@article{fb5d5f464620487881fce5ae021e05db,
title = "Professional Development 2.0: Transforming Teacher Education Pedagogy with 21st Century Tools",
abstract = "This paper discusses the outcomes of a professional development project offered to faculty of Arizona State University{\textquoteright}s College of Teacher Education and Leadership. The goal of this project was to assist instructors with progressing technologies and to help them transform their pedagogy to leverage the affordances provided through the integration of Web 2.0 tools. Through the redesign of an instructional unit to incorporate social networking, instructors experienced positive outcomes. Findings suggest that the benefits of integrating social networking tools used in a meaningful way while carefully considering how they fit within specific content areas and teaching methodologies included increased feedback for students and a more student-centered approach to teaching. These are important considerations for teacher education programs of the 21st century.",
keywords = "TPACK, and technological pedagogical content knowledge, professional development, social networking",
author = "Leanna Archambault and Keith Wetzel and Teresa Foulger and {Kim Williams}, Mia",
note = "Funding Information: With an understanding of the collaborative possibilities provided by Web 2.0, progres sive university instructors have begun to dabble with how to make use of the myriad of social networking tools in their teaching. However, it is difficult for faculty to imagine what possibilities of implementing such technology exist when they are constrained by old paradigms of teaching (Kuhn, 1970). Even with these confines, Garrison and Akyol (2009) note a recent shift toward collaborative constructivist approaches in university coursework, possibly because {"}the idea of sustained learning communities made possible with new and emerging instructional technologies is challenging passive learning environments in higher education{"} (p. 20). It is true that university instructors who adopt this way of thinking about teaching and learning are pioneering the movement toward a collaborative pedagogy. At this early stage, little exists in the literature to help them proactively address transformative changes in their teaching as they work to build and sustain learning communities through their coursework (Hemmi, Bayne, & Land, 2009). This is why professional development opportunities to assist faculty with benefits of increasing their technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) (Mishra & Koehler, 2006) are important in transforming teaching practices in order to capitalize on the affordance of social networking tools. Mary Lou Fulton Teachers' College (MLFTC) (formerly know as the College of Teacher Education and Leadership) at Arizona State University has a rich history of supporting faculty efforts to integrate and implement future educators' technology, pedagogy, and content area knowledge. According to Mari Koerner, Dean of MLFTC, {"}We understand the importance of technology being integrated into the very fabric, if you will, the DNA, of what we dd' (AACTE Best Practices Award Entry for Innovative Use of Technology, 2009). Faculty development has been supported through the efforts of a series of large federal grants, including a recent Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) grant. In addition, the Professional Development School Teacher Education Network of Excellence through Technology (PDS TENET) project has enabled the college to be able to offer state-of-the art distance learning opportunities for state, regional, and national audiences, including the cutting-edge use two-way video and online distance education to positively affect practicing teachers in high-need content areas. These efforts, supported by the administration and mission of our college, are a part of an ongoing endeavor to assist faculty with increasing their ability to effectively integrate technology into their teaching. Although Mary Lou Fulton's Teachers College has a distinguished history of efforts to integrate technology into the curriculum, it became evident to the educational technology faculty that the college as a whole was not keeping up with the latest in the use of new technologies, and especially with the pedagogical possibilities made achievable by the development of Web-based social networking tools. Consequently, the educational technology faculty applied for an internal Excellence in Research Award (ERA) to support the college to refocus attention on maintaining the school's identity as a progressive college that infused technology throughout the curriculum. The ERA grant was based on the assumption that, although faculty may not be digital natives to social networking technologies, they must become wise digital immigrants who plan for them in effective instruction. For example, more than half of our students have Face book or MySpace accounts. Students have embraced new technologies, but, largely, MLFTC faculty have not. Technology is a compelling mechanism to facilitate learning of content and applied skills, and its use will be instrumental in realizing every aspect of a 21st century education system (Vockley, 2008). Students will not develop 21st century skills without the use of technology, however, and making sense of the importance of integrating these skills and developing appropriate uses of tools in the content present great challenges for teacher educators. How do these technologies become part of the teacher education program? What are the possibilities for social networking tools in education? To address this issue, the grant provided optional professional development opportunities for the education faculty at our university. The two goals of this professional development were to (a) provide models for faculty to keep up with rapid changes in technology, and (b) promote transformation of pedagogy. Thus, the ERA leadership team designed a series of summer workshops and follow-through activities to engage faculty in examining 2Pt century skills, learning Web 2.0 or social networking technologies, designing or redesigning a lesson or unit to be taught the following semester, and assessing student achievement, all in a way that would emulate the tenants of social constructivism philosophy. Twenty-six out of70 full-time faculty agreed to participate in this professional development opportunity. Participants included 10 tenured or tenure-track faculty and 16 clinical teaching faculty who did not have research responsibilities. They represented a wide array of teaching education content areas, including early childhood, elementary education, secondary education, and graduate studies, and each had at least three years of K-12 teaching experience. These faculty attended an 8-hour initial exploratory, {"}working{"} workshop where they would use the professional development leaders and each other as resources to develop a unit of study for one of their courses; implement the unit in the fall semester; evaluate the unit implementation through a project-provided survey administered to their students; and attend a capstone workshop to reflect on their efforts, changes in teaching, and suggestions for future college-wide directions. Twenty faculty were able to fulfill all of the requirements, and they received a small stipend provided by the ERA grant. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright}, Copyright ISTE.",
year = "2010",
month = sep,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1080/21532974.2010.10784651",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "27",
pages = "4--11",
journal = "Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education",
issn = "2153-2974",
publisher = "Taylor and Francis Ltd.",
number = "1",
}