Document Type
Article
Original Publication Date
2014
Journal/Book/Conference Title
Educational Technology Research and Development
Volume
62
Issue
3
First Page
367
Last Page
384
DOI
10.1007/s11423-014-9337-6
Date of Submission
June 2015
Abstract
A qualitative study of math and science teachers at two middle schools identifies how their system for learning to integrate technology into their teaching goes beyond what school leaders typically consider when planning for teachers’ learning. In addition to (a) the district-initiated, or formal, system of professional development (PD) and professional learning communities (PLCs), it includes (b) teacher-initiated, or informal, learning with colleagues as well as (c) teachers’ independent learning activities. Analysis of why and how they form their system highlights how by only supporting the formal PD activities and PLCs, the district not only loses the valuable collective knowledge of the districts’ teachers derived from their informal and independent learning activities, but also diminishes the learning teachers derive from the formal PD activities since informal collaborations and independent work after formal PD activities often helps to bring the learning from the training room to the classroom. We present teachers’ insights and then discuss implications for the design of a holistic approach to facilitate teachers’ formal, informal, and independent learning that is tied together and supported by technology. While research on formal, informal and independent teacher learning exists, with technology frequently mentioned as a potential support for each of these three modes, these approaches have not been considered together as interdependent parts of the same holistic system for teacher learning nor has the way technology might knit these modes of teacher learning together been imagined as a part of that system.
Rights
© Association for Educational Communications and Technology 2014. This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Educational Technology Research and Development, 62(3): 367-384. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11423-014-9337-6
Is Part Of
VCU Dept. of Teaching and Learning Publications