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September 15, 2001
Building from Within: Two Professional Development Models That Work
By Jerry Crystal
What do a small school of limited means and a large district with a big budget have in common? Both built successful technology training and support programs using in-house resources.
A Small School with a Big Technology Project
Four years ago, Carmen Arace Middle School in Bloomfield, Conn., where I previously held the title of Director of Technology Integration, was just like many other small schools facing the implementation of a major technology initiative. While the school board had approved the funds to implement a total laptop middle school, principal Delores Bolton realized that approval of the project was only the first hurdle her school would have to clear. "I knew that if our teachers were going to use the technology effectively in the classroom, they were first going to need intensive technology professional development," says Bolton. "Experienced technology users were an elite minority, and some teachers even referred to themselves as 'neo-natal' technology users. We were determined to start our training program a full six months before the student laptops ever came into the building so we could give our teachers the greatest chance for success."
At the outset, Carmen Arace had no technology trainers, much less a technology department to turn to for guidance. But with the help of the school's technology partner, NetSchools Corporation, which provided initial assessment and on-site training, our middle school developed a four-stage professional development program. Ultimately, it was full-spectrum training and ongoing support that made this program work.
Bloomfield's Four Stages of Technology Professional Development
Stage 1: Teacher Buy-in
"We knew that if we were going to ask teachers to give up prep periods or come to after-school training sessions without extra pay, we would need the cooperation of the teachers' union," says Bolton. That cooperation came about by working closely with the union from the very beginning. Both administration and union agreed that the program would only benefit teachers, and in two distinct ways: participating teachers improved their skills through professional development training, and they were given a laptop to use both at school and at home to practice the skills taught during training.
Stage 2: Assessment
Before training began, each teacher took the NetSchools' technology skills survey, which identified the skills, abilities, and technology perceptions of each staff member. To be effective, the assessment mirrored the Connecticut state technological benchmarks for teachers and the district's specific technology plan. Survey data was then used to design the professional development tracks and to establish a baseline from which to judge the effectiveness of the programs for future grant submissions, as well as to document growth in teacher technology abilities and the school's preparedness for later state technology initiatives.
Stage 3: Training
Once we understood staff training needs, we grouped participants according to skill level. We found that technophobic teachers were more likely to voice their concerns and questions when among peers. Trainers could also move at a pace appropriate for the group.
Participants could choose from several beginning, intermediate, and advanced courses that they could take during school holidays and summer vacations. The NetSchools trainer conducted these initial workshops to bring teachers up to speed on Windows, Outlook e-mail, and even advanced Web surfing. Eventually, the district hired me as a technology integration specialist for Carmen Arace, where I expanded the NetSchools initiative by offering weekly courses during common planning periods already built into the school schedule. Interdisciplinary teams could either request sessions on a specific topic, e.g., creating and using lesson plan templates, or I would schedule workshops on creating Web pages or making distribution lists in Outlook-whatever tools might help teachers use technology more effectively in their classrooms.
Stage 4: Collaborative Follow-up and Support
Team-based follow-up sessions helped sustain the lessons learned from those initial training seminars. "As a middle school with grade-level teacher teams, we found that building from these established relationships was the best way to accomplish the next stage of ongoing training, because our teams had already developed a history of cooperation," reports Bolton. Trainers took advantage of the congenial team atmosphere to reinforce techniques and skill sets.
The collegial environment also helped teachers develop interdisciplinary units and identify team technology leaders and best practices. For example, an interdisciplinary thematic unit that developed from follow-up sessions focused on the sinking of the Titanic, and teachers from across the curriculum brought a piece of the project into their classrooms. In math class, students created data tables and graphs to compare survivability rates. In science, students discussed buoyancy and why the Titanic sank so quickly. And in language arts, student teams used math and science data to create written reports as if they were members of the British naval commission studying the wreck.
Training on demand, while begun in Stage 3, continued as another crucial element of the professional development program at Carmen Arace. The school administration sent a powerful message of support to teachers when they created my position: a resident technology integration specialist who is also a certified teacher with an open schedule and no classes to teach. With this kind of flexibility, teaching staff could call on me at any time for quick 20-minute technology tutorials or for help with technical glitches. E-mail, chat room, and voice mail support were the most effective means of ensuring continued support of teachers' day-to-day training needs. Teachers contacted me frequently via electronic and voice mail to get answers to typical questions, such as, "My printer has a lightning bolt lit up and it won't print. What do I do?"
