{"id":4645,"date":"2018-01-21T19:20:25","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T02:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/?p=4645"},"modified":"2018-01-29T21:46:46","modified_gmt":"2018-01-30T04:46:46","slug":"a-new-mindset-for-teacher-professional-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/2018\/01\/21\/a-new-mindset-for-teacher-professional-development\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Mindset for Teacher Professional Development"},"content":{"rendered":"

In preparing for the interview assignment I wanted to consider how to conduct the interview in a way that reflected by current reality of being a consultant for my school district and focus on teacher professional development. I decided to interview two of my colleagues from the department I work for called Learning Services Innovation. This department is comprised of consultants that are responsible for technology, curriculum, assessment, languages, and inclusive education. The primary role of consultants is to provide teacher professional development, model classroom lessons, create classroom resources based on the Program of Study, and support research in their discipline area. We all work independently and separately of each other, that is unless we choose to collaborate. This collaboration became the inspiration for my interview. One of my fellow Emerging Technology Consultants decided to work together with one of our Mathematics Consultants to create a series of professional development to support technology in mathematics instruction. I decided to interview them both. <\/span><\/p>\n

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“Doug”\u00a0 has <\/span> been teaching for 20 years from Elementary to Junior High. He was trained as a Generalist Educator teaching all subject areas but through the years his focus became Science, Technology and Math in junior high. He holds a BEd, CST (Computer Systems Diploma) and a Masters of Educational Leadership. He has been an Emerging Technology Consultant for\u00a0 for 6 years<\/span><\/p>\n

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“Tracy” has been teaching for 26 years as an Elementary generalist. She has taught all subjects for grades 1-6. She always loved teaching math \u00a0according to her \u201conce I understood it\u201d. Tammy has been an Elementary Math Consultant for the last 5 years with a focus on grades 1-4. <\/span><\/p>\n

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The interview was conducted on Jan 17 at our Learning Services innovation home base St Peters Centre. This is an old school that has been converted to hold meetings in old classrooms, and house consultants in an old gym which we lovingly call the Bull Pit. Despite the openness of the gym, we have cubicle areas for our departments thus creating physical silos. Collaboration is rare. Used voice typing in Google Docs to capture the conversation.<\/span><\/p>\n

My questions were developed to examine teacher professional development.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. What was your rationale for deciding to have both the Math Consultant and the Emerging Technology consultant collaborate for teacher professional development?<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. As an educational consultant, how would you respond to the statement \u201ctechnology is optional in mathematics instruction\u201d?<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. How do you use and model technology in teacher professional development?<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. What are specific technology tools and use of those tools that you recommend to enhance math instruction?<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. What has been the impact of using technology for mathematics on student learning you have experienced both positive and\/or negative?<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. If you could offer some advice, how could we better prepare teachers to integrate technology in math?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    The interview was enlightening and inspiring. Three key words became clear as we engaged in this professional conversation. <\/span>Professional Development, Student Learning, and Mindset.<\/b><\/p>\n

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    Professional Development<\/b><\/p>\n

    Teacher professional development is key to my role as a consultant. My job is to vision what information and skills teachers need in order to affect student achievement. Traditionally professional development has been face to face sit and get style sessions where the \u201cexpert\u201d (in this case the consultant) transmits information to the participants. The teachers then take away the information and go back to their classrooms to apply it. Our department runs these sessions in independent subject area silos. The time and space between the session and the classroom is where the difficulties of application can be found. Teacher\u2019s do not find themselves sufficiently prepared to use technology in the classroom due to a lack of preparation during the course of their education degrees and a one size fits all technology integration approach found in professional development that does not take into account the diverse context of their teaching (<\/span>Koehler, Cain, & Mishra, 2013). <\/span>A new approach for teacher professional development is necessary. One that is cross disciplined, hands on, community driven, and timely. Tracy and Doug wanted to reimagine the possibilities of professional development. \u00a0Tracy spoke of the rationale for this partnership based on \u201c it rose out of aneed. As the math consultant I was looking for ways to incorporate more technology into classrooms and also help technology be seen as a tool for instruction and learning. Not simply for using computers to play or to go on the math website and have students randomly play games on it.\u201d Many teachers will contact consultants only for lists of apps or websites. It is a difficult conversation to have when you know that the teacher needs the pedagogy and content to go with the list of tech. Doug is hoping these professional development series where teachers come for hands on application and training can help. Doug said \u201cit was important to me as an educational technology consultant to root the technology into pedagogy and embed as part of curriculum. \u00a0There does have to be a purpose communicated for teachers so that it [technology] is not looked upon as a shiny new toy or something fun that’s in the classroom that has no rigor behind it. To be able to link up with another consultant provides that for me as well. As well it helps to reduce the silos that we often experience in education where we have people working in their own areas, but yet there’s so much richness among the other areas it was good to join forces so that we can share the strengths and talents to better serve our students\u201d. Prior to working with Doug, Tracy shared that her professional development lacked the importance of technology as one of the mathematical processes. She said \u201cPrior to working with “Doug” I was integrating only a small amount of technology but when we look at our mathematical processes one of our processes is technology. So I had the use of low tech like pencils, paper and calculators, but I really wanted to integrate technology by using it as an effective tool to enhance student instruction instead of for gaming purposes\u201d. Tracy goes on to describe the purpose behind this PD model \u201cI think it’s really important that when we are modeling the technology we also give the rationale behind it. It\u2019s really important to to share with teachers our purpose and the purpose of using a specific tool in their math classrooms. We also really showcase how by building teacher capacity with a sharing out of crowdsourcing and co-creating lessons showing how technology can be used and shared amongst others and in ways to easily differentiate your math instruction.\u201d It is essential in professional development that teachers have the opportunity to understand the deeper knowledge fundamentals of what they teach (<\/span>Koehler, Cain, & Mishra, 2013). <\/span>This is what leads to student learning.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    Student Learning<\/b><\/p>\n

