WLE Centre for ExcellenceInstitute of EducationUniversity of London20 Bedford WayLondon WC1H 0AL

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ICT CPD for primary and secondary school teachers A study for Becta

UCET November 2009

Caroline Daly

Norbert Pachler

Caroline Pelletier

A persistent ‘deficit’?

• Despite considerable resources being dedicated to developing the use of ICT in schools in recent years, there is a lack of impact on teachers’ everyday practice, or what Becta has described as a ‘significant deficit’ (The Harnessing Technology Review, 2008)

• This is despite the vast majority of teachers receiving some form of ICT CPD according to national surveys

• This is despite considerable mobilisation of money and resources for ICT in schools

Literature review Two persistent and difficult factors:

• Policy tensions (Hardy, 2008; Pearson and Naylor, 2006)

– Between ICT policy and other policy demands– Within ICT policy-making

• Deep-seated beliefs and dispositions among teachers (Belland, 2009; Hammond, 2009;

Cogill, 2008)– Need to change experiential evidence for beliefs– Need deep, intellectual engagement with ideas as well as skills– Enquiry has a role to play

Teachers at the centre

They are the main agents of change. They need to ‘make sense’ of their learning experiences to be able to take action

CPD is about changes in them as persons as well as teachers – the two are joint aspects of professional identity

How teachers “manage and ride the waves of change” (Day, 2000) are at the centre of any future education that meets the needs of young people

We need to properly understand how teachers learn in order to design effective CPD

Semi-structured interviews with• 26 teachers• 13 headteachers/senior leaders• 9 ICT co-ordinators/e-learning leaders• 17 ICT providers

• One to one interviews• Telephone interviews• Focus groups of teachers

Project findings• A fragmented general picture of ICT CPD among the whole

range of provision (school-based, Local Authority, CLC, commercial, subject/professional association).

• Extremely effective CPD provision both in-house and externally provided but very localised and not much evidence that effective provision in one site has an impact anywhere else.

• Skills training is not enough…

The incorporation of group work, collaborative problem-solving, independent thinking, articulation of thought and creative presentation of ideas are examples of the ways in which teachers’ CPD might focus on pedagogy. The CPD design itself should incorporate these kinds of activities using ICT, so that teachers can experience active learning for themselves as part of their professional development.

School-based CPD• The majority of CPD is school-based. Design features

include:• Compulsory formal ‘INSET’ sessions for all staff• Compulsory small group sessions for staff who share subject or phase

backgrounds• Optional after-school CPD sessions on specific software• Brief ‘tasters’ or briefings at staff meetings to provide updates on new

software.• Many of these involved external providers

There was evidence of effective CPD in schools which showed evidence of a professional learning community…

ICT CPD within schools as learning communities• Effective leadership which focused on inclusive and democratic

approaches to deciding the CPD agenda: ‘vision sharing’• Focus on individual needs as well as school priorities• Deployment of ‘non-expert’ staff as key players in CPD• Use of small groups to plan and review teaching together• High differentiation• Frequent talk among staff about their practice• Inclusion of whole workforce in CPD activities (buying in TA hours)• Divide between primary and secondary schools on deployment of ICT

co-ordinators in CPD• Easier to achieve within primary school contexts – the ‘walk through’

Ineffective school-based ICT CPD• This was reported to be the experience of nearly all the teachers

• Lack of leadership vision or only ‘vision delivery’

• Focus on skills development – boredom with ‘practising’

• Lack of relevance to own classroom and subject areas

• No time to think and discuss how to use the technology for learning

• No opportunities to observe how other teachers use technologies

• Where external providers were involved, lack of prior negotiation about individual needs

Inward-looking school-based CPD• Extremely inward-looking ICT CPD was a trend

• Teachers never left the school to see other practice

• Leadership convinced they have the only solutions necessary

• Complacency and reluctance among leaders to be open to other ways of working

• Suspect practices advocated as ideal because school results improve

• Often strong links with commercial companies and MSPs who provide the total CPD environment geared to their products

