Faculty Development

"There's an old saying in education, that 'teachers teach as they were taught,'" says James Lehman, PT3 Project Director at Purdue University's School of Education. "And if our student teachers only see faculty members lecturing, they're likely to just lecture. But if they see their faculty members using technology in effective ways, they're going to use technology in effective ways as well."

Encouraging faculty to learn how to integrate technology into their teaching can be challenging, as most PT3 grantees can confirm. Faculty have time constraints and are often comfortable with the way that things are currently being done. They may not see the value in changing tried and true courses, or the benefit to themselves in sacrificing the time or effort to make the change. There may not be encouragement or recognition from the administration, or respected role models within the department who are leading the way.

With all the factors potentially hindering success, if the "change agents" who are organizing faculty development don't effectively answer the "why bother_" question, success will be far more elusive.

That is why faculty development requires careful planning. There isn't a "one size fits all" solution to motivating and training faculty. Simply scheduling a one-time training workshop or even a series of workshops will likely fail.

As with the PT3 grant at University of Nevada - Las Vegas (UNLV), truly effective faculty development involves a mix of training activities, approaches and strategies that are based on the faculty's needs. According to Neal Strudler, PT3 Director for the UNLV, several "promising practices" have emerged in exemplary teacher education programs related to integrating technology. These included committed leadership from administrators, specialized group training, one-on-one technology support from technology staff development specialists as well as undergraduate and graduate students. As a teacher preparation program plans for its faculty development component, it needs to include the following critical components.

Critical Components of Any Faculty Development Plan:

1. Start with needs assessment. Find out what your colleagues' current knowledge and skill level is and plan accordingly. Faculty are likely not be motivated to learn new technology if their current training needs are not being met. Early and ongoing needs assessment, via surveys, testing, or one-to-one interaction is a key ingredient in developing successful faculty development.

   At the University of Missouri Saint Louis, the premium placed on assessment of individual needs has been visible in almost every aspect of its PT3 project. "Project Director Joe Polman and I met together or individually with each instructor," UMSL's PT3 Project Coordinator Jan Mastin recalls. "We would talk to instructors and find out how they taught their classes, what went into their teaching, and what their ideas were for incorporating technology, instead of the other way around." These discussions with faculty members ultimately led to the creation of what Mastin terms a "technology menu," literally a smorgasbord of training programs from which to choose, developed in concert with feedback provided by the faculty.

2. Understand that faculty development is much more than software training. Technical skills training is just the tip of the iceberg in faculty development. The greater need is for training and guidance on how, when, and why to integrate technology into learning. The pedagogical aspects of technology integration must be emphasized.
3. Track results. If you don't track your results, you won't be able to improve your program or attract support for it. UNLV's "Project THREAD" carefully evaluates every aspect of its project, and adjusts accordingly. (See Project Thread's evaluation matrix.)

PT3 Grantee Approaches to Faculty Development

PT3 grantees have experimented with numerous approaches to faculty development. They report the most success with the approaches listed below:

• Mentoring - At Fresno Pacific University (FPU) and many other PT3 grant schools, premier K-12 teachers who are champions of technology in the classroom are mentoring faculty on a one-to-one partnership basis. Before the K-12 technology mentors became involved, Fresno project coordinator Terry Bese found that faculty would abandon a technology idea if help were not immediately available. "Now they have a K-12 partner who is co-teaching some of the technology lessons." Other mentoring approaches that "invert the paradigm" include the use of tech-savvy graduate students to provide support for faculty. (See also: Texas Tech University.
• Workshops - Workshops are the bread and butter of faculty development. The key to successful workshops is in the design. Here again, needs assessment is critical, as is evaluation. Many grantees have found that summer workshops are an ideal format for faculty development. However, these sessions must be structured intelligently. An example is Purdue University, whose summer workshop series is designed to immerse faculty in real-life challenges that can be addressed by using technology.
• Design Teams - The PT3 project at Michigan State University is institutionalizing a different approach toward faculty development. The project staff created the "Design Community," where faculty members work in project-based design teams to tackle technology integration projects of interest to them. Design community teams include preservice teachers, teacher educators, inservice teachers, content area faculty, and educational technology staff who can provide on-demand support.
• One-on-one attention - In order to address differing individual needs, a number of PT3 grantees provide one-on-one training. "One of the reasons we've been so successful is the individual attention we've been able to give to our faculty," says Terry Bese, Project Coordinator, Fresno Pacific University. "We're not just grouping our professors into categories and sending them to training. Building on their strengths while identifying their weaknesses has been our key," he says. According to James Lehman, PT3 Project Director at Purdue University, "It's the one-on-one follow up that's the most successful." Purdue's project staff are assigned to specific faculty members to keep them on track and focused.

Neal Strudler, Project Director at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, is confident that the faculty development project at UNLV has laid the foundation for systemic change that will help sustain the initiatives into the future. He also sees the effect of the program on UNLV's faculty and preservice teachers. "Things are changing," states Strudler. "Technology is becoming part of the conversation, and synergy is definitely happening."

Resources:

Birman, B.F., Desimone, L., Porter, A.C. & Garet, M.S. (2000) Designing professional development that works. Educational Leadership, May, pp. 28-33.

Ronnkvist, A., Dexter, S. L., & Anderson, R. E. (2000). Technology Support: Its Depth, Breadth and Impact in America's School. Technology, Learning, and Computing: 1998 National Survey, Report #5. Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations, University of California Irvine, June, pp. 1-29.

Strudler, N., & Wetzel, K. Lessons from exemplary colleges of education: Factors affecting technology integration in preservice programs. Educational Technology Research and Development, 47(4), 63-81.