a video of their project, explain how it is a symbol, and give an example of it using textual support.
3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
Teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society.
- Demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations: Teachers should be proficient in using a variety of technology systems and be able to adapt to new technologies as they emerge.
- Collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation: Teachers should use digital tools and resources to communicate and collaborate with stakeholders in education.
- Communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats: Teachers should be able to communicate effectively using a variety of digital media formats, such as email, social media, and video conferencing.
Evidence of Implementation:
- Creating a newsletter to communicate relevant information and ideas to students and parents using new technologies. This newsletter will have a summary of class discussions, PowerPoints from lectures, resources for homework, rubrics, and examples of student projects. This tool is an effective model of a digital resource that uses informative resources to support learning and student success because students will be able to find examples of student projects and class materials. Using a social media account to send out announcements, changes in due dates, and any other important announcements.
4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility
Teachers understand local and global societal issues and responsibilities in an evolving digital culture and exhibit legal and ethical behavior in their professional practices. ISTE standards require every student to be a good digital citizen. Together, these criteria help students understand the rights and responsibilities that go along with using modern technology. It’s crucial for students to understand how their personal information works online, not to mention who has access to it.
- Advocate, model, and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources: Teachers should educate students about the responsible use of technology, including issues such as cyberbullying, online privacy, and copyright law.
- Address the diverse needs of all learners by using learner-centered strategies providing equitable access to appropriate digital tools and resources: Teachers should ensure that all students have equitable access to technology and that they use technology in a way that is responsive to their individual needs and learning styles.
- Promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions related to the use of technology and information: Teachers should model appropriate online behavior and teach students how to interact responsibly in online environments.
Evidence of Implementation:
- Using Creative Commons licenses to give students the rights to the materials that they have created. It also allows for teachers, students, professionals, and all others the right to use my information, while also providing me with protection from other's using my work as their own. This tool is a great example to show my students when I am discussing digital citizenship. Students will know the importance of respecting the copyrights of another's work, and giving credit to the resources they use.
- Creating an infographic on cyberbullying using a tool called Piktochart. The infographic supplies useful digital resources to students and parents seeking questions and additional, confidential help. It also provides students with a three-step solution when they experience cyberbullying. The infographic is clear on the appropriate way to respond to a cyberbully, which promotes and models digital etiquette and responsible social interactions related to the use of technology and information.
- Creating a classroom management poster (also using Picktochart) for a future classroom that pertaining to respect and expectations for each class. This addresses the diverse needs of all learners because students are provided with an additional resource--instead of a paper syllabus with rules, students will have a visually appealing poster.
5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership
Teachers continuously improve their professional practice, model lifelong learning, and exhibit leadership in their school and professional community by promoting and demonstrating the effective use of digital tools and resources. As learning sciences advance, teachers must advance as well. Teachers are leaders, and nowhere is this more appropriate than in the classroom.
- Participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning: Teachers should actively participate in professional learning communities to share ideas and learn from others about how to use technology effectively.
- Exhibit leadership by demonstrating a vision of technology infusion, participating in shared decision making and community building, and developing the leadership and technology skills of others: Teachers should take on leadership roles in their schools and communities to promote the effective use of technology.
- Evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning: Teachers should stay up-to-date on the latest research and best practices in educational technology and use this knowledge to inform their teaching.
- Contribute to the effectiveness, vitality, and self-renewal of the teaching profession and of their school and community: Teachers should be active members of their school and community and contribute to the overall improvement of education.
Evidence of Implementation:
- While developing a service learning project, participating in a local and global learning community to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning because this lesson plan was designed for a real teacher back in the local town. The Service Learning Project has the ability to reach global learning communities because it has been published on the internet, and it has the license that allows others to use and share my work as well. Since I was tailoring this lesson to my teacher's specific class, and I tweaked the lesson in response to her feedback, I was participating in shared decision making, community building, and developing leadership and technology skills in others. Through this lesson plan I used a variety of tools that contribute to the effectiveness, of the teaching profession and of the school.
- To contribute to the professional growth of the community, using OER Commons. If a teacher is looking for ideas with a lesson, OER Commons has a great search tool to refine the results. A teacher can select the grade, subject area, and even learning standards!
6. The ISTE Standards for Education Leaders
According to ISTE, "The ISTE Standards for Education Leaders guide administrators in supporting digital age learning, creating technology-rich learning environments and leading the transformation of the educational landscape". The first major quality of an ISTE-approved administrator is becoming an advocate for equity and citizenship. The second ISTE standard for educational leaders is becoming a visionary planner. This level of leadership requires dedication and commitment on a large scale. Last, administrators have to be evangelists for their schools and any applicable public policy that helps it succeed. An ISTE administrator must take the reins of their institution and become an influential leader.
Read also: Comprehensive Guide to Florida Early Learning Standards
For administrators, empowering leadership involves creating a culture that encourages student engagement and active learning. Next, administrators have to provide teachers with professional development and resources so they can adapt to a diverse range of needs students may have. In essence, administrators use technology just as much as teachers and students.
To fully adhere to ISTE standards, administrators must exhibit excellent in establishing and improving technological systems at the school and program level. Success as a systems designer is a quality great educational leaders share. Often, administrators will need to look outside their schools to build community partnerships that support this vision. The ideal ISTE education leader is also a connected learner. The best administrators stay up-to-date on emerging trends in technology and education. This also means continuing to learn on a personal level. Administrators have to initiate and participate in communities that let them refine their professional edge.
7. The ISTE Standards for Technology Coaches
But all technology coaches act as a hybrid of administrators and teachers. Technology coaches are in a unique position to affect change in programs. Technology coaches should be the driving force behind the adoption of digital tools in their programs. It’s also important for coaches to evaluate the strategies they have for their coaching style and see where technology fits best. Last, coaches are responsible for the initiation and maintenance of technology processes in the classroom. Effective coaches collaborate with teachers and administrators to improve instruction and student outcomes. Coaches work alongside teachers to achieve the best possible outcomes for their students.
