[NOTE: Apparently there were some folks waiting to read about my preliminary conclusions, including my own mother (hi mom!). So, here's part 1...]

THEME #1: TIME

In analyzing the multiple forms of data collected from the technology integration specialists, principals and teachers, one word that comes up over and over again is “time.” It surfaces in a number of different contexts and in a number of different ways.

TIME (AMOUNT) WITH TEACHERS
One of the real challenges for the technology integration specialists is finding time to work with the teachers. In part, decisions about spending time with teachers are dictated by how the TIS position is structured. For example, for a TIS scheduled into a school one day per week, there is less available time per teacher than the TIS scheduled into one school full-time. However, there are TISs who have part-time appointments who spend more time with individual teachers than many of the technology integration specialists who spend all of their time in a single school. For research purposes, this is largely a “measurement” issue (i.e. the unit of analysis should be the teacher and how much time each teacher spends with the TIS, not the school and how much time a TIS spends in a school).

There is also, however, a related policy issue. Consider the approaches of two different technology integration specialists who each work in one school full-time. One TIS working in a middle school schedules regular (roughly monthly) professional development workshops after school in addition to attending weekly grade-level planning meetings to offer ideas as curriculum and teaching decisions are discussed. This TIS also makes himself available throughout the school day for teachers who have ideas or questions. Another TIS works full-time in an elementary school. He houses himself in the computer lab and makes himself available to teachers who schedule their students into the lab. He passes along ideas to teachers by e-mail and sees himself as a resource that teachers can take advantage of. He says that he can “always drum up business,” but he has not done much of that. The former TIS is clearly spending more time per-teacher than the latter, even though both are assigned to a single school full-time.

Thus, TISs need to be thinking about maximizing time with teachers, even within organizational constraints. One TIS stood out as particularly efficient. She works two days per week in each of two schools. The schools, though, are very small; there are about 10 total classroom teachers in each school. In addition, the county hired a half-time floating substitute teaching position. So, each teacher is scheduled to bring her/his students to the computer lab for one-half hour each day that the TIS is in the school. Each time the students come to the computer lab, the floating substitute becomes the instructor/supervisor. The teacher, who ultimately makes the decision about curricular elements covered in the lab that day while the substitute simply supervises and facilitates, meets with the TIS at that time. Thus, each teacher gets one hour (1/2 hour, two times per week) of one-on-one time with the TIS per week. That floating substitute position seems a particularly cost-effective way to afford teachers individualized professional development time with the TIS.

Many of the TISs offer professional development opportunities in small or large group formats, either before school, after school or during scheduled continuing education days. When probed about these experiences, however, they were almost always de-emphasized. Often, there was mention of low turnout. Some counties began to offer incentives for teachers to attend these group trainings, sometimes to not much avail. One principal, during an interview, insisted that no pedagogical change would come unless the training was one-to-one. He insisted that the TIS embed herself into the classroom with teachers as often as possible. This privileging of one-to-one professional development was common across schools.

TIMING OF PD
Also indicated in the discussion of “time with teachers” is that not only does the amount of time a given teacher spends with a TIS vary, but so does the format of the interactions. Professional development can happen one-on-one, in small groups and as a full faculty. Professional development can happen before school, during the school day, and/or after school. Professional development can also occur online, which changes the relevance of time altogether. Thus, the combinations of professional development opportunities are numerous.

More importantly, though, is the notion of “just-in-time” professional development. The West Virginia Office of Educational Technology has emphasized “just-in-time” training for almost all of their large-scale, statewide initiatives. For example, when the state enters into a statewide contract with a new integrated learning system, all teachers in the state are trained in the new system. Over the course of this past year, many of the schools in the study purchased and installed interactive white boards. Not surprisingly, then, every TIS interviewed spoke of the training they did with the teachers this year on the use of the interactive white boards. Similarly, by virtue of being embedded into the school, the TIS can work with the teachers to offer ideas on how to supplement what they are currently or planning on doing with technology. The one TIS who sits in on all of the common planning meetings is there specifically to offer “just-in-time” training.

This privileging of “just-in-time” training may seem obvious to some, but it stands in stark contrast to the typical practice of offering school- or district-wide training on some aspect of technology that may or may not be useful for a given teacher. It is not uncommon for schools to offer PD workshops on, for example, using spreadsheets. If a teacher has no immediate plans to teach anything for which spreadsheets might work, that learning opportunity is likely to go to waste.

TIME IN POSITION
When West Virginia first started using EETT funds to support the hiring of the TISs across the state, they imagined a sort of “turnkey” model whereby the TIS would train the teachers for a whole year, give them the foundation to move forward on their own, and then move on to another school or set of schools. However, when I first had the opportunity to empirically examine the role of the TIS, through a federally funded study, one of the main conclusions was that the “turnkey” model was not realistic. While the TIS was able to change some attitudes and behaviors of teachers during their first year, the real changes happened where the TIS was able to stay on for a second year. There are probably a number of explanations for this, but TIS repeatedly reported spending their first year learning their new position. Not only were they often moving from teaching kids in classrooms to teaching adults outside the classroom, but many of them were also starting in a brand new school.

During this last set of site visits, many of the principals interviewed either explicitly stated that the grant that funds the TIS should be for two years or they expressed great disappointment that the TIS would have to leave after the first year. Additionally, some of the counties realized the value of the TIS position and decided to devote local funds to support the position beyond the first year.

Two TISs have been working in their county as a TIS for five years now. Their county has been consistently getting grants from the state, but each time for a TIS in a new set of schools. So, these two TISs have been working each year as a TIS but in different schools every year. In some cases, they have been able to return to the school in which they worked the prior year, but only intermittently. These TISs will tell you that they continue to get better as staff developers which is great for the teachers with whom they currently work, but is unfortunate for the schools and teachers that worked with these TISs in their first year or two.

Technological advances outpace curricular and pedagogical innovation. Just because teachers work in a school where a technology integration specialist works for a year does not mean the teachers become so proficient as to become fully independent users and learners of all that is new and possible with technology. That sort of change takes more than one year of work from a TIS.

In sum, a content review of all of the data collected about the role of the TIS and about the facilitation of technology integration suggests “time” as a major theme. Essentially, for a TIS to most effectively facilitate technology integration, she or he needs time to learn the position and as much time, as individualized as possible, to work with teachers. And, to the degree possible, their work should be contemporaneous with newly available technology and with current curricular objectives. In other words, the training should be “just-in-time.”

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Tags: technology integration