The following excerpts are from Chapter 4 - Winning Strategies "Teachers and Technology" ITTE

Two basic planning steps in preparing for staff development include:

1. Reviewing policies, regulations and agreements
2. Conducting a needs analysis

Three recommendations are:

1. Let teachers lead - empower teachers to accomplish their jobs more effectively and to grow as professionals, put teachers in charge of training functions and/or planning
2. Make staff development serve wider goals
   • Part of more general vision of technology use in district which is part of larger vision of the school district’s overall mission
3. District statements of vision and planning regarding technology need to be reviewed - and possibly revised - annually to account for technology development and change in district direction and condition.

Characteristics of Successful Staff Development

• Planned by staff groups that include representatives of all stakeholders in school change.
• Task-specific, focusing on actual uses of technology that will serve curricular or administrative goals - including those identified by a staff needs assessment.
• Led by staff members who use the technology in questions for the same purposes as will the colleagues they instruct, and who are proficient in teaching adults and in modeling effective teaching strategies.
• Adequate in the time it allows for teachers to learn, practice, and apply new concepts and techniques.
• Offered to staff members who have access to hardware and software they can practice with in their classrooms or offices during in-service training.
• Sensitive to staff members’ personal needs and schedules, offering credit, stipends, and/or release time.
• Flexible in allowing teachers to use what they learn in a variety of ways appropriate to their individual situations.
• Supported by handouts that spare trainees from having to take copious notes and that trainees can use to support lessons in their classrooms.
• Appropriate to staff members’ current attitudes and expertise.
• Supported at the building and district levels with adequate, ongoing staff and time for person-to-person and small-group instruction.
• Accepted throughout the school community as an ongoing activity, not a single event.
• Continuously evaluated and improved.

In this Module:

In the Toolkit: