ICT and Professional Development

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ICT and Professional Development

• EDER 679.10
• David Harding
• Steffen Tweedle
• June 5, 2003

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• Educators at all stages of their careers have a
  responsibility to act -- beginning teachers to
  add new ideas and energies to the profession, and
  to avoid succumbing to the stale breath of
  routine mid-career teachers to get out of the
  doldrums and veteran teachers to pass on

• wisdom instead of cynicism
• (Fullan Hargreaves, 1992).

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What is Professional Development?
The basics Activities to enhance professional
career growth." -thesaurus of the Educational
Resources Information Center (ERIC) database
The sum total of formal and informal learning
experiences throughout one's career from
pre-service teacher education to retirement"
(Fullan, 1991)
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What is Pro-D in terms of ICT?
A broader definition of professional development
that includes the use of technology to foster
teacher growth "Professional development ...
goes beyond the term 'training' with its
implications of learning skills, and encompasses
a definition that includes formal and informal
means of helping teachers not only learn new
skills but also develop new insights into
pedagogy and their own practice, and explore new
or advanced understandings of content and
resources. This definition of professional
development includes support for teachers as they
encounter the challenges that come with putting
into practice their evolving understandings about
the use of technology to support inquiry-based
learning.... Current technologies offer resources
to meet these challenges and provide teachers
with a cluster of supports that help them
continue to grow in their professional skills,
understandings, and interests. (Grant, n.d.)
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Overview
Two lenses Individual vs. Staff Pro-D
A distinction between personal or individual
development and staff development is made in this
presentation. It is through these lenses that we
must view this intellectual excursion into the
topic of professional development.
ICT leader
The first lens is held by that of an educator who
is concerned with professional development as it
relates to their personal classroom, their
personal health, etc. The second lens is held by
that of an ICT leader who, though most likely an
educator herself, is concerned with the
professional development of her staff as a whole.
Educator
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Individual Pro-D

• The majority of researchers agree that ICT
  professional development will thrive in a
  collaborative culture, oft referred to as,
  interactive professionalism.

• Fullan and Hargreaves (1992) advocate that
  teachers begin with themselves to build the
  foundation of interactive professionalism for
  professional development

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• 12 General Guidelines for Teachersfor Inspired
  Personal Professional Development

A proposal made by Fullan and Hargreaves (1992)
states that if teachers practice the following
twelve guidelines in various combinations, the
results will be cumulative, contagious and will
maximize interactive professionalism.

• By the wayit does no harm to assist the
  principal with some well-meaning training too!
  He/she often makes or breaks the collaborative
  culture.

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Individual Pro-D

• 1.Locate, listen to, and articulate your inner
  voice.

Teachers must have the desire to reflect on their
practice and reflect deeply
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Individual Pro-D

• 2. Reflect In, On and About Action
• go beyond personal impressions and gather data
  from your students
• engage in peer coaching, team teaching, mutual
  observations request appraisals.
• reflect on context of your work working
  conditions speak-out for change !
• evoke positive personal images
• recollect and dwell on WHY positive experiences
  release positive energy

TECHNIQUES FOR DEVELOPING STRONG FORMS OF
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE professional reading
professional dialogue teacher support groups
teacher research sharing autobiographies
and life histories take stimulating courses and
advance qualifications.
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Individual Pro-D

• 3. Develop a risk-taking mentality
• be selective (try it with one or two things)
• do it on a small scale
• take a positive risk (towards a positive
  vision, rather than refusing to do something)
• Collaborate with a colleague to try out a new
  practice

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Individual Pro-D

• 4. Trust processes as well as people.

5. Appreciate the total person in working with
others.
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Individual Pro-D

• 6. Commit to working with colleagues.

• 7.Seek variety and avoid Balkanization.

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Individual Pro-D

• 8. Redefine your role to include responsibilities
  outside the classroom.

9. Balance work and life
see the Parable at the end of this presentation
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Individual Pro-D

• 10. Commit to continuous improvement and
  perpetual learning.

