Suggestions for building an effective professional development program to support your one-to-one program or other technology initiatives include:
•Provide teachers and administrators with the technology one year prior to implementing with students; before they can be comfortable using the technology to teach, educators must be comfortable employing it for their own personal use and professional growth.
•Focus professional development sessions on technology integration, data-driven decision-making, and meaningful uses of technology in the curriculum, rather than on how-to lessons.
•Offer opportunities for educators to get their how-to technology questions answered through just-in-time, technology-based modules and peer support.
•Use a similar approach for reinforcing crucial information covered in face-to-face sessions. For example, you might post a Q&A data-coach session online to direct teachers on how to use student data to track instructional planning, assessments and student progress.
•Professional development should be ongoing and reinforced in a number of different ways, rather than one-time workshops without any follow-up.
•Implement mentoring programs in which more experienced technology-using teachers support their colleagues.
•Since every minute of class time is precious, provide teachers—and student support teams—with sufficient technical instruction so that they feel comfortable addressing minor interruptions of connectivity in the classroom.
•Create guidelines and initiate discussions to help teachers identify the best uses of technology and avoid situations in which the technology becomes a distraction.
•Teachers, like students, should have opportunities to learn at their own levels and in their own style.
•Remember that professional development is an ongoing process. Prepare staff to see issues as challenges rather than obstacles, and offer encouragement for improvement.
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