What is New Tech Practices?

New Tech Practices is a 60-day engagement for teaching and fostering Deeper Learning Skills at a school, through the use of four key components:

• New Tech Learning Outcome Rubrics
• Student-centered teaching practices aligned to the outcomes
• Collaborative Faculty culture, and
• Evidence of Student Work.

Groups engaging in NT Practices can vary: a small group of teachers; a department; a grade level; a PLC; even an entire staff.   Some districts have utilized NT Practices with select teachers from a group of schools. The program of NTP is typically used with a school that is in talks with NTN about bringing on a school; it has several use cases, some of which also apply to schools that have been part of the network for some time.  

New Tech Practices provides training in the Learning Outcome rubrics for elementary, middle school, and high school levels, in the areas of:

Collaboration

Oral Communication

Agency

The training for NT Practices focuses on aspects both inside and outside the classroom.  Inside, students use learning outcome rubrics to set goals, and the teacher facilitates interactive lessons that allow for observation of student performance in the learning outcomes.   Students also reflect upon their own performance at the end of each lesson. These are referred to as “Bookend Lessons”, because the lesson is bookended by students considering the NTN Rubrics.

Outside of the classroom, NT Practices involves teachers using protocols to share and refine their lesson plans, and using student work to analyze their practice.  

In the 60 days, New Tech Practices follows a set of events that involves, at minimum:

1. A 2-day training in:
   • Use of Rubrics
   • Student Centered Teaching Methods
   • Use of collaborative protocols for faculty and
   • assessment practices.
2. A first faculty meeting where teachers share their plans with each other
3. A first lesson using rubrics and student-centered teaching
4. A second faculty meeting where teachers examine student products/videos, and plan for next lesson
5. A second lesson

Because the program lasts  60 days, this is work that can be done in 2 cycles during a school year, typically semester 1 and semester 2.

While NTP is typically used with schools and districts brand-new to NTN, the ideas behind NTP have proven to be valuable to schools who have been in the network for some time.   PBL teachers see bookend lessons as valuable scaffolding tools within projects, and a way to systemically build student capabilities with specific skills outlined by the rubric.

There are some tools that we use for schools engaging in New Tech Practices:

New Tech Practices Success Rubric