11. Monitor and strengthen the connections
between your development and students
development more to come on this in next
section on general professional development by
the staff
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Individual Pro-D

• 12. Push and support principals and other
  administrators to develop interactive
  professionalism.

• COACH YOUR PRINCIPAL TO..
• understand the culture of the school
• value your teachers by promoting their
  professional growth
• iii) extend what you valueencourage a wide
  repertoire of strategies
• iv) express what you value by what you do and who
  you are daily
• v) promote collaborationour vision, not
  cooptationby
• -sharing power, rewarding staff, patience,
  openness and inclusiveness
• -expanding leadership roles
• -patience

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Individual Pro-D

• Coach your principal to(cont.)

• make flexible menus, not mandates
• vii) use bureaucratic means to facilitate, not to
  constrain
• FACILITATE with
• -public endorsements and official policy
• -school organization, planning and scheduling
• -decision-making structures
• -staffing procedures
• -growth-based evaluations/appraisals
• viii) connect with the wider environmentfor
  example -principal peer coaching
• -visiting connecting with other schools to
  compare/contrast
• -sending teacher teams on visitations
• -represent the school in its community

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Individual Pro-D Resources

• ICT Professional Growth Plan
• Attempt to create your own ICT professional
  growth plan for the next school year using the
  following Telus 2Learn Professional Growth
  Planning Tool available at http//www.2learn.ca/Pr
  ofgrowth/PDplanningTool.html

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Staff Pro-D

• A transition to our second lens

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Staff Pro-D

• Mackenzie advocated ten ideas for an ITC Pro-D
  leader that will serve as a prevention against or
  prescription for Screen Savers Disease, the
  term McKenzie employs as a descriptor for the
  condition that many computers find themselves in
  as a result of being operated by under-trained,
  purpose-barren, time-deprived teachers.

• He posits that following these ten suggestions,
  which reflect the best technology learning
  practices gleaned from districts and schools with
  vibrant technology use, can help you convert a
  ho-hum staff development program into a dynamic
  campaign.

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Ten Suggestions for a dynamic ITC Pro-D

• Designate student learning as the cause
• Teachers value increased student achievement as
  an outcome of professional development more than
  any other variableand judge the value of their
  professional development activities by how much
  they see a leap in student learning. (Lockwood,
  1999)
• Clarify purpose Problem-solving and
  decision-making
• Replace staff development and training with adult
  learning
• Choice is the cardinal design concept behind
  adult learning. Giving your staff a voice in how
  they learn engenders a willingness to learn. If
  the choice is taken from them, it sets up a
  parent-child relationship often inspiring
  resistance and resentment rather than growth.
  (Mackenzie, 1998)
• the system must be delivered in accordance
  with recognised principles of adult learning and
  development. (Szabo, 2001)

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Ten Suggestions (cont.)

• Address the emotional dimension-the challenge of
  transfer
• The basic assumption is the major reason that IT
  has failed to reform education is not in the
  technology, but in the tendency of individuals
  and institutions to resist change. (Szabo, 1998)
• Create teams and a culture of just in time
  support
• Use surveys and assessment to guide planning
• People most affected by the change must be
  empowered to make the decisions and control the
  direction the change proceeds. (Szabo, 1996)
• Needs assessments help us identify problems that
  are worthy of our training efforts and
  expenditures. (Guhlin et al., 2002)
• Provide time for invention and lesson development

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Ten Suggestions (cont.)

