Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

Online Teacher Professional Development

These are my notes from a SITE 2006 presentation on “Evolving a Research Agenda for Online Teacher Professional Development”
– presenters were Dr. Chris Dede from Harvard, Dr. Ray Rose from the Concord Consortium, and Dr. Debra Sprague from George Mason Univ.

I arrived at this session late after Chris had already started….

Instead of identifying a problem and devising professional development to address it, we can design professional development to help share a resource for effective use by teachers with students

American Museum of Natural History is an example

Indiana University’s Quest Atlantis Project is like a game, offers unique PD challenge that is quite different than traditional teaching
– Medium and content is novel in this case

Indiana also has a traditional correspondence course project for technology

WGBH Educational Foundation’s online PD courses as part of Teachers’ Domain digital library initiative
– example: Teaching Math Grades 3-5

Milwaukee Public Schools created PSP (Professional Support Portal)

PBS TeacherLine and Concord Consortium Seeing Math are also K-12 PD examples
– teacherline courses are being distributed now
– courses are 6 weeks long each

Perspectives from Ray Rose of Concord Consortium

Courses:
– proportional reasoning
– linear functions
– transformation of linear functions
– linear equations
– systems of… (more)

The 6 week length was market-driven, not based on pedagogy

Start using oTPD as an acronym! (online teacher professional development)

Fully online in desire2learn
– scheduled asynchronous learning
– have expert online moderation
– 30 hour committment
– cohort based

Process:
– experience math (that is first experience: focus on a math issue / problem)
– using interactive tools
– observe and reflect
– discuss
– observe and listen to student thinking (how are students reacting to the same issue)
– figure out tech integration
– adapt material for the classroom (b/c there was not enough money to customize these to each textbook that is out there, so this became an assignment)

Math philosophy:
– foster a reflective attitude among participating teachers about their own teachign and understanding of the mathematics they teach
– providing insights into student thinking about mathematical concepts
– deepening the understanding of specific mathematical concepts

Features
– authentic video depicting real classroom situations
– expert commentary by national specialists
– all videos less than 5 min in length
– have innovative, interactive software to illustrate and reinforce math concepts (java applets, these are available for free on website)
– guidelines for adapting existing curricula
– curriculum materials
– moderated online discussion

learning happens through discussion by the participants, moderator is there to facilitate, not be font of knowledge (This is the Concord model)

Final Evaluation
– most of the projects had smiley face evaluations of PD
– did your life change type questions
– We did do an evaluation, quasi-experimental design, looked at impact on teacher instruction and student instruction

Results was we made an impact in pedagogy, not necessarily in content areas
– didn’t have large enough sample of students to make claims
– entire research report is on our site
– we were one of few projects that had even done this

Debra Sprague: George Mason Univ
– Reactions from an Engaged Observer

Implications for teacher ed:
– online learning will be a key vehicle for teacher learning (and student learning) in the future
– online PD requres a combination of social learning and self-paced learning

online learning provides means for building bridges between teacher preparation / new teacher support / continuing PD

– eMSS is another example

Addressing retention
– Teachers for a New Era

key opportunities
– highest quality content
– high quality program design models
– flexibility in scheduling, timing, asynchronous interactions, developing own learning spaces (MPS)
– more chance for teacher reflection, dialogue

Key challenges
– mentors need extensive training in online interactions, content and pedagogical coaching skills, and best practices in each content areas (math, science, etc)
– need to think about how much structure and facilitation is needed
– need to balance resources on demand: go find it and learn on your own vs building and sustaining a community of learning

Questions for discussion
– will teacher ed/higher ed view oPD as an opportunity, diversion or competition?
– who will lead development of best approaches?
– what is depth and scope really required in PD to allow for fundamental shifts in practice and to have an impact on students’ learning? How do we know what is working? (how do we know what we are doing is working?)
– what impact will emerging technologies (blogs, podcasts, RSS feeds) have on oPD? Will they allow for more ownership of their own learning? Under what conditions?

Lessons learned:
– cost is very important, majority of teachers want to pay as little as possible
– students would rather get graduate credit not for a program (transferrable) from Adams State Univ (our partner) rather than Harvard for a much higher cost
– when people pay for graduate credit, there is a strong correlation to their completion levels

Good for us to look at models of online PD rather than just having people present things in ideosynchratic ways

Mentality of a lot of game designers is, no matter where this person is, how can I keep them engaged and playing for 10 more minutes! This isn’t an issue in seat-time measured PD including initial teacher licensure.

[WESLEY’S THOUGHT: I THINK THIS CONNECTION TO GAMES AND GAME DESIGN IS REALLY INTRIGUING AND A GOOD TAKE-AWAY FROM THIS SESSION]

We set time expectations for activities, because otherwise some people would spend 5 hours on some projects.

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