Abstract
Technology-based staff
development helps teachers meet the demands of educating 21st-century
students by supporting and encouraging teachers to integrate technology
effectively into their curricula. The authors use online java applets
as a staff development tool. The professional development model in this
article provides just-in-time assistance as middle school teachers locate
applets, integrate them into their scope and sequence, implement lessons,
and evaluate student success. Teachers report that math and science
applets have increased their pedagogical and content specific skills
as well as their self-efficacy in integrating technology into their
curricula. Applets permit interactive exploration of math topics, encourage
discovery learning, strengthen students' visual literacy skills, reveal
students' misconceptions and learning difficulties, and promote a deeper
understanding of difficult mathematical concepts. These data are promising
and show that instructional technology succeeds when it is supported
by school leadership and aligned with standards, curriculum, teacher
professional development, and assessments.
Introduction
No Child Left Behind mandates
adequate yearly progress for students and implies the need for professional
development for teachers in content, pedagogy, and content specific
pedagogy so that teachers cultivate the abilities and resources to educate
21st century students. Creating professional development opportunities
that not only enhance teachers' content and pedagogical skills, produce
meaningful, measurable student results, and integrate technology across
the curriculum is challenging. Golden (2004) points to the way “technology
is fundamentally changing education, making the classroom more student-centered
and learning more student-driven” (p. 1) and recommends integrating
technology with ongoing professional development.
Students using platonic solids applet from National Library of Virtual Manipulatives
We began our study with two
interesting problems: student math scores were low and teachers' integration
of technology into their curriculum was minimal. Our middle school students'
math scores on the state's standardized test hovered perilously at the
40th percentile, clearly a score unacceptable to our many stakeholders.
Our goal was to design an ongoing program of professional development
that would target improvement in both of these areas. Becker (1994)
suggested that teachers use computers more effectively when they have
access to high levels of teacher technology training and ongoing support
from technology coordinators. Based on Becker's advice, our site-based
professional development involved collaboration, mentoring, and coaching
in which teachers from all disciplines used math applets to improve
students' math achievement.
Rationale for Professional Development of Teachers
Our professional development model provided peer coaching and ongoing, just-in-time support for novice, developing, and technology-implementing teachers. It involved job-embedded training in which technologists worked with teachers to plan, implement, and assess technology-integrated lessons. We recruited math teachers and non-math teachers to work together to develop, implement, and assess the program. Although work was done in all content areas, this article focused on improving students' math scores while simultaneously encouraging technology-shy and technology-resistant teachers to use applets with their students. Applets, as discussed in this article, are interactive, animated objects that learners manipulate to construct their own understandings of specific science and math concepts. Math applets are free and widely available on the Internet.
Our first professional development goal involved math teachers in selecting applets that would strengthen areas of weakness within the math curriculum. During the first stage, technologists worked collaboratively with teachers to identify student weaknesses in math. Using disaggregated data, teachers selected five targets for improvement in student math scores.
Next, teachers located websites with applets for the targeted deficits: platonic solids, factorization, transformation, and 3-D visualization and the relationships among percents, fractions, and decimals. Teachers then developed a sequence for using the applets. Finally, the teachers pioneered a program using selected animated manipulatives with a limited number of students in tutoring sessions. Success with these colorful, user-friendly applets for reinforcing concepts, encouraging exploration, and promoting higher order thinking among students, paved the way for teachers expanded use of the applets.
Our second professional development goal was to improve self-efficacy of teachers towards integration of technology into their own content areas. Our plan involved enlisting the help of non-math teachers to bring students into the computer labs to use the math applets. We could do this because our teachers were grouped as “blocks” of teachers. Each block of five teachers included math, science, history, language arts, and reading instructors. From the onset, technology integration among our teachers ranged from full acceptance, to timidity, to outright refusal. Our goal was to scaffold successful technology integration, group support, and productive student-engagement for our technology timid and refusing staff. Our success was a credit to the math teachers' leadership and the support that they received from their blocks. Teachers' cohesiveness and willingness to support each other helped them overcome their timidity and reassess their willingness and ability to integrate technology into their own curriculum.
Students using
interactive math
tools at BrainAbility.
“Block” teachers were responsible for the same group of students each day. Student groups varied among blocks but usually ranged from 150-180 students. Teachers within a block had common planning time, and an advisory period each day during which time all teachers reinforced math skills. Normally, math teachers prepared packets of materials for the other teachers to use during advisory period. We proposed that non-math teachers would bring their students into the computer labs during advisory period to use the math applets. The technologists and math teachers would implement a pretest, engage the students in the use of the applets, and then administer a post-test. Although the non-math teachers were there in a supervisory capacity, they were encouraged to observe, participate, and explore the math applets with their students. We anticipated that the engaging nature of the applets would not only motivate students but also help teachers overcome their technology-timidity. We further anticipated that observing successful collaboration would cultivate a desire on the part of non-math teachers to integrate applets into their own content areas.
Rationale for Using Math Applets
Research finds that applets
allow for interactive exploration of math topics, encourage discovery
learning, and strengthen students' visual spatial visualization skills
(Keller, Wasburn-Moss, & Hart, 2002). Applets often expose students'
misconceptions and learning difficulties and promote a deeper understanding
of difficult mathematical concepts.
By using online, interactive math applets, we were able to implement a professional development model that enabled teachers to develop their awareness of visual learning (Ahmad & Farnam, 2004). The primary reasons we used applets were: 1) students' success rates, and 2) turn-around time from initial teacher training to classroom implementation and assessment. Additionally, we felt that non-math teachers also would find applets easily adaptable into their content areas.
Figure 1. Platonic solid Net Diagram created by Francois Labelle.
Applets varied in level of sophistication. While some were mere animations, others allowed students to manipulate variables and observe responses. For direct instruction in a single computer classroom, teachers projected applets onto a screen, but we felt that the power of the applets for our experiment would best be manifest in a computer lab, allowing each student independently to manipulate applets and engage in authentic inquiry.
