Taking the tiger by the tail: guidelines for professional development on implementing technology in schools

Noseworthy, Jeffrey Charles (2001) Taking the tiger by the tail: guidelines for professional development on implementing technology in schools. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

This project report provides a description of a learning resource teacher’s experiences in developing a staff training project that was more than just a one-shot deal. It describes professional development practices for implementing technology integration at one rural central high school in Newfoundland. Concurrent with the literature review, an action-research project was designed to encourage ownership, input, and collaboration among the staff. The project was designed to assess the needs of the teachers and to give them a voice that could influence their training. -- A focus of this project was to create an awareness of technology and to provide ongoing support to meet teachers’ needs for using and integrating technology into their programs. The structure of this project allowed the researcher to study the stakeholders involved in technology initiatives at this school. By immersing himself into his study as a participant-observer, the research was able to develop survey instruments that measured the staff’s needs and feelings about technology. Information collected through these instruments was used to enhance the design of the teachers’ Technotraining initiatives. – Chapter One gives a brief introduction of the study including the problem, the goals and objectives, and the components of the project; outlines the organization of the report, and explains its writing style. Chapter Two describes the methodological framework used in the project: identifies the action research process, recognizes the literature review that was concurrent with this process, describes the use of the district’s framework for implementation, identifies the research as an active participant-observer, and provides a profile of the intended users of the initiatives. It describes the purpose and design of instruments constructed and used. Chapter Three contains the review of literature related to research regarding professional development, change theory, and technology and its implementation, as it relates to schools. It concludes with relevant guidelines that grow out of the literature. Chapter Four includes a reflective journal detailing the school self-study through the use of the action-research model. It gives a chronological account of the project’s design and implementation through the researcher’s observations and reflections. Chapter Five lists guiding principles that were drawn out of the research and describes lessons learned from their practice. Chapter Six describes the rationale and a copy of the teachers’ materials that were developed for this training process. References to other documents from the literature that could be used to enrich the training process are also provided. Chapter Seven presents the results of the project. This includes recommendations, staff reactions and feedback, and revisions and additions to the project, the possibilities for further work, and its transferability to other schools. It ends with a discussion of professional development planning as a learning experience.

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