While teachers are often learning designers, its paramount for coaches to model learning design for their programs. Technology coaches can be the lead designers for their programs in so far as digital tools are concerned. As an integral part of their role, coaches facilitate professional development for teachers and administrators that enable them to implement technology at the school and classroom level. Moreover, technology coaches help achieve scalability by building up the capacity of educators and education leaders to implement both technology and ISTE standards.
Technology coaches are often experienced in dealing with data. Effective data use is the single most powerful tool in a program's ability to make future decisions, not only for adopting technology, but for the benefit of everyone involved. Coaches are critical for digital citizenship advocacy and play a major role in ensuring that everyone is safe online.
The Importance of Self-Efficacy
According to Kent and Giles (2017), a credible indicator, or meaningful predictor, of a teacher’s ability and willingness to engage learners through innovative twenty-first-century instruction is self-efficacy of technology integration. There is growing evidence suggesting teachers’ own beliefs in their capacity to effectively integrate technology are a significant factor in determining actual technology use and implementation in the classroom. Research findings showed that technology integration for meaningful classroom use remains among the greatest challenges facing today’s teachers.
Teachers’ TSE, which concerns the beliefs about their abilities to succeed at a specific task (Bandura, 1997), involves the relevant use and meaningful integration of technological tools to classroom settings. Subsequently, teachers’ TSE can increase the effectiveness of the teaching process via technology-supported instruction (Holden & Rada, 2011).
Self-efficacy, a key element of Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory (Pajares, 2002; Perkmen & Pamuk, 2011; Van Dinther et al., 2011), is defined as “people’s beliefs about their capabilities to produce designated levels of performance that exercise influence over events that affect their lives” (Bandura, 1994, p. 1). It follows that self-efficacy beliefs not only affect but “determine how people feel, think, motivate themselves and behave” (Bandura, 1994, p. 1). As Hongu et al. (2011) noted, unless people believe that they can produce desired effects by their actions, they have little incentive to enact behavioral changes or continue their behavior changes once their goals have been achieved. Self-efficacy as such is a personal belief about one’s own ability to perform a given action or one’s own capability to produce given attainment or mastery (Bandura, 1997; Denzine et al., 2005).
However, it must be pointed out that self-efficacy beliefs do not automatically translate into the actual use of technology among teachers, but rather self-efficacy beliefs are “a necessary condition for technology integration” (Wang et al., 2004, p. 242). This is so since, as Artino (2012) commented, high self-efficacy in one area may not necessarily coincide with high self-efficacy in another area given that individuals may believe other factors will keep them from succeeding. Self-efficacy simply indicates how strongly individuals believe they have the skills to do well as it relates to the specific task being attempted (Artino, 2012; Bandura, 1994; Bandura, 1997). Technology integration self-efficacy is a predictor of actual technology integration (Anderson et al., 2011; Anderson & Maninger, 2007).
Teachers’ self-efficacy, like self-efficacy beliefs in general, is about how confident they are in their current recognition or realization that they can do a specific task (Bandura, 1994, Bandura, 1997, 2006). Technology self-efficacy is concerned with a teacher’s perceived ability to incorporate digital tools, such as Web 2.0 technologies and software applications, into classroom lessons and across the curriculum. As such, technology self-efficacy is preoccupied with the confidence level of an individual when using technology given that it is both task-specific and task-dependent (Albion, 1999; Artino, 2012; Bandura, 1997; Holden & Rada, 2011). Self-efficacy, therefore, plays a critical role in a teacher’s level of confidence to integrate technology (Beard, 2016).
Personalized Learning and ISTE Standards
Personalized learning is the best opportunity and most efficient way to ensure students learn what they need to learn to be successful. We need to prepare students for jobs that aren't even created yet. So we need to transform what teaching and learning are all about." Teaching, as established in the early 1900s, was designed to process large populations of students categorized by age. Teachers conducted lessons for these segmented groups.
Personalized learning also respects the central role of the student, while expanding teachers' roles to help them serve as mentors and guides to assist students on their own learning journey. Department of Education, personalized learning is defined as adjusting the pace, adjusting the approach and connecting to the learner's interests and experiences. It's designed to raise student engagement and achievement, and it requires a more customized way of thinking about education.
Personalized learning moves away from just teaching content. Students play a key role in deciding what they will learn, how they will learn it, and they then get a chance to show they understand it, which can take many different forms across many media. There are a multitude of techniques in personalizing and tailoring instruction, but for Dubernard, student and teacher need to be in lockstep from the very beginning.
With the emphasis on pace, methods of understanding and freedom, personalized learning is very well served by technology, which helps deliver instruction and allows students to demonstrate competence through multiple forms of media. Technology also allows for immediate feedback on students' understanding and grasp of materials. Bottom line: technology gives students and teachers a wide variety of options. But technology, like any dominant tool, needs to be wielded wisely.
Kecia Ray, executive director of learning and technologies for the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools and chair of the ISTE Board of Directors, says technology should be viewed as a way for teachers to augment instruction, with the technology doing some of the heavy lifting. The increased adaptability and sophisticated algorithms that are part and parcel of modern technology are helping to facilitate individualized instruction.
Personalized learning places a premium on pace and a demonstration of competency in myriad ways. Personalized learning also challenges us to rethink the physical school. If students are able to learn 24 hours a day, seven days a week in different ways, there will become little need for brick, mortar and blackboard. These are significant challenges, and the solutions won't be easy. Recognizing the value and need of personalized learning is one thing, actually making it commonplace is something else.
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