Reflection

The designing process

Designing a professional development program for teachers was really new to me. First we made a group to work with. In my group there were three people who have experience with teaching. That is something I don’t got, so this group was really interesting for me. During the bachelor program I have done some assignments or projects in which I had to design something, but I never designed something like a professional development program.

During our first meeting we actually discussed the whole professional development program. We were really in line with each other. During this decision process every member of the group has contributed very well. We shared our knowledge efficiently. This means that some of us had a practical view on the assignment and some other students had a more theoretical view. I think this combination has resulted in an interesting and useful professional development program for primary education teachers. During the meeting that we discussed the program, we started with some contextual points. We were immediately thinking about what kind of school we would give the professional development program for, the target group, how many sessions the program should exist of, and so on. We concluded that, to reach TPACK within a whole school, it is important that everybody in the school is involved with the process (the professional development program). So, we decided to give the school leader, the ICT coordinator and the pupil monitor coordinator also some tasks during the program. After that, we filled in the five sessions we had created. For me it was really interesting to talk about this, because it is not impossible that some of us will get a job that is in line with designing courses or professional development programs. I think it would be useful for the bachelor students to do an assignment like this as well. Now the assignment was relatively ‘small’, but I can imagine that creating such a program in a project course could be very helpful. I think I should have liked it in my first years as a bachelor student.

As an educational designer I have especially learned some practical aspects about the motivation of teachers and the time they want to and can spend on activities like these (following such a program). Teachers are busy people. Their priority is to teach pupils, but it is also important that they develop their selves to improve their teaching skills. In this way a professional development program like we created can be very useful, but only if the teachers are motivated to reach TPACK. As an educational designer I’m really interested in the real implementation of a program like we created. For me it was a good assignment, but it makes me more and more curious about the implementation in real life. Will our program really work? What problems will you encounter? How should I handle with these problems? What kind of reactions of the teachers will you get? What if the teachers are not motivated anymore after two or three sessions? Questions like these will definitely get the attention in my future as an educational designer. To come back to our assignment, we divided the tasks really well. But, maybe we were to convinced about our program that we forgot to focus on the structure of the report, especially within the different parts of it. That is a struggling factor of working in a group. For a next time, it will be useful to discuss the report at the end in a face-to-face meeting. To discuss by technology like e-mail can be good, but sometimes a physical meeting will be better. Besides creating a professional development program, that is an important thing I have learned  as an educational designer.

Working with TPACK

Technology gets more and more an important role, not only in day life, but also in education. To make teachers aware of this fact, TPACK can be a very useful model. Before this course I knew something about content, something about pedagogies and something about technology. During this course I have learned a lot more about these aspects. That was nice, but for an educational designer it is more important to know how teachers can combine these important components to create ‘perfect’ lessons. And that’s where TPACK comes in. In my opinion it is not a difficult or complex model. For me TPACK can be a very useful supporting tool for teachers. During this course I sometimes ‘hated’ the fact that I have no teacher experience. If I should have some experience, I think I could transfer the model more to practice. So, while I was working with TPACK I thought all the time: ‘how should I use this model if I were a teacher?’ Working with TPACK made me realize that a lesson is not just a lesson. It is much more than that. You have to take care of all the components in the model to create a ‘perfect’ lesson. Next to that, the relation between these components should be deliberated by the teacher. Don’t use technology to use technology, but use it as a supporting tool to create optimum learning outcomes. Creating optimum learning outcomes is, and will stay, the priority of teaching. Next to that, technology has an important role in the society, so teachers and pupils have to learn how to work with it and they have to use technology to develop their selves.

I think most of the teachers will create lessons based on the content. To develop you as a teacher, you need to learn to integrate content, a pedagogical approach and a kind of technology in your lessons. That is something I definitely learned about working with TPACK. Another thing I have learned is the following. My colleagues who are a teacher besides their study told me many times that teachers are very busy. In that way I think teachers won’t create all their lessons with the TPACK model. They could do that for a few lessons, but after that it should become a routine. When teachers develop their selves well and they reach TPACK, they should use the model just for a check. They should create a lesson and use TPACK as a checklist to judge their lesson on content, pedagogical and technological aspects.

How to stimulate teachers to integrate technology in education?

As I said before, teachers are busy people and their priority is to teach pupils. But nowadays it is important to use and to integrate technology in education, so they have to make time for it. Especially for older teachers, who are not familiar with technology, it won’t be easy to get this done. Teachers need to make time free to learn how to use different kinds of technology, but they also have to be motivated for this. Then the question is ‘how can you motivate and stimulate them to learn this?’ First of all you can think of professional development programs like we created. In this case you can think of programs like ‘how to use technology’ and after that ‘how to integrate technology in education’. Some teachers will like these programs, but as a teacher you have to be really motivated to join programs like these because it costs some time. Next to this, you can also make teachers aware of the usefulness of technology by letting them experience it by themselves. As a school you can decide to purchase some different technologies for the teachers, just to ‘play’ with it. I can imagine that teachers become curious when there are different technologies available. They probably want to get familiar with the technology and when they are, they will perhaps use it in their classes.

I already said something about motivation, but I think teachers are not the only people who have to be motivated to integrate technology in education. For instance the school leader, the ICT coordinator and the pupil monitor coordinator have to be motivated as well. My opinion is that these people need to stimulate the teachers within the school to integrate technology in their classes. Especially the school leader has an important role in this process. I think he has to talk with the teachers about their lessons, the use of technology in the lessons at this moment and how they will use technology in the near future. When the school leader, but also the ICT coordinator and the pupil monitor coordinator, stimulates the teachers to integrate technology in their lessons, they will get motivated to do that. Next to that, teachers should talk to each other about their use and integration of technology in their lessons. In this way they can help and support each other. For instance, the younger teachers (who are more familiar with technology) could help the older teachers by explaining the use of different technologies.

So, I think a professional development program given by somebody outside the school can be very useful and effective, but stimulating each other within the school is the most important part of integrating technology in education.