I am excited about the possibilities and the challenges that this role brings. Setting policy, working closely with our district’s outstanding superintendent, making informed and thoughtful budgetary decisions and approving curriculum (my true passion) are all parts of the role that have great impact on the education of our children. I also believe that my background, and in particular, my former positions as a school and district administrator, bring a unique perspective to the role. One area I believe I am uniquely suited to support my school district and its administrators is by helping my fellow school board members understand the natural changes in the education landscape and the innovative ideas and tools driving these changes.

Consider the integration of technology into everyday instruction. This is a new concept for most parents, and certainly for grandparents and many community members. After all, many of us have had tremendous experiences in education and we want to give the children of our communities the same, and an even better, experience. However, just as technology has changed our everyday lives, it’s changed education.

Backing up your board of directors

So, we have some work to do in helping our school boards, our parents and our communities understand how the education landscape has changed, the value of the edtech infrastructure that was built during the COVID-era of education, and how this infrastructure can now be utilized to support the success of all learners and improve achievement.

Here are three key things I’ve learned through my experience that school administrators can do to help school board members understand and support education technology:

1. Understand the why: It’s common for school board members to be asked by community members why certain decisions are made. When it comes to technology, it’s important to clearly articulate the why. Technology can support accessibility to different kinds of resources, provide equitable learning opportunities for students, and ensure differentiation of instruction. School administrators should help school board members understand why different technologies are an integral part of student learning by creating a compelling picture of what the district hopes to achieve through edtech innovations.

2. What’s the purpose? Remember that for the majority of school board members, the use of technology in schools is not an experience they are familiar with. While a variety of digital resources and tools are being incorporated into learning, many technologies are used for different purposes: hall passes, learning management systems, cafeteria lunch payments, etc.

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Ensure that school board members know the purpose of each technology as well as the specifics of it, i.e. Will students be tracked? Will parents be notified? These are often the types of issues that raise concerns with parents and the public. School administrators should provide a clear purpose for each of the different technologies.

A particularly useful way to do this is to have members of your board of directors shadow a student for the day to see how they use the technologies in your school before providing them a primer on each technology’s use. Seeing students using edtech is often very helpful.

3. It’s all about the research: There is clear research on the impact that technology has on different aspects of learning for students. Whether it’s the effects of digital gamification on students’ math fact fluency or the ability of digital resources to bring multimodal learning to the classroom, the research can provide important third-party validation of the use of educational technology in your district.

In addition, be prepared to answer school board members’ questions about the use of specific technologies with data that shows a comprehensive understanding of how the resource substantiates measurable student success specifically aligned with standards-based objectives. A compelling alignment to outcomes and robust evidence of learning should drive a positive decision to continue tech-driven innovations.

In my new role as a member of the board of directors, I anticipate that the integration of technology will be a current and future topic. It’s an important one for many reasons. But, as technology continues to change and innovate, we need to draw on something that’s been around for quite a while: collaboration. School administrators and school boards need to collaborate to make the best technology decisions for students and their learning.

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There’s nothing like a first-grade classroom during the months of October and November. Students have settled into school, they know the routine and they are bustling with curiosity and excitement. It’s generally about this time that many students are beginning to recognize a lot of sight words in their reading, notice the difference between various types of books, and start to read with expression.

When I was a building principal, the first-grade classrooms were my favorite to visit. Now, as I work with school administrators across the country in my role as senior vice president of Teaching and Learning at Discovery Education, I know that I’m not alone in my love of watching students learn to read and write in a first-grade classroom. In fact, I have a lot of conversations about literacy with superintendents, curriculum directors and principals across the country. When I ask them what goal are they driving towards, their answer is literacy.

School administrators with whom I’ve spoken are focused on making sure all students read and write on grade level. However, this answer leads to a very specific question: What is the best way to teach all children to read? This is a loaded question. Is there a best way for all children to read? What do we mean by best? What aspect of reading do we mean? Are we factoring in comprehension or fluency into this question? Are we factoring in digital reading into this question?

While we as educators are rightly hyper-focused on teaching young learners to read, somewhere along the way, our curriculum became unbalanced. As we added more reading, more writing, and more math, we reduced the amount of time spent on science and social studies. In some cases, we eliminated these content areas altogether, particularly in the primary grades.

However, the research is clear. Students use background knowledge to construct meaning. If a reader knows a lot about a topic, his/her reading comprehension rises. Science builds students’ background knowledge. It’s also engaging, relevant and hands-on, all qualities of best practice instruction for students, particularly first graders.

Adding science

Here are three ways to get started in making science integral to the reading and writing proficiency of not only your first graders but all of your primary students:

Flip the model. Instead of spending large blocks of time on literacy, spend large blocks of time on science. Have students read informative texts, investigate science phenomena, and write explanatory pieces. Use high-quality digital content paired with texts to introduce students to scientific ideas and processes, creating a multimodal experience. Use science to inspire your students to read, write and think like scientists.

Build a reading and writing scope that supports science instruction. Science lends itself to the meaningful and purposeful integration of reading and writing skills and strategies. Teach students strategies like asking and answering questions and skills such as understanding cause and effect through scientific investigations. Use science images like the life cycle of a frog to teach students about sequence. As you build your literature scope and sequence, there are countless opportunities to bring fictional pieces into science instruction. Pair Is Your Mama a Llama? with the science concept of understanding parents and baby animals or Miss Rumphius with teaching students about how to help the environment.

Start with what you know. In first grade classrooms across the country, there is a plethora of great children’s literature. Start there. Support teachers in building science challenges from the problems presented in the stories.

Consider the well-known character of children’s literature, Chicken Little, who convinced everyone that the sky was falling. Even though he meant well, he caused a ruckus. Have students design a well-built nest that Chicken Little can use as a shelter. Through this type of challenge, students engage in inquiry using their reading and writing skills to create Chicken Little’s nest.

Read: Closing the knowledge gap

Or, if you are using a digital service like STEM Connect, which is inspired by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the National Association of Engineers’ Grand Challenges for Engineering, use the existing challenges offered by those services. Authenticity, relevance and of course, literacy are the cornerstones of this type of learning.

These three ideas bring science teaching and learning back into the first-grade classroom to develop better readers and writers. While this is certainly a best practice, let’s make it a next practice—that is, a practice that we know works, but works more powerfully, and more innovatively for our students.

Karen Beerer is the senior vice president of teaching and learning at Discovery Education. A former classroom teacher, she also served as a reading specialist, an elementary school principal, and as a supervisor of curriculum and professional development. Beerer also served as the assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction and assessment in the Boyertown Area School District (PA) for 8 years.

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