Ultimately, it's planning that makes this program work. "The success of our training program came through a well-thought-out plan of professional development that continues to identify the specific needs of the staff," says Bolton. She concludes by looking to the future, "While we know that our training program hasn't been perfect, we continue looking at step-by-step approaches to standards-based training to give us the best chance of success for revitalizing our staff and creating the technology-rich school environment of the 21st century."
A Big District with a Similar Plan
Fifty miles west of Bloomfield, William Glass, assistant superintendent and head of professional development for the Danbury school system, faces many of the same issues that Carmen Arace Middle School encountered, but in a much larger setting. Unlike Bloomfield, Danbury is a more urban school district with an aggressive technology implementation program that includes T-1 lines in all of its schools, state-of-the-art computer labs, and complex software packages, including the same software used to create the animated feature-length movie Toy Story.
"With 900 teachers, 50 administrators, and 450 support staff, our plan had to train a lot of people with a broad range of skill levels in a very comprehensive manner," says Glass. The final product is a state-of-the-art program defined by four major components.
A Targeted Approach to Professional Development
Building a Training Team
The Danbury district followed a similar path to technology professional development as Bloomfield. Initial assessment served as the starting point for need-based training. A key distinction, however, was Danbury's use of internal resources: those expert technology users who could serve as lead teachers and trainers. "It was the 32 high-end users that we identified who became our core trainers at the school and district level." Trainers receive anywhere from $18-$25 per hour for the additional classes they teach. The money to pay instructors comes from a combination of state grant funding and the district's regular professional development budget. "Additionally, we also wanted to open up technology training to everyone in our educational family," continues Glass. "Anybody from custodian to secretary, teacher to administrator is welcome to attend our multitiered training series free of charge."
Flexible, Multisite Training
With 32 skilled trainers to draw from, Danbury created a professional development program that offered 30 rotating technology workshops, four days a week, at different times and school locations-insuring that if a member of the Danbury educational family missed one session they could go to the district training Web site to see when that session would be presented again. A comprehensive program, Danbury's professional development courses focus on technology as a tool for teaching discipline-specific topics. For example, in "Tools for Teaching Language Arts," teachers learn about reflective journals and creating a book review database using AppleWorks 6.
Ongoing Evaluation
Evaluation of these course offerings and planning for future technology training seminars falls on the shoulders of the District Developmental Council. Glass elaborates, "Each of the district's schools sends teacher-representatives to the council. There, they collaborate with the director of technology, the chief network engineer, our four field technicians, our help-desk trainer types, and the technology secretary in the revision process. We are continually looking at the standards, the training process and the curriculum and asking ourselves 'Are we creating sessions that are helping teachers to become not only technologically literate but smarter about the use of instructional strategies?' We think that we have a clear understanding of professional development not as an end in itself but merely a means to an end, which is better schools for our students."
A Philosophy of Integration
A final component of Danbury's program is its approach to integrating technology across the curriculum, a philosophy that feeds the development of current and future courses. "We want everyone to see what technology practices will look like in a learning environment. We are long past the idea of 'Let's go to the computer lab to do technology.' The computer has to be a transparent tool for blending all curricula," says Glass. German Bermudez, executive officer of technology education and assessment for Connecticut, sees this connection as a matter of paramount importance: "Teachers need demonstrated lessons, modeling, and coaching that shows them how to teach their curricula with the latest technological enhancements and meaningful links between the technology standards and the curriculum at every step of the training." Bermudez sees these integrated training programs as the next step in the evolution of standards-based technology professional development. "In the past, far too many technology training programs were based on a two-stage model: first we teach you the technology and then we integrate it with the curriculum. This is totally contrary to what workplaces outside of education have been doing for years, which is 'on the job' training," says Bermudez.
Jerry Crystal is director of technology for Bloomfield (Conn.) Public Schools, and a featured speaker at SchoolTech Expo 2001 in Chicago
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