5 a)

Description - Training, mentoring and developing others

When I changed career from classroom teacher to roles focusing on learning technologies, the one aspect of those jobs which has remained consistently rewarding and challenging in equal measure has been in supporting colleagues. This has taken many forms across a spectrum of formality from scheduled courses leading to certification (Interactive whiteboard courses, EPICT certification) through time-limited interventions or projects to brief, on-the-corridor quick fixes. They all have their place and perform different functions in satisfying different needs, but when effective, result in change in the practice or capability of colleagues. It is helping people to move forward (just as it was when helping students) that provides the rewards for me.

Along the way, I have enjoyed reflecting on my experiences when developing others whether formally as assignments during the Masters programmes or less formally as blog posts. However at the moment I am engaged on a major project which illustrates the range of different techniques and strategies I need to bring to bear when supporting colleagues, so it is that on which I’ll focus. Following a major review, we recently took the decision to move to a learning platform which better suited our changing needs, helped set us on a more fruitful path for the future and which provided a set of affordances better able to help assist in delivering our new eLearning Strategy. Although my role within the project was and remains quite wide-reaching, I’ll restrict my comments to the particular focus chosen for this ‘specialist area.’ Furthermore, the support provided to colleagues extends beyond training and development, also helping them to make the transition from one system to another.

We are currently (as of September 2014) barely eight months into the project as a whole, having recently moved out of the pilot phase into full deployment. The seeds needed to develop colleagues were sown prior to the new platform even being available, by raising awareness following procurement of the platform. The aim here was to attempt to establish a positive mindset and sense of anticipation in readiness for what was to come. A cohort of (mostly) self-selecting Champions to undertake initial training was assembled and my role here was to ensure alignment between our external training provider (from the platform vendor), and our specific local needs. Two full training days were allocated with sessions allocated for teaching staff, the local technical support team and administrative staff. At that point, much of the system was new to me too; I was learning at the same time as colleagues. This was the pilot phase.

My role quickly changed from one of learner, to supporting our champions as they began to explore possibilities and plan and prepare activities for testing the system and its affordances with their students. During this phase we elected not to restrict access just to the Champions, instead opting to offer taster sessions to any colleagues who were interested. These were planned, programmed and delivered by me. This enabled the message to spread more widely, as more positively inclined people came on board. The two groups of people here had very different needs; the Champions were largely confident users of learning technologies and only needed my support when they got stuck. In a sense, I represent the first port of call and despite their confidence, many of them are only beginning to develop self-support strategies, so the support they needed was often of the brief “How do I …” variety. The second group of colleagues who chose to attend the taster sessions comprised colleagues with lower confidence levels, but were open to new possibilities. Providing for their needs meant finding quick wins that could be achieved with minimal time, effort and experience. By winning them over, we were able to increase the number of voices spreading positive messages and who were able to pass on the snippets they had learned to colleagues yet to come on board.

Much of the support during the pilot phase was of a technical nature, geared mainly towards helping people access the features that the platform offered. However a small number of colleagues, emerging from both the aforementioned groups, required a different type of support altogether. Their queries usually began with “I’d like to be able to …” where their approach was on a particular aspect of their curriculum, a specific activity or learning objective. Often these are teachers comfortable and capable in their pedagogical ability, confident that learning technologies can add to their students’ learning experiences, but for a variety of reasons, less well-placed to get themselves into the position of developing the resources needed. My role here is very different and becomes that of facilitator; translating their ideas into a ‘product’ they can use with their students.

The new academic year (starting September 2014) is where we moved into the full launch phase and this opened with learning platform focused professional development sessions for the whole staff. Here the Champions offered sessions which those colleagues who had already gained some experience could opt into to develop their ideas and skills yet further. The Champions now needed a little more support in preparing semi-formal sessions for their colleagues to enjoy. For my part, I targeted those colleagues who for whatever reason, had yet to begin their first tentative steps with the platform; a different approach once more. Some of these are ‘late adopters,’ some ‘laggards’ (Rogers, 2003) and ideally should be supported differently, but reality and practicality often intervene, so were accommodated in a single afternoon session. Here it was a matter of providing small, easily achievable objectives aimed at improving confidence and although the group was clearly too large to give sufficient attention to individuals, employing a ‘buddy’ system meant that all were able to achieve progress they’d perhaps have not thought possible.

As we move forward, the ‘early adopters’ will need ongoing support in the form of technical assistance to ensure their progress isn’t restricted, inspiration to spark new ideas and possibilities and more challenging, higher-level training to push them further. Some of this they should be able to perform themselves as their Community of Practice (Wenger, 1998) develops and part of my role will be in helping to sustain that. Support for the latecomers is more likely to be in the form of continual encouragement, but by avoiding undue pressure and where possible through personal attention and individual support.

Our learning platform is of course not the only learning technology development with which we are currently engaged. It’s the variety of demands generated through supporting colleagues in different ways that makes the role so interesting.

