Professional Development for staff in my college is a task I am deeply involved in as I am the PD coordinator. It is taking so much time and effort to come up with a plan that matches the skill requirement of our staff and aligned with our ICT mission. Calculating the number of hours that have been allocated for PDs this year I can add up 96 hours. It is a lot of hours that we have allocated for ICT PDs. But are we seeing any widespread adoption of technology for teaching and learning? Not really!
Here is some of the common issues I always here from almost every teacher…
Time. We don’t have time… we are teaching 20 hrs. I am too busy..
Time for staff development must be included in their timetable or provided outside of the school day. Staff must have the time to share ideas and reflect of what they have learned.
Training. Provide continuous training throughout the semester with follow up sessions with practical examples.
Teachers see the relevance of technology to what they do in the classroom; they are more likely to incorporate it into their instructional strategies.
Technology. A common complaint among teachers who attend training is that they don’t have the proper equipment/software in their classroom. Training becomes more valuable when participants know they will be able to use it immediately.
Support. Another common complain among teachers that technology does not work. Just-in time support must be provided all the time during and after classroom hours.
I hope to hear from anyone on Professional Development..
I am planning to create a wiki page on Knowledge Garden that incorporates everything about professional development.
http://staffdevelop.org/sd1.html
http://fno.org/feb03/practicing.html
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