• Hook the passions of ALL teachers
• Spend 10-25 of the technology project budget on
  staff learning and provide 15-60 hours annually
  per teacher for several years
• The essential components of a technology
  implementation plan includesallocation of
  sufficient time and fundsand development of a
  plan to extend professional development.
  (Rodriguez, 2000)
• Persist
• Professional development takes time and must be
  conducted over several years for significant
  changes to occur.(Speck,1996)

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So

• Weve looked a ICT Pro-D through both a personal
  planning lens and a collective planning (staff)
  lens. The question still remains, however

How do we know that our Pro-D is actually
effective?
We wouldnt want to be just doing pro-D as an
obligation without seeing its benefits in our
learners

• The Indicators of Engaged Learning from the
  Learning with Technology Profile Tool is a set of
  criteria that evaluates the utility of a planned
  Pro-D enterprise.
• http//www.ncrtec.org/capacity/profile/profwww.htm
  

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Indicators of Engaged Learning

• Bolstering Mackenzies (1998), Marzano and
  colleagues (1990) suggestions, the NCREL (2003)
  suggests that new school programs should support
  a profile called the
• Indicators of Engaged Learning

1. VISION OF LEARNING 5. LEARNING CONTEXT 2.
TASKS 6. GROUPING 3. ASSESSMENT 7.
TEACHER ROLES 4. INSTRUCTIONAL MODELS 8. STUDENT
ROLES

• (http//www.ncrtec.org/capacity/profile/profwww.ht
  m)
• These indicators provide an excellent basis for
  evaluating any school improvement initiative
• Correspondingly, shouldnt professional
  development programs encourage teachers to
  reflect on philosophy, construct effective
  practice, build skills, redefine roles, and most
  importantly, model Indicators of Engaged
  Learning?

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Indicators of Engaged Learning

• 1. VISION OF LEARNING
• Responsibility for Learning
• Learners take charge and are self-regulated
  learners.
• Strategic
• Learners continually apply and transfer learning
  to develop and refine both traditional and
  creative problem solving strategies.
• Energized by Learning
• Engaged learners derive excitement, pleasure and
  self-motivation from learning.
• Collaborative
• Learners gain and value the social skills to work
  with others and accept that problems/issues have
  multiple points of view.

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Indicators of Engaged Learning (cont.)

• 2. TASKS
• Authentic
• Relevant tasks bear a close relationship to real
  world problems, requiring in-depth study.
• Challenging
• Tasks are complex and typically involve sustained
  amounts of time.
• Multidisciplinary
• Disciplines are wholly and appropriately
  integrated in order to solve problems or address
  issues

• 3. ASSESSMENT
• Seamless and OngoingInstruction and assessment
  are integrated.
• GenerativeLearners and their mentors create the
  assessment criteria and/or tools.
• Performance-Based Authentic tasks, projects, or
  investigations that require observing,
  interviewing and/or examining student artifacts
  and presentations assess what learners actually
  know and can do.

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Indicators of Engaged Learning (cont.)

• 4. INSTRUCTIONAL MODELS
• InteractiveMentors respond to learner needs and
  interests, and students can make key decisions
  regarding their learning.
• GenerativeLearners are encouraged to
  construct/produce knowledge by solving problems,
  conducting meaningful inquiry, engaging in
  reflection, and building a repertoire of
  effective strategies.

• 5. LEARNING CONTEXT
• Collaborative
• School is a learning community.
• Empathetic
• Diversity and multiple perspectives are valued
• Knowledge building made public.

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Indicators of Engaged Learning (cont.)

• 6. GROUPING
• FlexibleGroups are formed and reformed according
  to the purpose of instruction and common needs
  and interests.
• Equitable and Heterogeneous

• 7. TEACHER ROLES
• FacilitatorMentors create opportunities for
  learners to work collaboratively to solve
  problems, do authentic tasks, and share knowledge
  and responsibility.
• GuideMentors plan to adjust the level of
  information and support according to learners '
  needs then help learners construct their own
  meaning through modeling, mediating, and
  coaching.
• Co-Learner/Co-InvestigatorMentors learn along
  with learners, and learners may serve as
  teachers.

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Indicators of Engaged Learning (cont.)

