Site Supervisor Interview

Beth Chappelear is serving as my site supervisor for the FRIT 7739 practicum.  Mrs. Chappaelear's title is currently STEM teacher and instructional technology coach, but she has also taught middle school social studies and gifted social studies previously. 

1. What type of degree is required for your position?  Since STEM is new in GA there are varying opinions about this but she currently has a B.A. in Multidisciplinary Ed, a M.S. in Curriculum & Instruction and an Ed.S in Instructional Technology. She also has her gifted endorsement as well. She is currently contemplating an endorsement in computer science.

2. Where did you obtain your degree?  Mrs. Chappalear obtained her three degrees through the University of Tennessee Chattanooga and her gifted endorsement through the North Georgia RESA.

3. What are your job responsibilities?  She teaches a video class one block a day, three blocks of STEM (6th, 7th, and 8th) and her instructional technology coach block is when she is available to help our staff with any of their technology needs.  She helps teachers with any issues with Google Apps for Education, facilitating virtual reality, and any other instructional technology needs that teachers may have.

4. What are typical daily activities for your job?  She feels like she spends most of her time finding ways to get tools and resources in the hands of these kids.  Then she states she spends just as much time preparing their activities.  When students are in her class, she spends her time facilitating and working alongside them.  She added, STEM is very different in that she doesn’t teach very much anymore. She just set the kids up and then step back and watch them do!

5. Do you have a budget that you control? How do you make decisions on selecting resources for your stakeholders?  Mrs. Chappelear is  given a small amount of money for her classroom, but says it would barely be enough to pay for masking tape and hot glue for 360 STEM kids (which is the amount she serves in a given school year).  She has had two donors choose projects get funded this year and have also been awarded one grant.  Almost all of those funds have been spent already on robots, drones, technology tools and Makerspace materials. 

6. Have you had an opportunity to impact technology implementation throughout your school? Would you describe a specific example?   She attempts to impact technology implementation however she can.  She makes “Tinkle Tips” each month to hang in the staff stalls (these can be found in each faculty restroom).  She steps in and does professional learning anytime they will give me the time to do it.  She has 4th block available to help teachers and spends much of that time going into classrooms helping students AND teachers with tech implementation. 

7. Does your school have a technology committee? How are technology decisions made?  We used to have one but do not have one right now.  Technology decisions are made by our administration but they do seek the advice of our teachers during professional learning sessions.

8. What is the best part of your job?  Hands down it is the opportunity each and every single day to help teachers AND students use technology in a way that incorporates the 4 C's:  creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication. 

9. What do you find to be the most challenging part of your job?  Time management.  She feels like she gets pulled in many different directions and am asked many questions.  She is concerned about people feeling that she is unavailable to them and tries to do what she can to prevent that.  She feels that if they ask for help and something goes wrong, they likely will not try it again.  Mrs. Chappelear’s goal is for them to be successful.

10.  Is there anything else about your role that you would like to share?  Mrs. Chappelaer stated she is living the dream and am so thankful to have the chance to do what she gets to do every day.