Professional development is an ongoing process. Training and support make all the difference. How to achieve an exemplary professional development plan takes planning.
The Process…
- Prepare staff to see issues as challenges rather than obstacles, and offer encouragement for improvement.
- Create an environment that fosters risk-taking and allows for mistakes.
- Allow instructors to take laptops home.
- Provide teachers and administrators with laptops approximately one year prior to an implementation and begin development early. Early access to technology creates possibilities for users, even if they begin with personal and recreational use.
- Provide teachers guidance to enhance and evolve pedagogical repertoires with technology. Help can take many forms, from software training by IT staff to teachers’ pedagogical and methodological exchange.
- Create a learning environment offering informal opportunities for administrators, staff and teachers to share best methods.
- Train teachers to address connectivity interruptions during class.
- Create master usage guidelines to help teachers identify when the technology becomes a distraction. Offer solutions.
- Provide hands-on training and online instruction for basic computing skills.
- Don’t make assumptions about users’ skill level, even with the simplest functions, such as keyboarding.
- Post a Q&A session online that helps teachers incorporate online instruction into classes.
- Save time by using electronic templates for administrative details and routine reporting.
Examples From the Metiri/National science foundation Profiles:
Virginia …
Henrico County Public Schools’ professional development package offers teachers and staff college credit, tuition reimbursement, and financial incentives for attending professional development offerings outside of the school day (at $18 an hour).
Every middle and high school in the county has full-time technology trainers on staff who help teachers integrate technology into curricula.
Henrico County Public Schools offer technology integration workshops during the academic year and the summer.
Evidence of informal professional development is seen in frequent teacher collaboration, usage discussions and idea exchange at departmental meetings.
Michigan …
Michigan ’s Freedom to Learn program views adequate professional development as a necessity to achieve success. This approach encourages reluctant teachers to be proactive learners, while enabling enthusiastic teachers to explore the vast potential of one-to-one access.
