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> Date:         Thu, 30 Sep 1999 17:57:06 -0400
> Reply-To: The Up for Grabs Discussion List <UPFORGRABS-L@CDINET.COM>
> Sender: The Up for Grabs Discussion List <UPFORGRABS-L@CDINET.COM>
> From: Kevin Taglang <kevint@BENTON.ORG>
> Subject:      The Digital Beat -- Technology Professional Development for
>               Teachers
> Comments: To: benton-compolicy@cdinet.com
> To: UPFORGRABS-L@CDINET.COM
>
> The Digital Beat v.1 no. 16
> By Andy Carvin
>
> Technology Professional Development for Teachers:
>  Overcoming a Pedagogical Digital Divide
>
>         Introduction
>         Going Online: The Status of America's Schools
>         Now That We've Wired Our Schools: Are Teachers Prepared?
>         Different Teachers, Different Attitudes:
>          Constructivism and Technology Use
>         Innovating Professional Development
>         Conclusion
>
>
> Introduction
>
> Over the last five years, the United States has increased its priorities
> concerning the use of technology in schools. Though technology is by no
> means a new addition to the K-12 classroom, the explosive growth of the
> Internet has led to a multi-billion dollar commitment to wire America's
> schools and integrate digital communications into all levels of curricular
> activities. At the federal level, the E-Rate program has to date funded
> more than 45,000 schools with over $2.5 billion in telecommunications
> subsidies in order to connect these institutions to the Internet. At the
> local level, grass-roots campaigns such as Net Day have mobilized
> volunteers to wire schools within their communities in order to take the
> first steps towards connectivity.
>
> As the Benton Foundation underscored in its 1997 Learning Connection
> report, access to hardware is only one component of providing quality
> educational technology to schools. Now that Internet-based instruction is
> beginning to percolate into classrooms, attention must turn towards
> preparing America's teachers for using Internet technology successfully.
> The challenges and issues policymakers must face include educators' varying
> attitudes towards instruction, the importance of interaction with their
> teaching colleagues and the need for innovative professional development
> approaches.
>
>
> Going Online: The Status of America's Schools
>
> According to the National Center for Education Statistics' most recent
> report (February 1999), 89% of US schools had at least one Internet
> connection within their campus. This connection is not necessarily
> accessible to students, though. For example, a modem-connected PC in the
> librarian's office counted as a connected school. The same report found
> that 51% of instructional classrooms were connected as well: in other
> words, just over half of all classrooms contained at least one Internet
> access point for either the teacher alone or for both teacher and students.
> These connection rates can be compared to statistics as recent as 1994,
> when only 35% of schools and 3% of classrooms were connected. By the end of
> the current school year, NCES estimates that 99% of all schools and 88% of
> all classrooms will have at least one connection to the Internet.
>
> It is worth noting that the NCES data warn of the digital divide that still
> exists between low-poverty schools and high-poverty schools. In 1998,
> though 51% of classrooms nationally were wired to the Internet, only 39% of
> schools with high levels of poverty were online. In contrast, 62% of
> schools with low levels of poverty were wired. With the help of the $2.25
> billion in annual subsidies from the federal E-Rate program, though, it is
> hoped that those schools lagging behind in terms of connectivity will soon
> be able to catch up.
>
>
> Now That We've Wired Our Schools: Are Teachers Prepared?
>
> Despite all the effort that has been placed on wiring America's schools, we
> are only beginning to see the attention of policymakers turn towards a
> greater question: what should we expect of schools, teachers and students
> once they all gain access to the Internet? It is easy to envision schools
> where educators transparently integrate new technologies into their
> teaching styles, but in truth schools are only beginning to address what
> needs to be done to prepare America's teachers to use technology
> successfully. A February 1999 report from the US Department of Education
> noted that only 20% of America's teachers feel comfortable in integrating
> technology into their lessons. This should come as no surprise since few
> teachers have had ample opportunity to be exposed to successful technology
> integration techniques. Hands-on professional development activities
> targeted towards technology integration are very much a new addition for
> most schools.
>
> According to the Milken Exchange on Education Technology's 1998 Progress of
> Technology in the Schools study, teachers on average receive less than 13
> hours of technology training per year, and 40% of all teachers have never
> received any kind of technology training. Assuming it is offered at all,
> this amount of training is far less than what many experts believe is
> necessary for a teacher to develop tangible technology integration skills.
> As the Department of Education noted in its 1994 Prisoners of Time report,
> "New teaching strategies can require as much as 50 hours of instruction,
> practice and coaching before teachers become comfortable with them."
> Professional development of any kind requires a significant cost
> investment; to date, most schools have not chosen to make such a
> commitment. While many technology integration experts recommend that
> anywhere from 25 to 35 percent of a school's overall technology budget be
> dedicated to professional development, most schools on a national average
> dedicate no more than three percent of their technology budget. In most
> cases, it seems professional development is budgeted as an afterthought
> when compared to the costs of equipping schools with the technology itself.
