When my school installed Promethean ActivBoards a few years ago, most of the teachers in the school were excited and more than willing to learn the technology associated with it. Many of them would seek out ideas beyond just the regular training on how to better and more effectively use it in the classroom. One teacher however, was highly resistant to the technology. She even "volunteered" to be without an ActivBoard in her classroom, however, she ended up with one anyways. Every year the staff is offered re-fresher training and other things to help them use the technology more effectively and every year she just continues to push back against the technology. Her general attitude towards it is that the technology is hurting the brains of the students and that there is simply no use for it in the classroom.
Using the Keller ARCS model, I would enhance the relevance of the technology to her as a science teacher (Driscoll, 2005). There are so many tools and simulations that she could use with her students to enhance her instruction and really engage her students in learning. I think this would also help to build her confidence in using the technology. As she sees it assisting her students in learning, she will be able to increase her use and proficiency with the technology. Perhaps as she uses the technology in the classroom with greater and greater success, she will eventually begin to seek out additional supplemental trainings like many of the other teachers in the school already have.
References:
Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Sara,
ReplyDeletePerhaps your co-worker needs to audit some classes using the Promethean Board. This usually gets the message across in a very real and relevant way.
Hi, Sara, one of the suggestions I make to my teachers while I was the Instructional Technology Coach was to watch You Tube. There are virtually thousands of videos about Promethean and Smart Boards available.
ReplyDeleteSara
ReplyDeleteWhen we had our last training of the school year on the Smartboard, which was in April, we still had some teachers not using their boards, but our principal told them they had to use them and she would be in the classroom to do an observation of the use of the Smartboard within the classroom. Needless to say all of the teachers starting using their Smartboards.