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TECHNOLOGY WORKSHOPS AT FARMERSVILLE
Technology has been used in school settings since the late 1800s, from realia to magic lantern slides to film to computers. With each new technology, there is typically a flood of predictions that this is the technology that will revolutionize education. Computers, while not yet in the hands of every child, are much more prevalent and available in schools. Unfortunately, the number of teachers who feel completely comfortable using them and understand how they can support learning is small. One solution is the one size fits all workshop or professional development session. The district, Intermediate Unit, or university typically offers these after school, during the summer, or on professional development days during the school year.
The problem with these workshops is that the teacher leaves the workshop excited and determined to try out the new information, but is quickly distracted by the normal set of emergencies and day-to-day tasks that make up a school day. If the teacher isn’t quite ready to use the new strategy when the workshop is scheduled, by the time s/he is ready, the information is no longer fresh in his/her mind. If the new strategies are tried, they rarely work as well as the teacher would like, particularly the first time. By then, there is seldom anyone available to discuss what went wrong and provide follow up support.
This study examines a workshop strategy that releases teachers from their classrooms for short periods of time during the school day to work on technology skills tailored to the needs of the teachers at that school. The workshop leaders are teachers in the school, so they are available to answer questions, trouble shoot and provide instructional support to the participants. The participating teachers are also given a challenge to use the skills covered in the workshop during the month following the workshop. The purpose of this study is to determine the degree to which the teachers plan to and are using the skills covered in the workshops, the amount of follow-up support that is requested of and provided by the workshop leaders, and how many teachers respond to the implementation challenge. The research questions are:
- Will teachers that participate in an embedded, onsite professional development strategy improve their technology skills?
- Will teachers that participate in an embedded, onsite professional development strategy choose to increase their classroom use of technology?
Society for Instructional Technology in Teacher Education (SITE)
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