CollaborationHighLow

Players involved

School-

based

External

Vision-sharingVision-delivery

in-house whole school INSET sessionsin-house expert modelling‘one size fits all’ provisionone-off sessionsskills trainingincorporating ICT into a fixed curriculumreproducing ‘best practice’activities shaped by school development planfixed staff roles for ICT CPD addressing deficits in generic skills audits

shared school development planningpeer demonstrationpeer observationmentoring bybreak-time, lunch-time and after-school talk voluntary CPD leadership ‘non-experts’using pupil expertiseworking flexibly with the curriculumshared critical reflectiondigital creativity‘playing with kit’group work - ‘mixed ability’shared lesson planninginformal talk

course-basedlearning pre-determined skillsexpert modellingreproducing ‘best practice’demonstration by expertsresponding to skills audits‘one size fits all’ provisionaccreditationmastery of new technologies

extensive planningcomparing practice across schoolsonline collaborationusing Web 2.0 to collaborate and share resourcesteacher enquiryvisits to other schoolsexperts collaborating in classshared critical reflectionpeer discussion digital creativity‘playing with kit’group work - ‘mixed ability’shared lesson planninginformal talkaccreditation

CPD providers interviewed

• ASTs / LAs / CLCs• Professional associations• Hardware and software developers

Barriers to ICT CPD – providers’ views• Problem is not the lack of money or the lack of kit – the issue is

organisational• ICT is not a priority on inspection schedules – superficial CPD agenda• Lack of CPD time beyond bursts of ‘INSET’ or occasional days• CPD not commercially viable – not valued, and expensive for schools• Changing/conflicting policy priorities – difficulty in articulating needs• Increasing standardisation of teaching – anti-experimentation ethos• Emphasis on remedying deficit rather than achieving excellence • Fragmented market and fragmented products – many CPD providers

in each school, many types of kit. • Difficulty of moving on from the teaching of technical skills

Aspects of CPD models which were reported to work

• A long-term CPD strategy: the developmental model, the ‘withdrawal’ model, the ‘researching practice’ model – requires upfront investment / intellectual engagement

• An integrated approach to ICT, not a product focus – favours hardware suppliers, large companies, LAs, professional associations

• Establishing long-term relationships with schools, teachers, LAs• Training of senior leaders, not just teachers• Choice of CPD for teachers individually – innovation rather than deficit

treatment

Local Authorities• Huge inconsistencies in reports of CPD experiences• ‘the provision is amazing’, ‘[the school managers] think the LA has not

got much to teach us’ ‘the LA doesn’t like our school’ • Examples of LAs taking the lead in proactive ways through

– a ‘brokering’ role in deployment of ASTs– the use of ASTs with high credibility levels– highly differentiated CPD based on auditing needs– focus on in-class CPD and ‘real world’ implementation – essential compensation for poor in-house provision

But…..

• School leaders and teachers did not like LA restrictive policies on firewalls, accessing YouTube

• LA policies on use of laptops for personal internet access was criticised

• Some leaders thought they were ‘way ahead’ of the LA • Some school leaders adopted a shared responsibility to

‘give back’ to the LA and provide dissemination and CPD• Others did not want to have anything to do with outsiders.

Supporting other schools was not their way of doing things

CLCs• There was evidence of some excellent CPD practice in

London boroughs where some schools were unable to provide effective CPD

• Approaches were extremely varied, including

– a year long programme of enquiry-based CPD, based on Web 2.0– an online accredited course in media creation– a programme of after-school weekly courses in a variety of software

which was very highly praised and over-subscribed

We need to find out more about the future of CLCs and their impact on CPD.

