Setting the stage for staff development : uniting constructivist

Class objectives

• To weigh the effectiveness of our traditional staff development programs.
• To consider contructivist teaching and learning methods as a way to improve staff development.

Assignments

• Read Creighton Chapter 5: Setting the Stage for Staff Development
• Reread Hoerr's Chapter 7: Facilitating Creativity and Teamwork
• Bring to class, a list of the different staff development methods and strategies used in your school or division. Include methods you might like to see added.

Results-driven education

Results-driven education has required us to change the behaviors and/or attitudes of teachers and staff. Even in our own administrative language, we talk about effective administrators not only requiring knowledge and skills, but now dispositions or beliefs. What is the connection or relation to programs of professional development in technology? Our staff development efforts must address changing the way people think or what they believe about technology. We must move beyond the belief that its function is word-processing or to serve as an electronic blackboard. Attempts to change teachers’beliefs or thinking about something is not only difficult, but often makes resisters more resistant and saboteurs more likely to participate in sabotage activities.

The systems approach

Thanks to the recent research of such folks as Peter Senge (1996), we’re involved in systemic thinking and planning and concerning ourselves with the interrelatedness of all aspects of our school or district. Thus, an innovative technological development such as the Internet has ramifications for the Science department as well as the Language Arts program. Obviously, it also has ramifications to the home and other points in the community. Again, does the systems approach to education administration have a relationship to technology staff development? I suspect that all of us agree that the essence of a systems approach is its interconnectedness across the netire organization (i.e., school district). Continue this thinking as we look at how technology should blend in with all aspects of our teaching, learning, staff development, community relations, and so forth. This draws attention to the importance of including all members of our school community in the process.

Constructivist teaching and learning

The third trend affecting staff development in education is likely the most significant and the one we need to address the most in our planning of staff development programs for technology. Constructivism presents the notion that learners (young and old) build knowledge structures in their minds rather than have the knowledge implanted by the teacher.