Grant Proposal for myON Professional Development

Jessica Shuff

Raymond Miller

Amanda August
Needs-Analysis

This data has been provided by teachers at Bayvale Elementary School in Richmond County,

Georgia. All K-5 grade teachers were given access to the survey via email. As seen below, 12

teachers responded to the survey.

Figure 1

83.4% of teachers are comfortable with integrating technology in the classroom. Therefore, there

is no need to conduct basic technology integration skills within this training.

 Figure 2

Out of 12 respondents, the majority (41.7%) would like future training to focus on myON, an

ebook website where students and teachers have access to thousands of books. This program has

been purchased by Richmond County School District during the 2016-2017 school year. No

training myON training has been conducted at Bayvale Elementary since the purchase.

Figure 3
Over half of the respondents would like training to occur during their collaborative planning time

with their grade level teams. Teachers have one hour of planning time three times a week.

Teachers have a thirty minute planning period two days a week. This training would occur over 3

sessions and within a three day period. Paraprofessionals will cover classes for the days during

the extra 30 minute time period.

SMART Goals

Goal 1: Teachers will access and interpret student reading levels, reading comprehension, and

usage through the myON teacher portal by the end of the training period.

Goal 2: Teachers will create projects for their students based on state learning standards for each

grading period.

Project Activities

A representative from myON will train the school technology leaders during a live three hour

training. The K-5 teachers will be trained by the technology leader on their grade level as well as

the media specialist. The trainers will use the recorded video training as a guide while

conducting the sessions. The training will occur over three consecutive one hour periods.

Learning Task Related Goal Timeline

Using myON Goal 1 One hour session (Monday)
-Faculty Dashboard
-Rosters & Groups
-Student interface
-Accessing & interpreting
reports.
-Creating individualized goals
for students.
Creating Projects Goal 2 One hour session(Tuesday)
-Searching and assigning
projects from the myOn cloud.
-Creating new projects.
-Assigning benchmarks and
placement assessments
Teacher Guided Practice Goal 1 & 2 One hour session (Wednesday)
-Teachers will be given an
opportunity to practice the
information they learned during
this professional learning with
their grade level.

Schedule for Professional Learning

The school technology leaders will meet on the Friday before the K-5 teachers are trained

in order to participate in the live professional development session. This will be a half day

training with the myON representative. This will be held from 12pm-4pm. An additional hour

will be used to discuss the live training and ways to best re-deliver this professional learning to

the remaining teachers.

For the remainder of the staff, instruction will occur in one hour segments during teacher

planning periods over three consecutive days (M-W). The staff will be instructed by the school

technology leaders who received the live professional development session on Friday. The

technology leaders will utilize the recorded live video session to guide their instruction. Below is

the training schedule for teachers in K-5. The professional learning will be conducted in small

groups according to grade level. All teachers will bring their county issued laptops to the

training.

Grade Level Planning Time

Kindergarten 8:15 am -9:15 am, M-W, paraprofessionals will
cover classes from 8:45am-9:15am

First Grade 9:25 am -10:25 am, M-W, paraprofessionals

will cover classes from 9:55am- 10:25am

Second Grade 10:30 am -11:30 am, M-W, paraprofessionals

will cover classes from 11:00-11:30am

Third Grade 11:30 am -12:30 pm, M-W, paraprofessionals

will cover classes from 12:00am-12:30pm

Fourth Grade 12:35 pm -1:35 pm, M-W, paraprofessionals

will cover classes from 1:05pm - 1:35pm

Fifth Grade 1:45 pm - 2:45 pm, M-W, paraprofessionals will

cover classes from 2:15pm-2:45pm

Budget

The cost of the myON software is $5,212.50 with a 25% discount offered by a myON

representative. The district has already purchased the software so the focus of this proposal will

be on the cost of professional development.

The professional development for myON includes a three hour live training session at a

cost of $750. The training session is allowed to be recorded and shared with other teachers. In the

schedule for the professional development, the school will utilize their paraprofessionals to cover

each of the classes for a thirty minute window so the teachers may have a consecutive hour of

training each day. Utilizing the paraprofessionals and rotating them out throughout the day

alleviates the need for substitutes for all of our teachers but requiring them only for our
technology leaders that will need a half day substitute in order to participate in the initial live

professional development.

The technology team consists of eight members. One classroom teacher from each grade

level, the school media specialist, and the school administrator. This professional development

would require six half day substitutes in order for the technology team to attend the live training

session with the myON representative (Friday). Certified substitutes are paid $120 a day in our

district. At this rate, this professional development would require an additional $360 for six half

day substitutes. During the Monday-Wednesday professional learning, the grade level technology

representative will assist the media specialist with training during the scheduled training time, so

no additional substitutes are needed. For example, the kindergarten technology leader will assist

the media specialist when the kindergarten team attends the training. Overall, this project would

require $1,110 for the myON professional development for all K-5 staff.

Evaluation

Upon course completion, each teacher will complete a brief survey regarding their overall

attitude towards the myON technology. The survey will include their opinion of the effectiveness

of the training program, how confident they feel with using myON, and how likely they are to

implement the app in their classrooms. This questionnaire will allow for the reactions level of

Kirkpatrick’s pyramid to be accounted for. By the end of the course, each teacher will also create

their own myON course, beginning with a Lexile exam to test each student’s current reading

level. This will test their competency with using myON, in adherence to the learning level of the

Kirkpatrick model. Teachers will then design a month long project for their classes utilizing at
least one of each type of task. During that time, teachers will meet once a week during planning

to compare and assess the growth of Lexile levels the data suggests within their classroom.

Through observing not only the ability to use myON, but also the amount of engagement each

teacher is showing with implementing myON in their classrooms, we will be able to evaluate the

transfer level of Kirkpatrick’s pyramid. Finally, at the end of the semester, we will measure

teacher and student login data on myON, as well as the level of growth students show in their

Lexile levels. This will give us a comprehensive evaluation of the training results, and complete

the fourth and final tier of the pyramid.

References

Winfrey, E.C. (1999). Kirkpatrick's Four Levels of Evaluation. In B. Hoffman (Ed.),

Encyclopedia of Educational Technology. Retrieved March 24, 2005 from http://coe.sdsu.edu/

eet/Articles/k4levels/start.htm