Cognition

Twenty years of attempts at teacher development in technology use has produced, at best, mixed results. However, those attempts have shown us what works and what does not work in terms of  teacher development in eLearning.
Our approach to professional learning is guided by the following principles:
●    Participants need to be aware of the need for education to adapt to a rapidly changing world – learning to change, changing to learn
●    The model must be flexible enough to meet the different needs of each school and each teacher within the schools; it must also be adaptable to changing needs; the model cannot be “one size to fit all”.
●    professional learning should focus on the use of eLearning tools to achieve curriculum driven objectives and to engage learners, not on the use of the tools for their own sake
●    a “just in time” model of professional learning, whereby the focus is on eLearning strategies which teachers can use almost immediately in their planned programmes has more impact than a “just-in-case” model, in which skills and approaches are learned which may or may not have immediate application in the classroom. However, programmes must also recognise the place of workshops to:
o    introduce or reinforce concepts (especially pedagogical concepts) to a wider group before more individualised professional engagement
o    introduce new tools which will have immediate application
o    meet the identified needs of groups of teacher
Work with teachers needs to include:
●    working alongside individual teachers as they plan forthcoming units of learning, identifying where ICTs and digital resources could help engage learners and enhance learning outcomes and then reflecting on the impact of the use of ICTs
●    workshops where there is an identified generic need (eg using laptops in a differentiated learning environment) or where there is a more specific need for a group of teachers (eg thinking skills in science) or where a key tool is being introduced. The form of any workshop needs to be determined by the focus and audience and could range from presentations to hands-on explorations, from short drop-in sessions to more structured presentations, from face-to-face events to online webinars and workshops utilising Web 2.0 tools
●    alerting teachers to relevant conferences and seminars
●    the ongoing provision of relevant professional readings and learning tools
●    arranging where practical, inter-school visits to enable the sharing of effective emerging practice.