"Substantial
investment in hardware, infrastructure, software, and content
will be largely wasted if K-12 teachers are not provided with
the preparation and support they need to effectively integrate
information technologies into their teaching."
-- Report to the President on the Use of Technology to Strengthen
K-12 Education in the United States, 1997
Technology-related
staff development -- like staff development in general -- is
influenced by changes within the broader context of public schooling.
Three powerful ideas are altering the country's schools and,
in the words of Dennis Sparks of the National Staff Development
Council, "producing profound changes in how staff development
is conceived and implemented." In an article in the fall 1994
issue of Journal of Staff Development, Sparks identified
those powerful ideas:
1. Results-driven
education, which focuses on what students know and are able
to do as a result of schooling. The success of staff development
is judged by whether it produces instructional behavior and
practices that demonstrably benefit students.
2. Constructivism,
which is a conceptualization of how human beings learn. Understanding
is greater and new learning more lasting if learners are active
builders of knowledge structures and constructors of meaning,
rather than passive recipients of information transmitted to
them by teachers. A constructivist approach to staff development
models constructivist teaching, where teachers guide and facilitate
rather than tell or dictate.
3. Systems
thinking, which recognizes that complex organizations, like
schools, have many interlocking parts. Changes in one sector
can have unintended effects on another. Staff development both
influences and is influenced by other aspects of schooling.
Among educators,
federal and state policy makers, technology firms, and the general
public, we've seen a growing awareness of professional development's
vital place in the successful integration of technology into
education. The result has been a proliferation of attempts to
craft programs that meet the needs of practitioners and administrators
and ultimately produce improvements in student learning.
Diverse
models and approaches are being tried, with varying degrees
of success. At present, the education community has not reached
consensus about reliable, generalizable, or conclusive methods
of linking professional development to measurable gains in student
achievement, and that lack of consensus applies to technology-related
professional development as well as other categories. However,
we do have evidence, from research and practice, of the features,
processes, and approaches that tend to produce sustained teacher
learning and of teachers' willingness and capacity to incorporate
that learning into classroom instruction.
Characteristics
of effective programs
Several
common characteristics emerge when we examine technology staff
development programs deemed effective by teachers and administrators.
An effective technology professional development program
* Emphasizes
links to student achievement
* Teams
teachers for training
* Respects
and builds on teachers' knowledge and experience
* Increases
available teacher-support mechanisms with telecommunications
options, such as e-mail and e-mentoring
* Receives
administrator support
* Offers
ongoing rather than "one-shot" professional development activities
* Provides
incentives
* Provides
time to learn and access to equipment
* Customizes
professional development
* Builds
a cadre of trainers
* Sets
skill-level prerequisites for group sessions
* Uses
a structured, coherent training curriculum
* Focuses
on integrating technology tools into instruction
* Supplies
resources to support just-in-time answers to questions
* Encourages
and facilitates sharing best practices and "craft talk"
* Models
the use of particular technologies in school
* Provides
a flexible schedule of targeted instruction
* Includes
immersion programs among its strategies.
The following
profiles of technology professional development programs in
two school districts illustrate how specific attributes of effective
technology professional development can be incorporated into
program design.
Mentors
in New Trier
Mentoring
is a key element of a staff development initiative for technology
literacy and integration in suburban Chicago's New Trier High
School District 203. The district serves 3,700 students on two
campuses; it has 330 teachers and 1,200 networked computers.
A 1997 staff survey identified needs and concerns and provided
the basis for planning.
Teachers
at New Trier develop Individual Technology Learning Plans. During
the process of developing the plans, the teachers work with
an assigned technology mentor who helps to assess their current
technology skill level 
and
to identify necessary steps to achieve their technology goals.
They meet regularly with the mentor for one to two years while
they progress through the steps of the plan. As the teachers
integrate the skills they learn into their teaching, they compile
a portfolio to demonstrate proficiency with and integration
of the technology as originally outlined in their plans. When
the portfolio is accepted, teachers receive a stipend based
on the scope of work undertaken; stipends average $1,500.
