I'm not quite ready to walk away from the article I discussed yesterday. I really only touched on the identification of the problem and the goals for solving it. The article did contain some suggestions for ways to get the PD ball moving and keep it in motion. The authors expressed a few ideas I really questioned though. I would love to see a follow-up article to find out if these strategies worked. (Similar to yesterday, this does not reflect all their suggestions, just the ones that stuck out for me.)
- Practice logs – the idea here is to have teachers fills in practice logs to reflect on the new practice they used and provide feedback on what worked, what didn't, and if further support is needed. When I read this, I immediately thought of first year education reflections and thought "there is absolutely no way anyone is going to do that faithfully enough to make a difference." More the point, if one of the obstacles is getting teachers to look at technology as a help, not a hinderance, is throwing more paperwork into the mix really helping the situation?!
- One way to motivate teachers to use technology is to mandate it – REALLY? After our class discussions this week on how motivation depends largely on autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Mandating that something be used totally strips away the motivating factor of autonomy. It also takes away the motivating factor of mastery. Why would you want to get better at something you aren't really interested in? As for purpose, that doesn't seem to be a strong motivator here either. It is hard to recognize the purpose of something that has been funnelled down to you. It is even more difficult to understand your purpose in the task when you were never consulted about it. The point is, I have HUGE doubts that this whole mandate idea would work.
- Offer pay increases or extra technology to those who use it – First off, the same motivating factors come in to play here. Research shows that big rewards tend to result in smaller achievement. Not to mention the fact that this logic is totally backwards. How is giving the people who buy into technology more technology going to help the people who are resisting it? If anything, this model is going to create animosity between the haves and the have-nots and the whole issue of technology is just going to get lost in the politics! Talk about a slippery slope.
I am filled with complaints and resistance to their ideas, but of course I have no alternative suggestions. It seems I make a better critic than a creator. Despite my criticism, I think there is truth at the heart of these suggestions: motivation is key. As ETs, we need to look at how people are motivated and use that to our advantage. Maybe we need to adopt the system Atlassian uses (find out more about it from Dan Pink's talk on Drive.) and give our teachers unstructured time two or three times per term to just play around with things. Give them time to sort out what they like, what they don't, what works, what doesn't, etc. Give them time to develop some mastery, autonomy, and purpose and just see what happens as a result!
Rodriguez offers a quote about the importance of Technology PD that I think sums things up nicely: The Office of Technology Assessment (1995) states, "Helping schools to make the connection between teachers and technology may be one of the most important steps to making the most of the past, present, and future investments in educational technology and our children's future" (p. iii). Definitely some food for thought, I'd say!
Great post, Carmen. And I think I hear Daniel Pink applauding somewhere in the background for your point about pay increases for those who use technology. The research is pretty clear that it just plain won't work. And your point about that being the front edge of a very slippery slope is bang on.
ReplyDeleteWell stated, Carmen. Lisa, Dean and I worked on a project together last semester for 874. We had similar conclusions. We have all seen many mandated directives fizzle of fail and I always feel that we must somehow be "bad" employees. Understanding human motivation helps shed light on why these mandated directives are not very effective. On the positive side, research shows that modelling and collaboration (and reflection, as always) are important. Creating time and space for teachers to learn new skills with technology seems to be an approach that works. However, it has a dollar cost and that makes it difficult in these days of tight budgets.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, the issue of budget. As I was writing the part about giving teachers a few days to play, I could hear the laughter in the back of my head. It's hard enough to fight for prep time, let alone "play time". There has to be a compromise in there somewhere though. Perhaps some of the divisions PD days could be dedicated to this type of activity. The time is already set aside...we just need to change how we view it.
ReplyDelete