>
>
> Different Teachers, Different Attitudes: Constructivism and Technology Use
>
> Along with the obvious need to equip teachers with broad technology skills,
> professional development programs must also consider teachers' varying
> attitudes towards pedagogy and their interaction with their colleagues.
> Recent work conducted by Professor Hank Becker at the University of
> California/Irvine may help shed light on some of these issues. Becker's
> landmark Teaching, Learning and Computing 1999 study
> (http://www.crito.uci.edu/TLC/), developed in conjunction with Professor
> Ronald Anderson of the University of Minnesota, is one of the first
> national studies to examine the complexities of how teachers use computers
> and the Internet in their instruction. Several of Becker's findings are
> worth exploring.
>
> In schools where Internet access is readily available there is a
> significant range in how teachers have their students utilize the
> technology. When the Internet was available directly in the classroom,
> nearly 50% of teachers reported having their students use the Internet to
> conduct research; in other words, tracking down information and looking up
> sources of material was fairly common. Yet only 7% of teachers had their
> students use email at least three times during the school year; 6% of
> teachers had their students participate in an online project with other
> schools; and 4% of teachers had their students publish on the Web. The
> Becker study also noted educators' modest interest in publishing their own
> materials on the Web, with only 18% of teachers publishing online. This
> would suggest that while teachers are beginning to embrace the Internet as
> a source for supplying information, the majority of educators have yet to
> explore its interactive potential. Student email communications and
> Web-based collaborations are still not as commonplace in the classroom as
> one might expect, even when there are no obstacles to Internet access.
>
> One potential reason for this disparity in Internet use might be found in
> Becker's discovery that an individual teacher's general attitudes towards
> student learning may directly affect how that teacher utilizes the Internet
> in his or her classroom. Professor Becker analyzed computer use in terms of
> teachers' personal association with constructivist learning techniques. Put
> simply, the educational theory of constructivism suggests that students
> learn best when they are engaged in the learning process, actively
> constructing their own knowledge through collaboration, critical thinking
> and inquiry. Constructivism can be contrasted with more traditional
> teaching approaches in which students are expected to learn through rote
> memorization and repetition. According to Becker, the majority of those
> teachers who used their Internet computers regularly considered themselves
> constructivist, with a heavy focus on student-centered learning. Teachers
> who are more comfortable with face-to-face interactivity and collaboration
> among their students are therefore more likely to translate these teaching
> styles into a technology-based setting. On the other hand, the majority of
> those teachers who had Internet access but did not use it in their teaching
> considered themselves traditional and not constructivist, preferring their
> students to learn through more conservative teaching techniques. This
> result suggests that teachers' attitudes towards constructivist pedagogy
> strongly affect whether or not they will encourage their students to use
> Internet computers, even if access is ubiquitous.
>
> Becker's research also suggests that those educators who are comfortable in
> actively engaging with their teaching peers are more likely to engage their
> students in similar ways. As Becker and Margaret Riel write in one of their
> reports from the TLC study:
>
> "Teachers' instructional styles mirror their own interaction patterns....
> Teachers who learn from their peers, lead their peers, and present their
> ideas and opinions to their peers are more likely to have their students do
> the same in the classroom. They conduct their classes in a manner similar
> to the way they conduct their professional activities." (TLC '98, Snapshot
> #3: http://www.crito.uci.edu/tlc/findings/snapshot3/)
>
> In other words, those teachers who have taken advantage of interaction
> opportunities with other teachers on a regular basis are more likely to
> encourage their students to interact in similar ways as well. This point
> may be one of the factors that are beginning to dispel the myth that older
> teachers are less likely to use technology than younger teachers. According
> to the TLC study, older teachers were more likely to engage their
> colleagues via email than younger teachers. (Education Week's recent
> Technology Counts '99 study found a related result in which older teachers
> were no less likely to use computers than younger teachers.) One possible
> reason for this is that older teachers have had more opportunities to
> develop networks of colleagues inside and outside their school, thus giving
> them more reason to use the Internet to interact with these colleagues.
> Younger teachers, on the other hand, may lack such networks, especially if
> such networking opportunities were not available to them during their
> pre-service studies. This raises some intriguing issues as to what kinds of
> networking and interaction experiences must be given to young teachers
> before coming out of their colleges of education, as well as during their
> early in-service teaching years. What do we do to get them more involved
> with their colleagues? What do we do to make them a part of a bigger
> educational community?
>
>
> Innovating Professional Development
>
> Hank Becker's ongoing research demonstrates the complexity of the many
> issues surrounding professional development and technology integration.
