4.5.1 Objectives of teacher ICT training
Professional development was a form of government input separated out for special consideration in this analysis because of its importance. It was common to find that standards were initially written for pre-service teacher training (DM33; MR191) but the responsiveness of these institutions was perceived as too slow to meet systemic needs (EM1). The standards were therefore transferred to the in-service context (KB21; DM34). The most important barrier to this transfer was the professional fears
r 8 students (DM 15 & 17). These professional fears were so ignificant that teachers chose not to use student-accessible workstations for
eveloping personal ICT skills (TE184). In England ICT professional development was promoted to qualified teachers by advertising and linkage to career progression
e s
ve
s
be argued that the onfusion about training objectives stemmed from this mismatch between what
when g themselves (EM64 & 66; KB151) and university graduates could not meet the ICT skills standards for Yea
s d
(MR195). The standards were published with teaching applications preceding personal ICT skills (MR211) to focus on subject teachers’ interests rather than th technology (MR239). Applying the differentiation philosophy to the process itself, a CD-ROM was produced to help teachers identify their personal ICT training need (MR231; KB25-20; BM38) prior to booking courses provided through a competiti market (BM32 & 33). This was the country’s largest-ever professional development project (BM27), with top-level decisions in government allocating £230 million to it (BM27; KB57). The objectives of this training were confused, according to a major provider (BM36).
There was poor alignment between teacher ICT professional development standard and curriculum expectations for students. In the first part of this chapter it was shown that the modal incidence matrices for teachers and students were very different. In England it was very difficult to link professional development and pupil curriculum frameworks because they were the provinces of two different organisations (KB11), and consequently were not well matched (KB163). Professional development in Estonia was expected to drive curriculum change at the personal level of the teacher, since institutional change would take far too long (EM89). It could
c
teachers were taught and expected student outcomes. One expert put it as “the difference between ‘using ICT’ and ‘teaching IT capability’ ” (MR121). A similar confusion was observed in classes where students thought they were learning to use ICT but the teacher assumed they were learning subject topics through ICT (KB59). The distinction point where the technology vanishes into the background comes individuals have mastery of the medium. Therefore the assessment of the English professional development project was done on the quality of teacher decision-makin about when and when not, to use ICT (KB137), rather than classroom practice. It was
pment observed in the case-study schools howed a progression from it being considered a personal concern of each teacher, to n internal school matter and eventually a country-wide supported and mandated project. ICT professional development was considered a personal matter for each
A) for registration purposes, and also at Pärnu Nüdupargi Gùmnaasium (Estonia). This personal responsibility was similarly
was internally supplemented by “a couple e’ nior nnual a was ). h ers e subject-specific training for forty to fifty hours BM44).
argued that assessment could therefore only be done using authentic situations, not online drills (TE148).
4.5.2 Accountability and amount of ICT professional development
Accountability for professional develo s
a
teacher in Theodore Roosevelt Middle (US expected at South Eugene High (USA), but
of seminars every year, trying to induce older teachers to come in and start
experimenting” (BJ6). At Winthrop Primary (Australia) the principle of ‘just in tim training was used to provide support within the school (SP28). Applecross Se High (Australia) used a similar in-house process which was monitored by an a staff skills survey. The school also participated in a systemic initiative providing notebook computers to teachers. These local/regional approaches were significantly different from the national training projects affecting Tadcaster Grammar (England) and Lyceum Descartes (Estonia). The English scheme focused strongly upon the integration of ICT into classroom practice, whilst the PHARE-ISE project in Estoni utilised external consultants to deliver software-specific training.
The cost of formal European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) accreditation too high for Estonian teachers (TE138) but this was used as the framework for their forty-hour courses (http://www.tiigrihype.ee/eng/noukogu_otsused/otsus.html; EM1 In the USA more than twelve hours a year were deemed necessary to stay current wit the operation of office packages (DM84) with 15-30 percent of state ICT funds allocated to such training for teachers (DM60). Courses in England required teach to already have these basic skills and access to defined levels of school equipment (BM26) before they could undertak
er
embers reflected upon (then) current policy and implementation. tanding from the expert panel that ICT was mainly being
use ake reater proportion of the students reach the current benchmarks” (BM72). In e USA the current standards were considered “mundane” (DM20). Observation of
ad The source of training in the case-study schools appeared to be strongly linked with the amount expected and the source of funding support for this. Where very little ICT training (typically a day per year) was expected of each teacher it was a personal or local school matter. National schemes in England and Estonia provided far more training, but differed in their uniformity of availability. From comments made at several of the case-study schools, training was only gradually overcoming teach apprehension about ICT (BJ6, SP62).