In light of our responsibility to take children from one point on their education continuum to a higher level, it is apparent that teachers not only recognize their need to do so but also recognize the need to engage in the process of professional development in the use of technology. Several studies though, have confirmed that teacher's beliefs, preference, perception, attitudes and self-efficacy towards technology use is important for its acceptance in the class. Hence, it is imperative that teachers engage in and view professional development as a means of addressing their needs to help them become more effective practitioners.
Victoria Cunningham
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I believe as educators we need to take part in professional development on a regular basis. There are so many things that are taken place in education that we need to be aware of as teachers and we can do so through professional development.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of ICT they are a number of training programmes that the government have implemented during the holidays to help teachers better cope with the need of students in ICT. It is a petty that just about ten percent of my staff has sign up to do such training. It is sad to see that we are getting necessary training to better prepare for our teaching task and fail to make use of it. I do hope many teachers did seek to utilize the training as it is so needed in teaching to meet the demands of the students that we are teaching.
I therefore endorse the last statement in your blog fully.
In my experience, the words 'Professional Development Day' usually means a workshop that is either irrelevant or uninspiring or an opportunity to take a casual/sick day. I know that sounds horrible but I am just being honest. The in house PDDs should provide insight and inspiration to the staff, it should address local concerns and any skill taught should be linked to the classroom. Having a work shop on the use of webspiration and actually creating a lesson that i can implement would be fantastic.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the programs offered during the vacation, I think that many teachers are not aware of them or become aware of them too late.
Please don't for one minute think that I am not in support of prefessional development. I just think it should be relevant and useful to teachers in their ability to be effective teachers.
Your view is very critical if we are to prepare our children to survive in a technological society and by extension, a technological world. Like you said, teachers must engage in productive professional development programmes to enhance teaching skills so that we can deliver better lessons to our students.
ReplyDeleteThe comments made by Lynette and Khadine are well-founded in that the professional day comes and goes, we get handouts ‘to put in a drawer to read later’ and then what? How many of us apply what we learn from these workshops?
Knowledge brings confidence and confident teachers bring forth confident students. Let us help our fellow teachers to learn about some of the wonderful ‘techno-tools’ like blogs, wikis and podcasts so that we can enhance our lessons and make our children stars of tomorrow.
Denise Sooknanan-Maraj