Reaching "Technology - Reluctant" Teachers

http://www.techlearning.com/Default.aspx?tabid=67&entryid=8402

This article describes a specific professional development program in a school district in Colorado.  The author is the 21st Century Learning and Innovation Specialist for this district.  This program was funded through grant money.  They started a peer-mentoring program which paired innovative teachers with two to three "technology - reluctant" teachers in the district.  The goals for the programs included reaching teachers that would not volunteer to participate in other professional development, meeting teachers where they are at and moving them forward to create an environment where innovation can flourish, turning these teachers into believers, and emphasizing good instructional design and a culture of curiosity.

The mentors were trained and all participants participated in an online book study of Tony Wagner's Creating Innovators.  All participants met four times throughout the year.  At those meetings active hands on learning activities were modeled and collaboration time was provided.  Substitute teachers were also provided so that teachers could visit other classrooms and two innovative schools were visited.  Mentees also worked one on one with their mentors throughout the year.  While specific measurements of success were not provided in the article, the program was deemed a success.

I think this article presents a different approach to professional development than what is often seen in many schools and a much deeper and ongoing approach.  I like the fact that this is not a one and done professional development but has follow up and support built in.  I also really like that one of their goals is to meet teachers where they are and move from there.  This can be very hard to do if not impossible when providing professional development to large groups of teachers at once.  Having smaller groups of teachers makes that much more manageable.  I think that by meeting teachers where they are at with technology they would be more likely to try things and stick with it.

While they did have grant money to help pay for substitutes and other expenses, I think this could be implemented on a somewhat smaller scale.  We discussed in class using the experts that are already in the district.  New teachers in the district are often paired with a mentor so it seems like this type of technology mentoring could be a manageable task.  Even if it was a one to one pairing instead of one to two or three.  I think both ends of this relationship, the mentor and the mentee, could benefit from the collaboration.  It could also be an ongoing system with mentees eventually becoming mentors.  

It is nice that this district has a person with the title 21st Century Learning and Innovation Specialist to plan and implement professional development like this and to oversee it.  Lack of one or multiple individuals to oversee such professional development would make it hard to monitor the effectiveness and keep the participants accountable.