• 8. LEARNER ROLES
• Explorer
• Learners discover concepts and connections
  and apply skills by interacting with the physical
  world, materials, technology, and other people.
• Cognitive ApprenticeLearners observe, apply, and
  refine through practice and ongoing feedback the
  thinking processes used by practitioners in
  specific content areas.
• ProducerLearners generate knowledge and products
  for themselves and the community which synthesize
  and integrate knowledge and skills.
• TeacherLearners integrate and holistically
  represent what they have learned to instruct
  others.

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Indicators of High-Performance ICT
The NCREL (2003) also makes suggestions as
standards for High-Performance ICT for all
learners. These standards should be honored for
any pro-d program for teachers. Teachers should
thrive by standards they wish to establish for
students, otherwise the pro-d process reeks of
insincerity (Warlick, 2002).
Indicators for High-Performance ICT (NCREL,
2003) A. ACCESS Connective Ubiquitous Designed
for Equitable Use Interactive B.
OPERABILITY Interoperable Open Architecture Transp
arent C. ORGANIZATION Distributed Designed
for User Contribution Designed for
Collaborative Projects D. ENGAGABILITY Enables
Learning by Doing Access to Challenging Tools
Provides Guided Participation E. EASE OF
USE Effective Helps User Friendly/User
Control Fast speed Available Training and
Support Provides Just Enough Information, Just
In Time F. FUNCTIONALITY Diverse Tools Media Use
Supports Project Design Skills Promotes
Programming and Authoring
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Guiding Questions

• Though aspects of all guidelines for personal
  Pro-D are useful, which combination of three
  guidelines of the do you think are most important
  to maximize interactive professionalism?
• Thinking as an ICT leader at your school, which
  of the ten suggestions, if employed, would help
  you convert your ho-hum staff development
  program into a dynamic campaign?
• Do you believe that professional development
  programs should model Indicators of Engaged
  Learning?
• What other forms of Pro-D can you suggest that
  are authentic?
• How does the way ICT Pro-D is organized and
  implemented differ in other parts of the world
  from BC or Alberta? Think along the lines of
  whether the control or responsibility for Pro-D
  is centralized within the school, the district,
  the province, or the country.

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Rock Parable
relating to having a balanced life as a
teacher. A philosophy professor stood before his
class and had some items in front of him. When
the class began, wordlessly he picked up a very
large and empty mayonnaise jar, and proceeded to
fill with rocks, rocks about 2 inches in
diameter. He then asked students if the jar was
full. They agreed that it was. So the professor
then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them
into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The
pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas
between the rocks. He then asked for students
again if the jar was full. They agreed it
was. The professor picked up a box of sand poured
it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up
everything else. He then asked once more of the
jar was full. The students responded with a
unanimous yes. The professor then produced two
cans of beer from under the table and proceeded
to pour their entire contents into the jar
effectively filling the empty space between the
sand. The students laughed.
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Rock Parable (cont.)
Now, said the professor, as the laughter
subsided, I want you to recognize that this jar
represents your life. The rocks are the
important things -- your family, your partner,
your health, and your children -- things that if
everything else was lost and only they remained,
your life would still be full. The pebbles are
the other things that matter like your job your
house and your car. The sand is everything else.
The small stuff. If you put the sand into the jar
first, he continued, there is no room for the
pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for your
life. If you spend all your time and energy on
the small stuff, you'll never have room for the
things that are important to you. Pay attention
to the things that are critical to your
happiness. Play with your children. Take time to
get medical checkups. Take your partner out
dancing. There will always be time to go to work,
clean the house, give a dinner party and fix the
dishwasher. Take care of the rocks first -- the
things that really matter. Set your priorities.
The rest is just sand.
One of the students raised her hand and inquired
about what the beer represented. The professor
smiled. I'm glad you asked. It just goes to
show you that no matter how full your life may
seem, there's always room for a couple of
refreshments.
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ITC Pro-D across the world...

