Towards a Theoretical Framework for the Design of Interactive Online Distance Learning Systems
Steps in Developing TMFP
1. Recruitment of Teacher Education Faculty and Technology Fellows
Extensive processes were developed for recruiting, providing continuous technology skill training, and monitoring the work of technology undergraduate fellows with teacher education faculty. These processes were essential because the key strategy was to match technologically-proficient undergraduate students with teacher education faculty to model technology instructional applications.
Teacher education faculty, defined as campus-based faculty and school-based faculty were recruited to participate in the project. Fortunately, this process was an “easy sell” with the recruitment of school-based faculty (teachers who supervise field experiences of teaching candidates) being coordinated through district technology directors who worked with building principals. As the project continued, demand for Technology Fellows outstripped the resources to provide additional fellows. Campus-based faculty members were recruited through personal visits and presentations at faculty meetings of the teacher education faculty by project staff members. Additional recruiting support was garnered as other college department heads encouraged their faculty who taught teacher preparation classes to participate in the program. While not every campus-based faculty member who worked with teacher preparation candidates chose to participate in this program, the response to the program was quite positive, but within the range of what was planned for the project.
Undergraduate technology mentors were initially recruited from the undergraduate classes of educational technology students who were also teacher preparation students. Project staff visited each class to explain the project and benefits for participating as a Technology Fellow, such as,
• paid training ($7.50/hr for 20 hrs of training) 1 to work as technology mentors that includes using web resources, Microsoft productivity tools and coaching on communication and team-building skills before beginning their experience with faculty partners;
• a paid field experience ($7.50/hr for 10 clock hours per week) 1 with an opportunity to continue this experience across ensuing semesters;
• working with an experienced teacher or faculty member on an individual basis to learn about pedagogy and their personal views about teaching; and
• providing technology support to an individual faculty member for integrating technology into their instruction.
This recruitment strategy resulted in 69 Technology Fellows being selected during the first semester of the project, but we expected to recruit 100. At the beginning of year 2 of the project, recruitment efforts were expanded to all teacher preparation classes with disappointing results. Paid advertisements over a local radio station and in the campus paper for Technology Fellows at the beginning of the semester produced telling results. The radio ads produced modest returns for the cost, but the campus paper ad resulted in doubling the number of Technology Fellows within a three-week period. Advertising in the campus newspaper was used throughout the remainder of the project with much success.
2. Faculty Orientation and Technology Mentor Training
Embarking on an effort to teach and support teachers to use technology requires a considerable time commitment for both the professional development provider and the teachers being “developed.” Mehlinger (1997) estimates that more than 30 hours of instruction and application experience are needed for adoption of a tool or software application to occur. About a decade ago, Rogers (1995) suggested that helping faculty adopt and integrate technology into their teaching should combine not only individual initiatives, but also top-down mandates, and consensus-building across constituencies of the institution. Yet unless professional development experiences are designed and implemented to provide a close relation between what teachers learn and what occurs in their classrooms and schools, these professional development activities will have small chance of having long term effects or change learner outcomes (Fullan & Stiegelbauer, 1991). Organizational change in instructional technology integration does require sufficient facilities, resources, access, and support, but successful technology integration will only occur if faculty members have sufficient preparation and planning time (Becker, 1994; Clark & Denton 1998; Ennis III & Ennis, 1995-6; Ertmer, 1999; Gilmore, 1995; Hunt & Bohlin, 1993; Lawler, Rossett & Hoffman, 1998; Loucks-Horsley, Hewson, Love & Stiles, 1998; Schrum, 1999; Strudler & Wetzel, 1999; Walker, Ennis-Cole, & Ennis III, 2000; Yildirim, 2000). Supporting this position, Moursund & Bielefeldt (1999) recommend that educational leadership should provide time for planning how to integrate technology into courses; time for evaluating the impact of technology on student learning; and time for experimenting the effects that technology has on teaching and learning processes .
A training schedule consistent with these suggestions in the literature was developed and implemented with participating faculty members and the Technology Fellows. The following tasks were provided to faculty members agreeing to work with Technology Fellows in commencing the just-in-time technology professional development experience.
First month: As a beginning step, schedule a face-to-face meeting with the Technology Fellow at school to acquaint them with your classroom. During this initial session or perhaps in your second session with the Technology Fellow, please complete Profiler (an online tool that compiles self-ratings of technology skills. This tool is available at <http://profiler.hprtec.org/>), and then suggest possible projects after reviewing electronic learning objects available on our website (http://tmfp.coe.tamu.edu/). Before concluding this meeting, establish a calendar for mentoring sessions and outline tasks/projects/due dates for the next two months or remaining weeks in the semester. However, do not hesitate to contact us if this assignment will not work due to scheduling or other reasons.
Second and third months of semester: We recommend that you and the Technology Fellow begin with a project such as a web-page (if you do not have a web-page) and/or a Track project using the TrackStar tool (an online resource that organizes websites for an instructional lesson for your class or a presentation at a conference. This tool is available at http://trackstar.4teachers.org/trackstar/index.jsp ). It is reasonable that as a team you will plan to develop two or three projects during the coming 6 to 8 weeks in the semester. Also, for project purposes, please approve weekly reports of the Technology Fellow through communicating weekly with the Technology Fellow and share work on tasks as well as discuss strategies for completing the agreed upon tasks.
Fourth through eighth months of project: During the coming semester, you and the Technology Fellow should take stock of tasks completed and needs for integrating technology into your classes. We encourage you to participate in an early Spring Semester seminar with the Technology Fellow on progress and future steps, and then develop a project calendar for the Spring Semester. Finally, remember to continue approving weekly reports of your Technology Fellow and complete an end-of-year Profiler.
These timeline activities for the Technology Fellows and teacher education faculty are consistent with recommendations of a large-scale empirical examination of professional development experiences. Investigators in this study have reported that professional development experiences that emphasize academic subject matter (content), provide opportunities for "hands-on" activities (active learning), are integrated with ongoing classroom operations (coherence), and provide many development experiences for an extended period of time are more likely to produce desired knowledge and skill changes (Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman & Yoon, 2001). Similarly, recommendations from a national survey on the preparation and qualifications of public school teachers by Lewis, et al., (1999) that collaborative activities for professional development include a common planning time, regularly scheduled meeting times, having a formal mentoring relationship, and networking with other teachers outside a single school are consistent with the timeline activities we employed.
3. Continuing Professional Development of Technology Fellows
Technology skills training experiences were provided to Technology Fellows in the project laboratory containing twenty workstations equipped with Microsoft Office Suite software that included graphics and web development applications. The laboratory was open from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday through Friday for Technology Fellows' use in developing learning objects for their faculty partners and upgrading their own skills. During year 2, project staff began developing and implementing online professional development lessons for new Technology Fellows that effectively reduced face-to-face training sessions from 20 hours to 2 hours. Formative evaluation of the training experiences (by staff and the project's external evaluators) indicated the online lessons were very effective training tools. The second year of the project also marked the beginning of Intel training for all Technology Fellows by a project staff member. The Intel curriculum was provided in addition to the initial training experiences that were used when the project began.