Provide ongoing, embedded professional learning opportunities for teachers

Before teachers can integrate technology in their classrooms effectively, they need training on how to incorporate new pedagogical approaches and strategies using technology¹. Multiple teacher surveys and studies both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic have reported that many teachers in the U.S. do not have enough experience, resources, or training to use technology in the most impactful ways. Teachers who serve low-income schools have fewer resources resulting in a greater need for training in how to use technology².

According to the 2017 National Education Technology Plan, many teacher education programs do not provide the preparation future teachers need to use technology to support teaching, learning, and classroom management. The in-service PD opportunities offered in many districts often are traditional one-time workshops that do not provide sufficient time to help teachers effectively use technology in their specific context³.

Creating an environment where teachers are supporting one another in learning and implementing new teaching strategies, tools, and frameworks throughout the year will both increase collaboration among teachers and help to spread best practices. This environment can be created and maintained through the use of instructional technology coaches, teams of teacher leaders, or other systems of support.

Research in the area of adult learning has identified four key principles for high-quality teacher learning activities⁴:

1. Use of concrete experiences (i.e., coherence): Activities that are explicitly linked to curriculum teachers use, their classroom/school context, and their individual needs and interests.
2. Continuously available feedback (i.e., sustained duration): Activities that provide teachers with sufficient time to learn and reflect on strategies that improve their practice.
3. Encouragement of teachers to take on new and complex roles (i.e., active learning): Activities that provide teachers with opportunities to get hands-on experiences in designing and/or trying new instructional strategies.
4. Collaboration (i.e., collective participation): Activities that give teachers the opportunities to share their ideas, work collaboratively, and help with each other’s learning.

These four principles are needed for effective PD opportunities around technology integration and use⁵.

Having a framework for teacher practice, such as the Technology Integration Matrix from the University of South Florida’s Florida Center for Technology Integration and frameworks for designing student educational experiences like Digital Promise’s Powerful Learning principles will help to support and guide the ongoing professional learning practice engaging coaches and teachers.

Strategies for success:

• Harness the power of instructional technology coaches: Evidence across multiple studies shows that instructional coaching can provide teachers with high-quality opportunities to effectively learn different practices, including meaningful use of technology⁶. A successful instructional technology coaching program is sustained, job-embedded PD structured around active participation of teachers. Our research on the VILS program shows that by harnessing the power of instructional technology coaches, districts can help educators not only use technology more frequently but also more skillfully.
• Leverage the expertise of teacher leaders: At smaller schools, instructional technology coaches can provide sustained support in use of technology by coaching all teachers consistently, without sacrificing their reach. However, in larger schools there is a dilemma of depth versus reach. Moreover, in Title I schools, there often is high teacher turnover. These schools are at risk of losing sustained culture change in using technology as part of teaching and learning. In districts where budgets and other limitations prevent hiring dedicated instructional technology coaches, leaders can build and maintain a network of change agents comprised of teachers who have already received coaching support. These teachers can collectively take on the responsibilities and professional development support normally provided by the coach. By offering their knowledge and experiences in team meetings, sharing resources and tools, and opening their classroom doors to their colleagues for observations, these teacher leaders can extend the reach of the coach while also building coherence across grade levels and departments.
• Provide opportunities for peer-led professional learning: Another strategy is to implement peer demonstration classrooms that allow teachers to use new tools and teaching strategies while being observed by peers who can provide feedback and get ideas about how to use those same tools and strategies in their own classrooms. Posting a calendar in a common space for teachers allows them to select which rooms to visit based on what new tool or strategy will be shared.