RETC Brings Tech Savvy to Underperforming Bronx Middle Schools
Fordham University’s RETC—Center for Professional Development is helping bring 30 Bronx middle schools up to speed in 21st century instructional technology.
The RETC, along with the New York City Department of Education’s Bronx Office of Instructional Technology (OIT) and the National Staff Development Council (NSDC), has received a $1 million, two-year grant from the federal Department of Education.
“We’re going to train assistant principals, teachers and technology people how to teach better using technology,” said RETC director Steven D’Agustino, Ph.D. “If classes are more integrated technologically, students will be more engaged in their learning, which will take place in a more project-based way and be more effective.”
The first training session, attended by nearly 60 teachers, administrators and technology coordinators, occurred May 9 on Fordham’s Rose Hill campus. Over the next two years, developers from RETC will make site visits to the schools as part of the program, titled Transforming Leadership into 21st Century Schools: Inclusive, Innovative and Interdisciplinary (I3).
While one benefit of the grant program is that administrators and staff will receive Internet and Computing Core Certification, known as IC3, its success will be measured by whether the test scores of English language learners improve, said Crystal Lindsay, director of the Bronx OIT.
“The entire school building will be transformed into a 21st-century environment,” Lindsay said. “Administrators and teachers will be empowered to teach using technology, but we must improve academic achievement.”
The public and non-public schools participating in the program are those that have been deemed “in need of improvement” by the New York State Department of Education as part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2001.
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