Paper

Professional Development in a Technological Age: New Definitions, Old Challenges, New Resources

SUPPORTS REQUIRED FOR TEACHERS TO USE TECHNOLOGY EFFECTIVELY

It is virtually impossible to create and sustain over time conditions for productive learning for students when they do not exist for teachers. (Sarason, 1995)

Technology use creates a special set of conditions that present challenges for successful professional development, challenges that tend to make the terms "professional development" and "support" analogous. The technical, pedagogical, and rapidly evolving characteristics of technologies for education create a particular need for professional development models that are built around an expansive definition of support. McConachie discusses the importance of community support (see p. 119). In its recommendations to the U.S. Congress, the Office of Technology Assessment (1995) suggested that schools and districts should devote at least one third of the resources of technology budgets for teacher training and support. Key components of necessary support for professional development with technology include the following:

• Access to Equipment

• Technical and Pedagogical Assistance: Ongoing, On-Site and Job-Embedded

• Administrative and Community Backing

• Time for Learning and Collaborating

• Sustainability: The Long Haul of Change

Access to Equipment

As professionals working in an information age, teachers need to develop facility with a range of technology tools. These tools can play a powerful role in helping teachers enhance instruction, simplify administrative tasks, and improve communication to foster professional growth. Yet "there is no single best technological medium that suits all teachers equally well," and "there does not appear to be one best way for teachers to implement technology" (OTA, 1995, p. 57). Teachers need support in learning the range of resources that are available to them; they need to decide what makes sense for their own use; and they need access to equipment in order to become proficient with the medium of their choice.

Teachers' mastery is dependent on their having extensive hands-on time with the tools they are learning to use. They must have ready access to appropriate technology if they are to build on training experiences by experimenting with tools and approaches on their own time. Although it can seem expensive to provide each teacher with a computer, a modem, and connections, having technology on hand is essential if anything learned in an initial learning experience is to "stick." In addition, as discussed later this paper, these are the very tools that can expand the options beyond the training/workshop model of professional development on which many schools rely entirely.

In an effort to support teachers' learning of technology, some schools and districts are giving all teachers a computer. The hope is that, as they become proficient with applying computers and related technologies for their own personal and professional uses, teachers will be encouraged to experiment with using technologies with their students (OTA, 1995):

While some training is still important in this strategy, the real learning is believed to come from giving teachers unlimited access to the technology (and potentially more time on the equipment), new motivation for learning to use it, and a community of peers who are trying to master the same tools." (p. 152)

Technical and Pedagogical Assistance: On Site and Job Embedded

Supporting teachers in their efforts to integrate technology throughout their teaching is central if technology is to become a truly effective educational resource, yet true integration is a difficult, time-consuming, and resource-intensive endeavor. (OTA 1995, p. 161)

Professional development activities need to be "situated andäembodied in the teaching context," (McLaughlin, 1991, p. 70) and any initial training experience be followed up with support and coaching. When confronted by the "nowness" of their classrooms, teachers need support as they make attempts at growth and change. In this way teachers move from the group experience to more personalized staff development that is subject and teacher-specific (OTA, 1995; Loucks-Horsley et al., 1987; Mergendoller, 1994; McLaughlin, 1991).

Teachers also need on-site technical support to help them set up, trouble-shoot, and fix the machines. And because "just in time" support with the technology problems that inevitably arise is crucial to the success of a class plan, teachers need to be assured that technical assistance will be provided to them in a thorough and timely way.

Even with the very best planning, though, just in time support from a designated technology specialist will not always be available to teachers. As a long-term strategy for sustaining initiatives in technology use in schools, the base of technical support must be broadened.

There are various ways in which this base of technological expertise can be extended beyond the resources that are provided by the professional development and technological budgets. For example, students who are eager to serve as resident experts can be enlisted to help using models like the student technology service program in place in Olympia, Washington or the recently created American Technology Honor Society (see McConachie, p. 119). External resources can be marshaled using models like the U.S. Tech Corps, in which community members work with individual teachers and classes on new areas of technology, provide in-class support for teachers, help with trouble-shooting, and assess the state of school hardware (see p. 119). A school can develop a "collective resume," a database of technological capabilities, in order to make it easier to draw on the expertise of colleagues, students and community members (Hull Public Schools, MA).

Administrative and Community Understanding and Commitment

OTA has consistently found that when administrators are informed about and comfortable with technology, they become key players in leading and supporting technology integration activities in their schools. Some technology implementation efforts are building on these lessons by including principals or other key administrative staff in training opportunities offered to teachers. (OTA, 1995, p. 153)

For many teachers, intrinsic rewards drive their efforts to learn about technology and to make changes in their teaching. These rewards can include satisfaction in finding tools that support students' learning and that engage their interest and enthusiasm, meeting new people and working with colleagues, increasing knowledge and competence, reflecting on alternative teaching strategies, developing mastery of new skills, and developing recognition and respect (Loucks-Horsley et al., 1987; OTA, 1995).

