5.

1 Needs Assessment
Candidates conduct needs assessments to determine school-wide, faculty, grade-level, and
subject area strengths and weaknesses to inform the content and delivery of technology-based
professional learning programs. (PSC 5.1/ISTE 4a)
Artifact: ITEC 7460 Individual Teacher Technology Use Needs Assessment
Reflection
The Individual Teacher Technology Use Needs Assessment was completed in the fall of
2015 for my ITEC 7460 course. This needs assessment required that I develop and conduct a
LoTi assessment and needs assessment of an educator as well as an interview regarding her
affective perceptions of technology as an individual. I also needed to determine the level of
access to technology in the classroom. Additionally, this needs assessment required that I
determine and justify my adopter profile as described by Change Theory.
This artifact demonstrates my ability to conduct a needs assessment to determine schoolwide, faculty, grade-level, and subject area strengths and weaknesses and to use this needs
assessment to inform the content and delivery of technology-based professional learning
programs. To conduct the needs assessment, I designed and administered a LoTi assessment
survey using Google Forms to determine the educators current level of technology integration in
her classroom. The overall LoTi survey results indicates the cooperating education wa
functioning at LoTi Level 2, known as the exploration level, which indicated she was less
comfortable using technology during instructional time. I also designed and administered a
Technology Adopter Category survey using Google Forms to determine her adopter category as
indicated by Change Theory. These results indicated that her adopter level could be classified as
laggard which meant she was slow to warm up to new technologies and needed more support.
Her perspective and use of technology demonstrated this attitude of caution by showing that she

leaned on her more tech-savvy colleagues, family members, and friends for technology support.
She also seldom used technology in the classroom for modifying and redefining learning tasks
because she feared loss of time and energy as well as loss of control of the students learning.
This resulted in using technology sporadically for substitution purposes and minor augmentation.
The technology access was quite adequate for a school in Egypt, and I was able to use the
results of the needs assessment surveys to develop an intervention and support plan for tech use.
We established an individual coaching schedule one day per week for one hour for six weeks. I
chose to implement only a couple instructional technology projects to avoid overwhelming her.
We began with developing a professional ePortfolios to gain additional technology skills and
organizational skills outside the instructional environment. The ePortfolio process could easily
be transitioned to student ePortfolios which would increase the level of technology usage slowly.
Through the needs assessment process, I learned that it is important to build a strong
rapport with the teacher a coach will be working with prior to beginning the evaluation process. I
had not known this educator for very long prior to conducting the needs assessment surveys and
interview. In the future, I plan to spend more time building the connection with educators prior to
beginning any coaching work in one-on-one sessions. It is important to establish trust first. Once
this professional relationship is established and trust is earned, it is easier to encourage changes.
This needs assessment had a direct and positive impact on the professional development
of educators and improved the level of technology integration in addition to student learning.
Through the development and use of an individual targeted needs assessment, I was able to begin
the process of building trust and unique plans to improve technology integration in the school.