The Transformation Teachers Programme (TTP)

• One of the most deprived London boroughs with high levels of socio-economic disadvantage and teacher turnover

• Run by a City Learning City with expert provision both technically and pedagogically

• A strong vision of ICT CPD as

– Collaborative

– Critically informed

– Personalised

– Based on enquiry

The programme • Heads from every secondary and special school in the borough

nominate 2 teachers to take part (24-28 teachers per year)• Web 2.0 is a basis for CPD pedagogy• Mixture of generic skills training and personalised choices• ‘Having kit’ is essential – Macbooks with PC and Mac platforms,

digital cameras, visualisers, voting kits plus range of software• Teacher enquiry is built in from the start• Teachers work with ‘triads’ in their schools (2 teachers + SL)• Fronter VLE is used to host the project and share outcomes• The TTP participants become ‘transformation’ leaders in their

schools – not ICT experts

Collaboration is a core strategy Builds on a community of practice model (Wenger, 1998)

– Talk within practice– Informal as well as formal learning– Variety of social groupings for learning (within schools; cross-school

local ‘cluster’ meetings; CLC cohort sessions, option sessions)– ‘Bottom up’ as well as expert-driven – Permeable boundaries (developing practice across contexts – at the

CLC; in own classrooms; with wider staff in school)– Local Authority ICT advisor and HE partners have supportive roles – Web 2.0 is part of the collaborative strategy

Two significant contextual factors affecting forms of ICT CPD

• The shift to school-based provision– Gains and losses

• The impact of commercial providers– Gains and losses

Summary recommendations1. CPD needs to be designed on the basis of meeting teachers’

individual needs as a priority.

2. Collaborative approaches should be core to design.

3. School leaders should be encouraged to value outward-looking relationships in their approach to ICT CPD.

4. Subject specialism needs to be catered for on a much wider scale than is currently the case.

5. There is a need for (some) school leaders to learn about learning communities within schools to support ICT CPD.

6. Strong recommendations need to be made regarding the purchasing of hardware to support CPD & student learning.

7. Rationalisation is needed of the amount and diversity of policy-making both within ICT and across education.

8. There should be a commissioned study of the contribution made by CLCs to ICT CPD.

9. There should be a commissioned study of the impact of commercial providers on ICT CPD.

10.There should be a scoping study of the current use of online professional development communities for ICT CPD and the potential of online learning and Web 2.0.

Summary of key principles of effective ICT CPDShared practice, collaborative & critical a range of participants, locations and formats for collaborative worka variety of stakeholders have a role to play

Enquiry-based CPD needs to be focused on individual learner needs. Critical, reflective

processes should be embedded in learning activities. This is needed to overcome the ‘implementation dip’ (Fullan, 2001)

HE has a role to play in supporting CPD based on teacher enquiry

Embedded within school ethos of learning and teachingSchool leaders need to be fully engaged with CPD processes throughoutLeadership which is informed, distributed and principled

Integration of personal and professional use of technologies Access to Web 2.0 and flexible and informal as well as formal learning

Summary of effective core design principles• Shorter, smaller, more frequent CPD engagements • Flexibility & meaningful choices about the focus of ICT CPD • Skills training using Web 2.0 to underpin shared learning

processes, and having individualised options• Working in groups – within and across schools/subjects• Equipment and up-to-date software for teachers’ long-term

skills development, to integrate personal/professional use • Time for teachers to participate in enquiry-based CPD• Responsive support for technology skills training is essential.

Provision should be sufficiently flexible to support planned needs as they arise. Support does not have to be purely the responsibility of schools – creative LA support can help

• Teachers need to be valued in tangible ways

Issues/challenges• Informal, genuinely enquiry-based and collaborative practices for

teachers and students require fundamental shifts in the ways that learning (for students and teachers) is currently organised in schools

• The roles of ‘catalysts’ within effective learning communities for technology-related CPD are vital and complex. CPD practices are not necessarily ‘transposable’ or ‘transferable’

• How teachers appropriate technologies in their personal/social lives impacts on their use in the classroom but is not harnessed

• The role of a variety of stakeholders in models for ICT CPD needs to be better understood

• Financing CPD which is long-term and transformational is costly in time and HR