• Alberta
• PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR TEACHING
  TECHNOLOG ACROSS THE CURRICULUM Best Practices
  For Alberta School Jurisdictions February, 1999
• http//ednet.edc.gov.ab.ca/technology/bestpracti
  ces/pdf/pdfortechnology.pdf
• BC
• Provincial level BCTF
• http//pdonline.bctf.ca/conferences/PD-Calendar.ht
  ml
• School District level
• Vancouver School District
• http//www.vsb.bc.ca/educators/prod/WebLinkstoProf
  essionalDevelopment/default.htm
• Langley School District
• https//apps1.sd35.bc.ca/workshops/
• US, NZ?

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References
Alberta Education. (1999). Professional
development for teaching technology across the
curriculum Best practices for Alberta school
jurisdictions. Edmonton, AB Author Online.
Available http//ednet.edc.gov.ab.ca/technology/b
estpractices/pdf/pdfortechnology.pdf Fullan, M.
Hargreaves, A. (1992). Whats worth fighting
for? Working together for your school.
Mississauga, Ontario Ontario Public Teachers
Federation. Grant, C. M. (n.d.). Professional
development in a technological age New
definitions, old challenges, new resources
Online. Available http//ra.terc.edu/publicatio
ns/TERC_pubs/tech-infusion/prof_dev/prof_dev_frame
.html Guhlin, M., Ornelas, L. Diem, R. (2002)
Methods that Work Educator Competencies for
Technology in Texas Public Schools, Paper
presented at the Annual Meeting of the American
Educational Research Association (AERA) (New
Orleans, LA, April 1-5, 2002). Available at
http//ericit.org/fulltext/IR021411.pdf
Guskey, T.R. (1997). Putting it all together
Integrating educational innovations. In S. D.
Caldwell (Ed.), Professional development in
learning-centered schools (pp.130-148). Oxford,
Ohio National Staff Development Council Joyce,
B. Showers, B. (1988). Student achievement
through staff development. New York Longman.
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References (cont.)
Learning With Technology Profile Tool Online.
Available http//www.ncrtec.org/capacity/profile/
profwww.htm Lockwood, A. T. (1999). The
promise and potential of professional
development. Unpublished manuscript. McKenzie,
J. (1998). Secrets of success Professional
development that works Online. Available
http//staffdevelop.org/secrets.html New Zealand
Ministry of Education (2002). What makes for
effective teacher professional development in ICT
Online? Available http//www.minedu.govt.nz/ind
ex.cfm?layoutdocumentdocumentid7838indexid692
0indexparentid1024goto00-02TopOfPage North
Central Regional Educational Laboratory Website
(2000).Providing professional development for
effective technology use Online. Available
http//www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/tec
hnlgy/te1000.htm Planning for Professional
Growth - ICT professional development links from
the Telus 2Learn website (2001) Online.
Available http//www.2learn.ca/Profgrowth/pgm.htm
l
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References (cont.)
Rodriguez, G., (with Knuth, R.) (2000). Providing
professional development for effective technology
use. Pathways to School Improvement Online.
Available http//www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/
methods/technlgy/te1000.htm Speck, M. (1996,
Spring). Best practice in professional
development for sustained educational change. ERS
Spectrum, 33-41. Strong, R., Silver, H.F.,
Hanson, J. R., Marzano, R.J., Wolfe, P., Dewing,
T. Brock, W. (1990) Thoughtful education
Staff development for the 1990s. Educational
Leadership, February, 1990. Szabo, M. (1996).
Change in the use of alternative delivery systems
through professional development within colleges
and universities, Paper presented at the annual
meeting of Ed-Media/Ed-Telecomm 96. Boston, MA.
Available at http//www.quasar.ualberta.ca/IT/res
earch/Szabo/Change.html Szabo, M. (2001,
March). Smoothing the transition to the
instructional technology age A change model
based on professional development and innovation
diffusion. In J. Price, D. Willis, N. Davis J.
Willis (eds.). Conference Proceedings of the SITE
2001 Conference. Charlottesville, VA Association
for the Advancement of Computers in Education,
2811-2817. Available at http//ericit.org/fulltext
/IR020935.pdf