As computers increasingly become part of daily life, the necessity for using them well in schools becomes more important than ever. Coppola (2004) argues, “Developing high-quality uses of computers in schools depends on keeping high-quality teaching at the core of the school” (p. 1). Achieving high-quality teaching with technology, Coppola emphasizes, depends on teachers’ pedagogical knowledge, their ongoing learning, and school support. That is, Coppola argues, although teachers’ pedagogical knowledge and their ongoing learning are necessary elements to use technology in teaching, they are not enough to achieve high-quality teaching and learning with technology if schools do not support teachers’ efforts to integrate technology in their teaching. Coppola found, from her study to the experiences of five teachers who were successfully using technology at Woodland High School, that school support for teachers’ professional development and pedagogical innovation had a great influence on teachers’ use of technology. Therefore, Coppola insists that school support is needed to successfully integrate technology in classrooms; without that support, using technology can be devastating. Accordingly, an important question needing to be asked is how schools can support teachers’ efforts to learn and teach well with technology.
First of all, teachers should be given enough time to innovate new ways of teaching and learning. Coppola argues that a school should provide teachers with time to learn how to integrate technology in their classrooms and prepare for that integration. That is, Coppola emphasizes, the best ideas about teaching and technology integration cannot be pursued when a school fails to provide teachers with time to learn and prepare to apply these ideas. She found that the teachers at Woodland High School “had between 90 minutes and 4 hours preparation time per day” (p. 128); this procedure allowed teachers “more time to explore instructional innovations such as technology” (p. 128). In contrast, if teachers are given “as little as 50 minutes per day preparation time, with 20-30 minutes for lunch” (p. 47) as at many typical high schools, they will not find time to develop effective teaching methods, supported by effective technology integration. Especially, as new software and hardware become available every day, it becomes difficult and discouraging for teachers who are struggling for time to keep pursuing to technology (Zhao & Frank, 2003). Therefore, if a school wants its teachers to effectively integrate technology in their classrooms, teachers should be given adequate time to learn how to successfully use technology and enough time to innovate new teaching methods with technology because, as Hennessey, Ruthven, and Brindley (2005) argue, “innovation and adaptation are costly in terms of the time needed to develop and establish new practices” (p. 162).
On the other hand, ongoing learning and innovation should be crucial values in a school culture. Coppola (2004) argues that continuous learning and innovation should be at the core of the values and norms that pervade a school culture. Once teachers recognize that continuous learning and innovation in their teaching are the fundamental value to the school, Coppola argues, they will undertake extra efforts to learn about the technology and create uses for it. In other words, a technology innovation and learning are more likely to be adopted if they correspond with the existing norms and values of the school. That is, each school has norms guiding “everything from which values and goals are promoted, to which instructional methods are preferred, to which tools or resources are acceptable to use” (Ertmer & Ottenbreil-Leftwich, 2010, p. 265). Consequently, teachers’ use of technology for teaching and learning depends on the norms and values of the school culture in which they work (Levin, 2008). Given this, it is not surprising that the teachers at Woodland High School were enthusiastic about learning and innovating new teaching methods supported by effective technology integration that seemed compatible with the norms of the school culture, which considered teachers’ learning and innovation as natural parts of its life.
In addition to giving teachers enough time to innovate new teaching methods and placing learning and innovation at the center of the school culture, teachers should have flexibility and autonomy to guide their own teaching and learning. Coppola (2004) argues that teachers should have considerable flexibility in developing their courses and teaching methods and making decisions about what materials are needed in the classroom. Therefore, instead of asking teachers to adapt their teaching to the available software packages, which are chosen by a district or administrator, they should be allowed to choose software and hardware they see fit. Also, Coppola emphasizes that teachers should have considerable flexibility to determine the amount of time they should spend on a topic and the depth with which the topic can be treated. These flexibility and autonomy are essential features of the school that desires to integrate technology in its instruction because, as Chaltain (2010) argues, “to really commit to an idea, we must feel we are free to decide whether or not the idea is the right one” (p. 60). In fact, this freedom gives teachers a feeling of power, independence, and being professionals, and leads to commitment and responsibility for the learning of students, innovation, and continuous learning, as well (Coppola, 2004). That is, “participation leads to commitment” (Chaltain, 2010, p. 55).
Moreover, a school should give teachers opportunities to interact with their colleagues in order to learn from each other. Coppola (2004) emphasizes the importance of peers’ interaction for teacher learning; such interaction can occur “via informal patterns of communication loosely based on departmental organization, classroom proximity, friendships, interdisciplinary teaching groups, or teacher networks outside of the school” (p. 34). Coppola found that Woodland High School had many structures to facilitate teachers’ interaction with their colleagues. For example, Woodland High School constructed teachers’ offices in a way that tended to create open and shared working space with teachers from different departments “to promote interdisciplinary conversation” (p. 129), and also shared spaces with teachers from same department to discuss curriculum and teaching issues. Besides, Woodland High School had many committees to facilitate teachers’ interaction, such as the Technology Committee, which provided teachers with great opportunities to discuss with each other how to promote further technology use. Indeed, teachers’ interaction with their colleagues is important to promote teachers to use technology. Ertmer and Ottenbreil-Leftwich (2010) argue that changes in teachers’ beliefs about “technology use occurred more readily among teachers who were socialized by their peers to think differently about computer use” (p. 264). That is, teachers may exert pressure on each other to use technology, and they can also provide support and help to each other by providing contextualized information about the value and implementation of technology (Zhao & Frank, 2003).
In sum, to teach and learn well with technology, school support is needed. A school should support teachers’ efforts to learn how to integrate technology in their teaching and support their pedagogical innovations. The school should support teachers by providing them with enough time to learn and innovate new ways of teaching. On the other hand, since teachers’ use of technology depends on the norms and values that pervade a school culture, ongoing learning and innovation should be at the core of these norms. This means that a school should place a high priority on continuous learning and innovation in order to successfully integrate technology in its classrooms. Besides, a school should consider teaching as an autonomous pursuit and respect the needs and ideas of teachers. That is, a school should provide teachers with considerable flexibility to choose whatever forms work best for them and their students. Moreover, a school should provide teachers with opportunities to interact with their colleagues. That is, peers can play an important role in motivating teachers to use technology in their teaching.
References:
Chaltain, S. (2010). The art of creating a democratic learning community: American schools.
New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Coppola, E. (2004). Powering up: Learning to teach well with technology. New York: Teachers
College Press.
Ertmer, P. & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, A. (2010). Teacher technology change: How knowledge,
confidence, beliefs, and culture intersect. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 42(3), 255–284.
Hennessy, S., Ruthven, k. &Brindley, S. (2005). Teacher perspectives on integrating ICT into
subject teaching: Commitment, constraints, caution, and change. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 37 (2), 155–192.
Levin, T. (2008). Teachers’ views on factors affecting effective integration of information
technology in the classroom: Developmental scenery, Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 16(2), 233-263.
Zhao, Y. & Frank, A. (2003). Factors affecting technology uses in schools: An ecological
perspective. American Educational Research Journal, 40, 807–840.
No comments:
Post a Comment