Reflection

Different elements within our programme of developments have enjoyed different levels of success with different sectors of our population. Some of the subject champions have been highly proactive, developing their own projects for use with their students, encouraging their colleagues as individuals and at departmental level and in spreading the word more widely. Others have struggled to make the same level of progress for a variety of reasons, but part of the problem has been how tough it has proven to cultivate the sense of community. The old enemies of ‘time’ and ‘other commitments’ have meant the Champions have been unable to meet en masse and although our learning platform offers the ideal means through which to nurture an online community, many of them are not at the point where they are comfortable in that world.

The one-off session at the start of the year provided an excellent launch platform for the Champions to share what they had learned and that has transferred into new activities being developed by other staff based on what they learned then. In addition, through the introductory session for latecomers, all staff are now at least familiar with the structure and function of the platform and have a better appreciation of the intent behind its use. However unless they then take that forward as individuals and set themselves the challenge of developing a resource or learning activity for their students, what they learned will soon fade. In an attempt to forestall that likelihood, I offered the weekly series of short sessions (PDF) into which anyone could opt. At the beginning of term these were well attended, but as the usual pressures of work mounted, attendance fell; perhaps not surprisingly since they were at lunchtimes. Once more those colleagues who fall into the harder to reach group were least likely to attend.

This then becomes a matter of priorities for us as a school - to what extent is our learning platform of sufficient importance to commit resources to, in the form of time and expectations, and for individuals - how important do they see the learning platform in delivering the targets they have been set or set for themselves.

There is however perhaps an ace being held up our metaphorical sleeve here; that is the students. Once we reach the point where students begin to see the potential the learning platform offers for them to personalise their learning, to become more autonomous and collaborate with their peers, then they may begin to drive the agenda and help staff to see the benefits to be gained. Already we have seen some innovative individuals, seize the opportunity begin to take things into their own hands and suggest to staff how their needs might be better served. With a little support and prompting, I suspect the tipping point will come. This is an area into which I'm looking to invest more time as we move forward as I suspect there may be rich pickings.

In more general terms, serving the needs of colleagues in making good use of a learning platform has allowed my to bring to bear the experiences I’ve encountered and skills I’ve developed during the past dozen years. Back to an early time creating Web-based learning materials to support my teaching of the Physics curriculum, when we had no learning platform and the Web was less user-friendly than it is now. Supporting early iterations of VLEs for use in schools made some aspects of preparing learning pathways easier, yet also introduced new and different challenges. I recognise though that working through all that, surmounting the difficulties and overcoming the barriers has prepared me in a way that formal training and professional development never could. It engendered a degree of self-sufficiency, a ‘can do’ attitude, the capability to search for solutions and find alternatives when necessary. This hopefully means that colleagues shouldn’t have to struggle in the same way and I’m in a position to smooth their path by having an awareness of the difficulties they might face and being able to help them navigate around them. There is of course a case to be made that effective learning is tough, so colleagues should struggle to some extent. The key of course is knowing when and where to push.

To be effective in my role, it’s become clear that I’ve had to develop different areas of expertise and indeed continue to do so. The TPACK Framework provides a helpful lens here. Over the years I’d like to think that my Technical Knowledge has expanded considerably and where I am faced with something new, I would have the means to address the shortcoming, either by developing myself, or by drawing on the expertise of a knowledgeable other. Technical Knowledge needn’t rest solely within me; I hopefully bring to the table networked-knowledge. In addition, with a teaching qualification, twenty years experience in the classroom and ongoing professional learning, I’d also argue my Pedagogical Knowledge is firmly rooted. In the area of Content Knowledge, when working within the field of Science, I’m strongly placed, though less so with other areas of the curriculum. To ensure we effectively provide for our learners needs and that the technologies we have at our disposal have the biggest impact, we need to aim to be working within the TPACK intersection, using strong pedagogical, technical and content knowledge. This is why I feel that the partnership which develops between a colleague and me when we collaborate on a project can be so strong; we both bring something to the table and together have the requisite Technical, Pedagogical and Content Knowledge.

[Image reproduced by permission of the publisher, © 2012 by tpack.org]

References

Rogers, E.M., 2003. Diffusion of Innovations, 5th ed. ed. Simon and Schuster, London.

Wenger, E., 1998. Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.; New York, N.Y.

Evidence to support my claim to this specialist area arise from different strands:

Certifications

These can be found in Section 2a, or directly - EPICT Facilitator, Promethean Whiteboard Trainer.

From the outcomes of Masters' assignments (see files listed below)

The Triples Programme: Exploring new ways of supporting teachers using ICTs to enhance learning

Using social bookmarking to introduce teachers to the potential of Web 2.0

Reflective blog posts

Thinking about teacher attitudes to technology

How do U do CPD?

The best things in life are(n't always) free

How many learning technologists do you know?

Feedback from colleagues on current learning platform support

[Link for those unable to view the above audio player]

A selection of resources produced to support colleagues:

Videos

'How to...' instructions

Realsmart cheatsheet from IaninSheffield