Unit 4: Case Study--Putting the theory to work!

So far, we have concentrated on the issues that must be addressed when working with adults in a professional development setting. To review some of the points discussed previously:

1) What do teachers want? Professional development for adults needs to include activities that allow participants to:

• Achieve personal or relevant goals (learn about something that interests participants personally or can be used in their work immediately, continuous improvement of a piece of work)
• Make choices (professional development makes accomodations that suite learning styles or needs, i.e., time of day the workshop is offered, topic of the workshop was suggested by faculty, collaborative and independent activities)
• Have access to support systems that allow participants to leave the workshop and work on their own (i.e., website resources/how-to links, printed materials that can be used as reference, printed agenda, organized delivery of training materials, learning at paces and times of student's choosing--synchronous and asynchronous)
• Meet personal learning styles and needs--training is learner-centered (material presented at the appropriate skill level or incorporates personal interest, access to support people as needed, enhanced feedback)

2) What do teachers need to know? Technology skills can be broken into strands that revolve around related families of technologies and include:

• Basics (Operating System; Troubleshooting techniques; Peripherals--mouse, keyboard, scanner, printer; Hardward/software selection/evaluation; Health and safety issues; Ethics and copyright)

Above are core skills that run through all of the other strands
and should be included in all instruction.

• Telecommunications (E-mail, Listservs, Newsgroups, Web Research and use of Web Resources; Web Page construction)
• Word Processing (Desktop Publishing, Page Design and Layout Principles)
• Spreadsheets (Calculate data and create charts to represent data)
• Multimedia (Draw, Paint, Presentation, Digital Graphics)
• Database (Create and organize databases to collect and manipulate data)

The skills above are identified by ISTE as the minimum skills that preservice teachers should possess when they enter the classroom. As trainers of inservice teachers, other strands that might need to be addressed in an overall "curriculum" would include the following:

• Advanced Web page design
• Video (Film and edit video to create video presentations)
• Emerging Technologies (Handhelds, Wireless-Capable Tools, PC Tablet)

3) How do you accomodate for varying skills and needs? We are still building our suggestions, but you have included to this point: survey skills before beginning training, provide beginner/advanced levels of training, peer or mentor grouping, online support resources and email contacts, printed materials for use during training.

Now, let's put our knowledge to work.

Activity 1: Case Study--Developing a practice "training"
From the discussions and readings, we have identified several strands ofskills that are considered "core competencies" that provide teachers with the necessary skills to integrate technology into their classrooms. The Telecommunication Strand is one that is often used as a "draw" to lure participants in for training because almost everyone can use e-mail or surf the Internet or wants/needs to be able to work with this technology. You are going to work through the specific process of identifying specific skills related to the Telecommunication Strand, investigate specific activities that can be used to teach these skills, and think through how you will teach these activities in ways that satisfies teachers wants and accomodates needs.

Remember: Professional development for the teachers on a specific campus must address three separate issues:

• Technology and technology skills to be covered (what do teachers need to know?)
• Basic principles for conducting professional development (what do teachers want?)
• Accomodation for all levels of expertise (how do you structure training that accomodates all levels?)

Step 1: Deciding on Technology and technology skills to be covered--what do teachers need to know?
For this case study, we will use the book, Starting Out on the Internet: A Learning Journey for Teachers. Read through the book making a list of the skills introduced to students. You may want to categorize according to broader skills with support skills listed within those categories. Pay attention to the order in which the skills are introduced. Post your lists on Blackboard in the "Telecommunications Skills Lists" Discussion Board. You will not need to post replies to lists from other classmates, but you might want to compare your list to the others. If you see you have left out skills or components you want to include, you may change your list however you see fit! Be sure your final list is posted by the response deadline.

You might like to see an example of the skill sets used with the IRED 320 class:

Basic Internet Skills
Basic Internet Searching Skills
Basic Email Skills
Operating Systems Skills (not a telecommunication skill, but another example of the same type of categorized skill list)

Step 2: Deciding on a training structure--what will provide teachers with what they want?
Read pgs. 44-47 in the NETS textbook. Pay close attention to the section entitled "Faculty Development Models" to see different methods of structuring training.

For our case study, we are preparing a "Technology Tuesday" workshop. You will have an hour and a half to deliver training that addresses one of the skill areas that you identified from Step 1 above. To provide teachers with the type of training that they want, you will not be able to just "teach the skills." You must provide the teachers with an activity that they can take back to their classrooms and use immediately, as well as allow them to choose the topic. Identify the activity you would like to teach during this time.

To see examples of activities that could be used for these purposes, you might want to visit Activity Structures and investigate activities under the WWW and Email headings, plus read pgs. 31-42 in the NETS book, paying special attention to the pink boxes on pgs. 35-36.

Step 3: Accomodation for all levels of expertise
Based on your skill list, what materials will you develop that will allow you to accomodate for these teachers? Refer back to our Brainstorming Discussion Board. Identify support features that you will include to make sure that the teachers attending this workshop NEED the training (have the appropriate pre-requisite skills) and that once the training is completed, can take the materials into their classrooms and USE the training.

Step 4: Post a description of the workshop to Blackboard in the "Unit 4: Technology Tuesday Workshop" Discussion Board. Be sure to include:

• The technology skills (from Step 1) that will be taught with the activity (learning objectives)
• The activity description
• Description of support features
• NOTE: We are not developing the actual materials. We are only thinking through the process we would use to develop training and describing what we would develop in our written postings on Blackboard.

Activity 2: How does your "Technology Tuesday Workshop" measure up?
Use the following rubric to see how your training "measures" up!

The components for this rubric were drawn from the items that we have been discussing for the last two units. What are appropriate measures for assessing the success of the training session? What should these components be? In Unit 5, the class will be constructing rubrics that will be used for our final class project. To expedite this process, please read over the Technology Tuesday Workshops posted by your classmates. Identify 2 components that you feel worked successfully in our workshops. (For example, what support features did you see being used in our Technology Tuesday workshops that you feel should be included in any technology workshop? Or perhaps there was a special technique that someone used for incorporating participant choice that you felt was effective enough to be used in all workshops. Or maybe you saw an example of website resources that you felt were especially useful.) Be sure to identify how these components should be measured. Post these comments in the "Technology Training Rubric Components" Discussion Board on Blackboard by the posting deadline. Be sure to reply to at least 2 of your classmates' postings by the response deadline--we're looking for quality critiques with feedback that aids your classmate in improving their product!!