Enhancing Professional Development for Teachers Potential Uses of Information Technology: Report of a Workshop (2007) / Chapter Skim
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Obstacles to Online Teacher Professional Development
Obstacles to Online Teacher Professional Development
Pages 16-22
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From page 16... ...
According to Lyn Le Countryman and other workshop participants, part of the problem is that they are unaware of any central listing or clearinghouse of online professional development opportunities for teachers.
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From page 17... ...
These programs could still employ online technologies, but "if you have a district or administrator who isn't particularly familiar with online channels and is keeping a lot of professional development in-house, it's going to tend to create some of the more traditional face-to-face or workshop situations," O'Donnell said. One of the best ways of making administrators aware of the potential of online professional development is to have them participate in an online course.
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From page 18... ...
As Smith said, "We may have cell phones, and we may have a computer at home that is a laptop that the state gave us ten years ago that couldn't do anything like that. But we really need to think hard about the equity issues." Martha Valencia of the Los Angeles Unified School District's Instructional Technology Branch said, "There is really only a 10 to 20 percent access level across the different campuses, from elementary all the way to high school." Even if teachers have access to computers, those computers don't necessarily work well.
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From page 19... ...
"Or the district can apply the same amount of money to 21 to 49 people, depending on how they divide it up, providing intense specific content and skills for improved instruction, and then rotate the next set of people, so that each year some of your staff is getting improved." OTPD also requires that time be made available in teachers' schedules. Administrators sometimes assume that online professional development can be done on teachers' own time away from school, but like any other work-related expectation to be completed outside of contractual time, this expectation is unfair and counterproductive.
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From page 20... ...
An additional way, said workshop participant Cornelius Sullivan of the University of Southern California, is to draw on "some of the basic principles of the entertainment industry." When lessons can be structured in such a way that they are emotionally engaging, Sullivan pointed out, "the audience doesn't forget the lesson or the excitement." However, Dede also reminded workshop participants that one potential drawback of the content and use of online technologies as they are currently configured is that they can isolate some users just as easily as they can build community among others. Today, for some students, online technologies more often act as a distraction from learning than as a tool for learning.
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From page 21... ...
How will they model science for children if they aren't? " Many workshop participants agreed that online technologies may provide a means to overcome this gap in experience from higher education by making it possible for teachers to work more closely and directly with scientists and engineers in a number of venues, including research projects and mentoring relationships.
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From page 22... ...
ENHANCING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR TEACHERS "At the end of the day," said Gomez, "[teaching and learning] are about being interpersonally and emotionally connected with the things that you do." Online technologies can foster that connection, but they cannot create a connection all by themselves.
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