Nevertheless, learning about technology takes time and energy. Furthermore, the process of change is a long one. Applying new learnings about tools, pedagogy and content in the classroom involves taking risks, running into dead ends, and making mistakes. Even accomplished teachers encounter frustrations and failures along the way. Data from a 1990 survey by the Center for Technology in Education at Bank Street College of Education suggest that "[five to six years] appears to be the point at which they [teachers] have a well-organized, workable set of practices. With this foundation, they can flexibly make choices about using new applications and about using familiar applications differently" (Sheingold & Hadley, in OTA, 1995, p. 52).

It is imperative, therefore, that administrators, and particularly principals, offer active leadership to support change efforts. This involves giving permission to teachers to do the messy work of exploring and sometimes failing as they work to incorporate new tools, content and approaches into their teaching. It also involves understanding the time constraints that teachers work with, and supporting them in their efforts to develop flexible ways to work within those constraints. It may require releasing teachers from some professional obligations in order to make room for other opportunities and providing appropriate incentives and rewards (pay increases, pleasant and well-equipped facilities, materials, access to course credit for professional development, and technological and pedagogical assistance). Finally, it requires that administrators share responsibility for supporting professional development with teacher leaders and other members of the teaching staff.

Principals and other administrators need to learn alongside teachers in order to set a tone of community learning. They also need to participate alongside teachers if they are to be knowledgeable about the particular concepts and practices teachers are working on; to recognize progress as teachers work to implement new tools and approaches; and to make appropriate decisions about disbursal of materials, release time, and other assistance (Little, 1986). They need to hold expectations for planning and trying new ways of teaching, while maintaining respect for teachers' professionalism (McLaughlin, 1991). And administrators and principals need to play a leading role in developing community support and understanding of the goals of technology use in schools, so that teachers are working within a wider framework of informed consent. The Rand Change Agent Study highlighted administrators' role in supporting teachers' efforts at change:

Motivation of district managers was a "signal" to teachers about how seriously to take a project and its goals. Even teachers with initial interest in a project participated only in a pro forma fashion in the face of apparent district indifference. They assumed their efforts would be neither rewarded nor supported in the long run. (McLaughlin, 1991, p. 63)

Administrator support is critical in enlisting community and parental support that gives teachers permission to do things in new ways that may be otherwise unfamiliar to those comfortable in older models of teaching. This is particularly important in developing a shared school and communitywide vision for change with technology. Without this support, it is very difficult for individual teachers to make changes in their teaching that will be sustained over time (see p. 119).

Time for Learning and Collaborating

Time is a serious problem. Learning takes time and there is simply not enough to be reflective, consider different approaches, learn new materials and behaviors, practice them, and reflect on their impact. Teacher learning must be viewed as an integral part of school life-rather than a frivolous extracurricular activity-and time must be allocated for it. (Loucks-Horsley, 1987, pp. 31-32)

In the study Prisoners of Time, the National Education Commission on Time and Learning (1994) noted the constraints placed on teacher learning by the widely held conviction that "in front of the class" teaching time is the only valid use of teachers' time, and "the assumption that reading, planning, collaboration with other teachers and professional development are somehow a waste of time" (p. 17). Beyond actual instructional time, it is essential to provide teachers with adequate release time for planning, for collaborative work with colleagues, for access to consultants, for visiting other classes, and for evaluating innovations and new practices. These are critical to sustain and support personal growth and school restructuring goals.

When new technology tools are introduced in schools, substantial investments of time are required for teachers to master them and to develop meaningful contexts for their use. In addition, because of the constantly changing nature of both hardware and software, teachers need time on an ongoing basis in order to keep up with upgrades. "Even accomplished technology-using teachers, who are highly motivated, rated the lack of time as among the most problematic barriers to technology use in schools" (OTA, 1995, p. 131).

Supporting teacher growth takes time and increases costs, but this tradeoff is necessary for professional growth to take hold. Nothing is gained by having time-efficient staff development efforts that produce no significant teacher learning (Loucks-Horsley et al., 1987).

Sustainability: The Long Haul of Change

[S]ystems thinkingärecognizes the complex, interdependent interrelationships among the various parts of the system. When the parts of a system come together they form something that is bigger and more complex than those individual parts. (Sparks, 1994)

Long-standing policy and practice sustain an enormous and continuous impact on daily practice. Because parts of a school system influence one another in ways which can help or hinder efforts to bring about change, it is important for professional development to take place within the configuration of systemic reform. The interrelationship between different parts of the system, and the ways in which even small changes can have significant effects on other parts of the system (either positively or negatively), must be recognized (Fullan & Miles, 1993; Sparks, 1994).

Observers remind us of the sheer difficulty of the reform task and the toll that it takes on people. The work of systemic reform is enormously difficult, frustrating, slow-and rewarding. (Little, 1993, p. 140)

Growth and change in individuals and throughout the system evolves over the course of years; it can easily take five years for large-scale technology infusion to reach initial goals (OTA, 1995). Therefore, expectations must be tempered and resources allocated to sustain an initiative over time. Attention must be paid, too, to how "seed" initiatives will be maintained beyond the initial burst of new activity. Such actions as codifying practices as rules, revising curriculum to accommodate the innovation, establishing professional development committees and school-based planning teams, setting up evaluation procedures that reflect the new practice, and making project-related activities into line items in the regular district budget increase the likelihood that improvement activities will continue over time (Loucks-Horsley et al., 1987).