When asked what has changed most about Voorhees Township Schools in the last 10 years, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction Dr. Diane Young said technology had to be №1.
“You definitely aren’t going to see an overhead projector in the classroom anymore,” Young notes as she reminisced about a decade of technological evolution.
Classrooms now have smart-boards and computer-based projectors installed directly into the walls and ceiling. Hallways are lined with security camera technology, and even the district’s email system and websites handle much of the communication staff have with one another and with parents.
“Everything is done through email and everything goes on our website,” Young said. “Ten years ago, it was probably just the start of that and it was really primitive in how we did that, but now we don’t send memos home, everything just gets sent through our email system,” Young said.
Those leaps in technology have also allowed more parents the opportunity to see what’s going on in the classroom, different from the past in which parents only look into the classroom if they were stopping by for a child’s birthday.
“Now we can bring our parents into the classrooms by going on to the website and seeing pictures of their kids, and there are videos, or maybe FaceTime with them, so the communication is more widespread than it ever was,” Young said.
Another big technological change was the district’s recent one-to-one iPad initiative for students at the middle school, which Young describes as not only a technological change, but one that’s leading to a change in instructional practices as well.
Young said now that kids can get all of their knowledge right from their computers and the Internet, teachers’ jobs become more about ensuring students are better trained to think about that knowledge and whether it’s credible.
“They need to be able to analyze it and think critically about it, so that’s the major shift we’re working toward, and the technology helps you do that,” Young said.
Young said there has to be that shift in practice where the kids are responsible for using the content they’re able to find on their own and be innovative, creative, think critically and work collaboratively with their peers.
“Getting kids to think critically and problem solve — those things require the teachers to deliver their instruction differently than they ever have before,” Young said.
However, Young also pointed out that some of the technological and instructional changes the district has undergone in the last 10 years have originated from outside the district in the form of mandates from the state and federal government.
Young said in the past, students’ test scores weren’t part of teachers’ evaluations. Now there are more evaluations, and student and teacher data is reported to the state through the through the NJ Standards Measurement and Resource for Teaching system so the state can track certain metrics.
“We’ve always had high expectations for learning and our parents expect that, so that philosophy that all our students can achieve at a high level has been there since day one, so that’s stayed, but … we have less flexibility than before and more accountability.”
Yet even with such changes over the past 10 years, Young said the district has always had high expectations for learning, so the district has had an easier time remaining up to date and innovative in its teaching.
“Even 10 years ago, parents would say, ‘we moved here for the schools,’ and we know that and it’s something that guides us all the time because all our parents have high expectations and they want to see their kids achieve at a high level,” Young said.