Instead
of measuring staff development progress by "seat time," the
portfolio assessment allows teachers to demonstrate that they
are using the skills they learn with their students. New Trier's
mentors are district-level technology staffers who can work
in the classroom with their assigned teachers. Time spent together
ranges from three to 15 hours per quarter. As the teacher implements
new software or strategies, the mentor may be there to assist
or troubleshoot.
Technology
is defined broadly and includes computers, audiovisual equipment,
and the school's voice-mail system, fax, and library resources.
The computer applications that teachers learn include productivity
applications, such as word processors, databases, and spreadsheets.
With such
a large faculty, New Trier provides multiple formats for professional
development, including the following:
* One-to-one
training
* Small
group instruction
* Internet
tutorials, purchased by subscription. Some of these online tutorials
are instructor led while others are self-paced.
* Free
vendor-provided Internet tutorials focused on particular hardware
or software
* Outside
courses, workshops, and conferences
* Self-instructional
materials that teachers can use on their own
* Step-by-step
instruction on the network.
On-site
training sessions offer "byte-sized" learning; many of the sessions
are 30-minute classes offered at beginning, intermediate, and
advanced skill levels. As many as 80 different courses are scheduled
each month before and after school, as well as during school
hours in teacher-preparation periods.
Steven
Baule, New Trier's director of information technology, and Karen
Arenson, the district's instructional technology coordinator,
described New Trier's program in a presentation at the National
School Boards Association's Technology + Learning Conference
in 2000. Their presentation on the Individual
Technology Learning Plan is available at http://www.nths.newtrier.k12.il.us/district203/baule/
Tl2000/tsld001.htm.
For more
information, contact Steven Baule, Director of Information Technology,
New Trier High
School, 385 Winnetka Ave., Winnetka, IL 60093; (847) 784-2361.
A cadre
of teachers in Atchison
Careful
attention to professional development enabled the Atchison (Kan.)
Public Schools to maximize the impact of the one-year, $60,000
Technology Literacy Challenge Fund grant it received during
2000-2001. The district's four schools serve 1,700 students.
Technology
director Donna Noll formed a cadre of 12 teachers from the district's
schools. "The key was picking good classroom teachers," she
explains, "not just people who were tech savvy." In the spring,
the 12 teachers each received a laptop computer, followed by
three days of training just before the summer vacation. Teachers
in the cadre also received a curriculum software bundle for
the age group they taught and had the summer to go through the
materials. Three more days of training preceded the start of
school.
Every few
months the teachers receive more training from an outside trainer
to take them to a higher skill level. According to Noll, the
sense of continuity that comes from having the same trainer
is valuable for the teachers.
Administrators
also received laptop computers, paid for by the district, Noll
says. She offers separate training sessions for administrators,
who represent every building in the district. This has helped
them to support the cadre members as well as begin to influence
teachers in all the buildings.
On each
project, cadre members team with another teacher who is not
in the cadre. On one project, they team with an administrator.
For one project, a health and physical education teacher teamed
with a social studies teacher. In health, students learned about
AIDS and in world history about the bubonic plague. Students
profiled similarities in the symptoms of the two diseases, made
then/now comparisons, and reported their findings to the school
board in a PowerPoint presentation.
Grant funds
were used to send the cadre to NSBA's Technology + Learning
conference in 2000, which had positive effects Noll hadn't expected.
"That built a sense of camaraderie among the group," she says,
and the teachers commented on how many ideas they got by attending
and then talking about what they learned. Noll noticed that
they formed relationships with the teachers in other buildings.
For example, the middle school social studies teacher took a
class to the elementary school afterward for one project, and
cadre members figured out ways to work together across buildings.
For more
information, contact Donna Noll, Technology Director, Atchison
Public Schools, 215 N. 8th St., Atchison, KS 66002; (913)
367-4170.
Rita H. Oates is president of Oates Associates,
an education consulting firm in Coral Gables, Fla., that specializes
in technology, staff development, and school reform. This article
was excerpted from Technology
Professional Development for P-12 Educators, published
in 2001 by the National School Boards Association.
