Teachers in Taiwan are encouraged to undertake professional development training to improve their teaching, and the implementation of educational policies is aligned with teacher professional development. From the Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) period (1990s) to the present, in-‐service teachers’ professional development was emphasised whenever the central government implemented new IT related policies. Following the introduction of CAI into schools, two strands of training were
introduced and conducted by government and non-‐government agencies as well as universities to enhance teachers’ IT literacy. There were computer-‐aided teaching systems design and development training (to assist teachers to design teaching materials) and computer education courses (to assist teachers to improve their general IT skills). Some years later, in 2001, the Information Seed School Project was introduced and this also was significant for professional development. A number of schools were selected and given funding for teacher training and the improvement of IT facilities. Some of the interviewees argued the importance of this Ministry of Education initiative for the promotion of IT integrated education in primary schools.
5.3.1 The practise of IT related professional development for primary school music teachers
professional development and provides diverse pathways that they can pursue. These include workshops, lectures, exhibitions and demonstrations—all of which have been offered regularly by various organisations and not necessarily under the auspices of the Ministry of Education. Teachers participate in these training courses in the summer and winter vacations, on public holidays, or on weekdays during the school term. In general, Wednesday afternoon is normally set aside for primary school teacher professional development since students do not attend classes. Although more and more teachers are now returning to university for postgraduate study, it is the short-‐term in-‐service training that is most commonly accessed by the majority of teachers in Taiwan and which is the focus of this section.
Teacher professional development in Taiwan is offered by a range of organisations such as the Ministry of Education, universities, local (both city and country),
Education Departments, school themselves, social education organisations (such as Cultural Centres, Adult Education Centres, and Art Centres), as well as the private sector. With the exception of universities, these organisations generally offer
short-‐term courses; universities also offer long-‐term courses during the summer and winter vacations.
The content of these professional development courses include the promotion of new policies, introduction to various pedagogies, general educational information, and so on. Unfortunately, despite the diversity of offerings across the educational spectrum, the courses that focus specifically on music education are relatively few in number. Of course, music teachers are also expected to participate in other
in-‐service programs that are outside the domain of music.
Certainly, there has been an increase in the number of IT related teacher professional development programs that have been offered over the past two decades; in part this has been because of an ongoing need for teachers to keep abreast of Ministry of Education policies in the field. Such courses are expected to introduce new technology to assist teaching. Most of them however put the
emphasis on the skills of using hardware, the introduction of software programs, or the application of IT in general teaching. There has been little of direct relevance to music teachers with respect to the teaching of their discipline or art form. The following section indicates the feedback from the music teachers and experts on this issue.
5.3.2 Primary school teacher interviewees’ feedback: Professional development
The primary school teachers were asked to comment on professional development opportunities. Although many professional development courses—offered by a range of organisations – focus on various fields, the teachers were not strongly satisfied with them. Nine of the ten teachers stated that the IT related teacher professional development courses they had undertaken did not adequately meet their needs. In addition, the same nine teachers complained that they were expected to participate in too many professional training programs that were unrelated to the teaching of music. Only one of the ten teachers spoke positively with respect to both of these issues. Of those who were dissatisfied, one teacher said:
There are too many things [outside the realm of music teaching] that teachers need to learn, such as ‘Environmental Education’, ‘Gender Education’, and ‘Home Economics Education’. ... Primary school teachers need to learn about all the issues that the government identifies as being important. (Interviewee C7)
Given the relative paucity of in-‐service training provided for music teachers, as well as the fact that teachers can only reasonably attend a certain number of such courses, teachers felt that they were not being adequately in-‐serviced in IT that focuses specifically on music teaching. Even though there were some generalist IT related training courses, most of them focused on the introduction of software programs that were not music-‐specific. A number of other courses focused on integrating IT into other learning areas such as language or mathematics. Relatively, IT related training for music teaching was very limited. As some of the interviewees commented:
The courses were only focused on the production of multimedia. There was nothing about integrating IT into education. … They taught us to use
“Photoshop”, but that was not immediately related to integrating IT in my music teaching. (Interviewee C1)
I attended the workshop. They taught us software programs to edit video and audio files such as “Photoimpact”. With regard to music teaching, I cannot recall any courses. (Interviewee C4)
As I recall, I rarely took these courses after I started teaching. I felt that the IT integrating courses for teachers were of not much use for my music class. (Interviewee C5)
We did have the courses related to the integration of IT, but not particularly the
I think there were a few professional courses for integrating IT into music education. I have seen IT-‐integrated courses on language learning but never heard of any on music learning. (Interviewee C10)
Three teachers mentioned the professional development courses that were offered as part of the Information Seed School Project that was launched in 2001. This project selected a number of schools and focused on a particular learning area in each one, for example, Language, Science, Arts and Humanities. Schools were given additional funding for teacher professional development and the purchase of IT equipment. One of the three teachers regarded this project and the training courses offered as being helpful; she not only gained an understanding of the integration of IT from participating in the training, but also had opportunities to co-‐operate with other teachers to practise them in the school curriculum. By contrast, the other two teachers found the training courses they undertook as part of the Information Seed
School Project limited because their school chose an area other than the Arts and Humanities Learning Area.
Several interviewees mentioned that they participated in extra IT related training outside of the government system in order to enhance their IT literacy and improve their teaching. Whilst a few were directly related to music, most of them were not.
In general, the lack of available and relevant courses that focused on music teaching, coupled with inappropriate or irrelevant content, were identified as two major issues. In other words, it was overwhelmingly obvious that music teachers’ needs were not