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Middletown Adult Education: Reflections on Leadership*
This reflection responds to the following questions:
Arthur T. Muldowney, Director
of Adult Education, Middletown Adult Education
Differences between
Year 1 and Year 2:
During the second year of technology implementation
a greater emphasis was placed on incorporating technology seamlessly
into curriculum and using technology as the powerful tool it can
be in the enhancement of student learning. Technology has become
an integral part of each student’s program of study at Middletown
Adult Education. It can also address the needs of students with
a variety of learning styles and modalities.
As director, my role in the second year continued to
be the provision of instructional leadership as well as a strong
infrastructure to ensure efficient and smooth operation of the program's
technology. While our new ESL Language Lab was the major infrastructure
initiative, teachers also received professional development to further
upgrade their skills and curricula was revised to increase the incorporation
of technology. My purpose was to provide support and staff development
that would assist teachers to use their full potential in providing
technology integrated instruction.
To this end, we continued to use a technology
team that met regularly and addressed basic maintenance and enhancement
issues that are necessary for the smooth functioning of equipment.
We have continued the Master Teacher model. As a result of this
initiative, each department can rely on an individual technology
specialist who will address their needs quickly as well as a Master
Teacher who is available to demonstrate, trouble shoot, and support
their peers.
New Challenges
and Actions during Year 2:
The major challenge was centered on budget issues
which impacted program services and the development of the space
needed for the library/media center. I was pleasantly surprised
to see some teachers who had originally been very skeptical of technology
become advocates for its use after training and implementation.
Our main purpose in this project is to continue
to provide instruction that integrates technology and culminates
in improved student learning. We feel that this has been a successful
project and we expect that success to continue.
*from Technology
Implementation — End-of-Year Report as of June 30, 2003, compiled
by Arthur T. Muldowney, Director
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