> Even when teachers are provided with ample access to technology it may not
> be enough to simply train them how to use it. Teaching an educator how to
> use Netscape or conduct an Internet search only scratches the surface of
> what he or she needs to know in order to successfully utilize the Internet
> in the classroom. In many respects there is a pedagogical digital divide at
> play: numerous teachers have not been exposed to constructivist teaching
> styles or community-building professional development opportunities among
> their peers. In order for teachers to embrace the Internet effectively they
> must be given opportunities to experiment and explore, to interact with
> each other, to learn the benefits of collaboration. Professional
> development must be an ongoing activity among a community of educators
> rather than a sporadic attempt to introduce educators to new software tools
> or the latest Web site.
>
> The education world is not devoid of such attempts to approach professional
> development as a community-building activity. One pioneering model can be
> found in the Online Innovation Institute (OII), founded in early 1995 by
> Internet educators Ferdi Serim and Bonnie Bracey. OII has developed a
> train-the-trainers model for professional development in which they
> cultivate local technology leaders to guide reform efforts and mentor
> others. Participants in OII workshops learn technology integration through
> a method that might be termed as professional development by passion: OII
> participants are encouraged to explore the teaching subjects that matter
> most to them and to form community groups based on similar interests. For
> example, biology teachers with a passion for genetics and the work of
> Gregor Mendel may join together to form such a group. They are then
> introduced to technology using a constructivist approach in which
> participants create online lesson plans and other relevant content based on
> the subjects they have chosen. Instead of learning Web browsers or search
> engine skills as ends in themselves, they learn them in the context of the
> very subjects they care so much about. Not only does this give them a
> tangible example of how the Internet can work within their personal
> teaching styles, it forges a lasting community of learners that can
> continue to collaborate and help scaffold each others' progress as they
> gain more technology skills.
>
> Though one of the first innovative professional development models, the OII
> approach is now joined by countless other programs to explore new ways to
> foster successful technology integration in the classroom. In August 1999
> the US Department of Education awarded its first round of Preparing
> Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology Grants (PTTT). The PTTT program
> supports innovative approaches to professional development, funding teams
> of higher education institutions, school districts, state agencies and
> other educational organizations, with a special emphasis on preparing
> pre-service teachers. The program funded three levels of grants. Capacity
> Building Grants, averaging $135,000 and lasting one year, were awarded to
> 139 consortia to lay the groundwork for technology-focused professional
> development programs. Implementation Grants, averaging $390,000 and lasting
> three years, were given to 64 consortia to improve existing technology
> training programs. Finally, Catalyst Grants, averaging $640,000 over three
> years, were provided to 22 national, regional, or statewide consortia with
> the expertise to implement large-scale professional development programs.
> The US Department of Education hopes that over two million educators will
> receive the benefits of these 224 projects over the course of the next ten
> years.
>
>
> Conclusion
>
> As more of America's schools enter the digital age, policymakers,
> politicians and parents will undoubtedly expect an accounting of education
> technology and its impact in schools. While much progress has been made to
> date, it is imperative that more attention be paid to successful
> professional development strategies and their implementation at the local,
> state and national levels. The Department of Education's PTTT program is an
> excellent first step for investing in innovative professional development
> activities. Pre-service as well as in-service teachers will both need to
> learn how to apply new technologies and adapt them into their teaching
> styles. Through a project called Future Learning, the Benton Foundation has
> begun to convene creative thinkers from the fields of teacher education and
> education reform in order to explore these issues.
>
> Commercial providers of professional development also have an opportunity
> to implement cutting-edge training techniques. As companies invest in the
> education technology market, the more they will all need to demonstrate
> that their professional development offerings lead to measurable results.
> Benton's Future Learning is also bringing in corporate innovators already
> at work in identifying the issues with which teacher colleges will need to
> contend in the digital age. Through this and other initiatives,
> professional development will hopefully begin to occupy a more privileged
> position as policy leaders set education priorities. The discussion over
> professional development must also occur at the community level: parents,
> teachers, administrators and local leaders must understand the complexity
> of education technology integration and the need to craft broad strategies
> for its success.
>
> When it comes to education technology, no school can afford to ignore
> professional development.  Not every teacher will adapt easily to a
> technology-rich educational environment. The current lack of national focus
> on professional development inhibits the advancement of the Internet as a
> powerful ally in the quest for education reform.
>
> ----------------
>
> Andy Carvin (acarvin@benton.org) is author of the pioneering education Web
> site EdWeb: Exploring Technology and School Reform (http://edweb.gsn.org)
> as well as the moderator of WWWEDU (listproc@ready.cpb.org), the Internet's
> longest running email discussion on the role of the Web in education. Andy
> recently joined the Benton Foundation's Communication Policy and Practice
> program.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> (c)Benton Foundation, 1999. Redistribution of this email publication - both
> internally and externally -- is encouraged if it includes this message.
>
> This and past issues of Digital Beat are available online at
> (www.benton.org/DigitalBeat). The Digital Beat is a free online news service
> of the Benton Foundation's Communications Policy & Practice program
> (www.benton.org/cpphome.html).
>
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