    The key to all we do is student learning. It is what we are in the business of afterall. It is essential that we attempt to dispel the myth that technology is optional in mathematics instruction. In fact it is one of the mathematical processes as found in our Alberta Program of Study. Yet a major impact on student learning of ICT skills as part of their daily instruction is teacher skill. The <\/span>International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS)<\/span><\/a> is a new international study whose purpose is to assess the extent to which students know about, understand, and are able to use information and communications technology (ICT). When teachers face too many barriers and obstacles with using technology, they are more likely to not have those technologies used by their students in class.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    Additionally we need to look at personalized learning and what each student needs to succeed. Tracy outlines this by stating \u201ctechnology is not optional in a math classes when we really look at the needs of all learners and we look at the different needs of how are students are coming in and \u00a0where we have gaps in their learning. We have to look at technology to enhance student instruction, so it really is about differentiation. Traditionally when we only have the paper, pencil and textbook we are reaching only a small number of students. So technology to me is hugely valuable and it can’t be an option, you can’t opt out when we look at all these list of tools that are out there and all the support that can act as a central component in the math world\u201d. Doug furthers this by sharing \u201cI think it’s also important that we look at leveling the playing field for kids. Technology definitely plays a large role in helping those students who need those other methods. It’s at least allowing more venues for students to be able to to learn the concepts they otherwise could not learn from traditional pencil and paper alone. We are building upon a competency so that we are creating those individuals that are ready for society as adults that can contribute in a productive and effective way.\u201d Purpose is important and we need to model and share specific ways to use technology as part of our instruction in order to impact learning. We cannot make suggestions based on general ideas and terms. Both Tracy and Doug are very specific in their modeling and recommendations as actionable tasks to be taken directly to students. Tracy recommends using technology for \u201cguided math or small group instruction. Technology really enables teachers to set up stations where students can be self-paced. They can work on their own or \u00a0they can work in a group so you know it could be a mass light that yoon math learning sites or virtual manipulatives. Really individualizing personalized instruction by using such things as hyperdocs makes learning personal for the student.\u201d Doug continues this by also recommending \u201csome of the movements that we had in our district with the use of Google Apps for Education and the Makerspace movement and how that really ties into math from bringing things in such as stop motion to Green Screen. It really immerses the students into those concepts \u00a0and competencies that we are looking to have students achieve with the Alberta education curriculum that will prepare them for what we consider an unknown future\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n

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    Mindset <\/b><\/p>\n

    Impacting teacher mindset is both a goal and an obstacle. If we can influence teachers to see the value of technology as part of mathematical instruction as having a positive impact on student learning, then we can begin to build their own personal technological skills in relation to content and pedagogy. Yet the mindset of \u201cback to the basics\u201d and math being about answers on paper, change is slow. Tracy shares here experience of this \u201cI think the impact on technology in math has been slow. When I look at your mindset, math is that one subject area that has been traditionally set with paper and pencil tasks. It is more the teacher mindset to the willingness to be open to try new things. They are still very comfortable teaching the way they were taught. Even though technology you know might be for one student, \u00a0they’re not impacting all learners so it’s not reaching students. Teachers are still not comfortable in the classroom using technology in the area of mathematics so right now to me it it’s limited. There are certainly teachers using it and when they embrace it they love it, but I do find it’s very slow moving because of the comfort level and mindset of teachers\u201d. Doug experiences this as well in classrooms \u201cit goes back to the old saying where we often mentioned we we teach the way we were taught and in particular I think mathematics takes takes that to heart. Technology integration has been in pockets of classrooms, but definitely not has not called wildfire and been consistent among all classrooms. I think it’s just very select few kids or a student with difficulties with learning as opposed to looking at things from a Universal Design for Learning kind of a platform where they can look at all these tools to benefit all kids. So it’s definitely a paradigm shift and the teachers mindsets to open themselves to the possibility of how they can use technology in math but it’s it’s definitely a journey that we are still continuing to try to make some ground up on it and get those teachers to a place where they can certainly support all kids.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

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    Through effective modeling, re-imagined professional development, and quality classroom examples and resources, we can impact teacher mindset. This mindset is the deciding factor to successful professional development experiences which in turn will affect student learning.<\/span><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    References<\/b><\/p>\n

    Council of Ministers of Education, Canada Programs & Initiatives Learning Assessment Programs International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS). (2013). Retrieved January 21, 2018, from <\/span>https:\/\/www.cmec.ca\/322\/International_Computer_and_Information_Literacy_Study_(ICILS)_.html<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

    Koehler, M.J., Cain, W., & Mishra, P. \u00a0(2013). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK)?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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