In short, there is a general idea that teachers are not much competent in using ICT for instruction and that it is necessary to re-educate them. When we try to do it, beliefs and other personal and professional characteristics, such as their pedagogical ways seem to be the strong barriers for the goal to enable them to use technology regularly in their practices.
One of the ways to approach this is to differentiate between “rational” and “irrational” resistance. Those of us with a role which asks us to promote the use of technology based teaching can sometime start our engagement from the assumption that the use of technology is, of necessity, “transformative”. In the case of the UK, around £4bn was spent over a decade with variable outcomes.
I would offer the following which I have found helps to form the basis of the “rules of engagement”.
1. Recognise that some resistance to the use of ICT may be legitimate. Where a practitioner has developed effective none technology based solutions then they may be rightly reluctant to use ICT where it may lead to no improvement or worse.
2. Don’t over-sell technology solutions. Telling people that technology will “transform” pedagogy will lead to disappointment and rejection when the returns are more modest.
3. Play your winners. Seek to work with those staff/teachers who are most interested and allow these to become pathfinders. When the “resisters” actually see a colleague in their own department using ICT practically in a way which clearly does make their jobs easier or teaching better ….. they will adopt it.
4. Try not to go too far too fast. The way we use technologies tends to follow set stages which we must recognize and accommodate. Trying to go too far too fast is likely to read to the brakes being applied. I like Prensky’s model regarding how we adopt technologies.
1. Dabbling
2. Doing old things in old ways
3. Doing old things in new ways
4. Doing new things in new ways.
(Prensky, 2005)
Hope this is helpful.
Thanks a lot, Adrian. Let's see what other colleagues concerned with this problem have to tell us about.
I agree with much of what Adrian writes - my experience of leadership in schools suggests that you work with the staff who are early adopters - once these teachers are using technology in pedagogically appropriate ways (instead of teaching the same way and using new technology to do so) other teachers will see and then adopt the practices in their own teaching. Teachers are often justified in avoiding new trends in education and will unlikely be convinced of the advantages of ICT until they see it in practice. They will also unlikely be convinced of the advantages by consultants or school leaders. Authentic change happens slowly but it can happen.
I agree with both Adrian and Kevin. For any implementation of innovation the way is bottom-up and not top-down. The use of ICT should not be imposed to teachers. On the contrary, they will have to be given some room to experiment, plenty of time to get accustomed to it, and see for themselves the uses they can make of it and the benefits for them and their students. Of course it goes without saying that all this can only be done through sufficient training, not squeezed into strict schedules.
In my experience, if a teachers finds that use of technology helps them learn something they want to learn (in a context that includes peer group work) then they are much more likely to offer those learning opportunities to their students. The same applies to the use of manipulatives (I use both in my University math classes).
As per my experience here is Pakistan during 2003:
Teachers were not interested to learn ICT for education due to:
Lack of interest, they think its a very tough job, no one asks them about knowledge enhancement so they do't bother it at all.
My recommendations:
1. Give them friendly presentations telling the benefits of ICT for themselves
2. In every training session add something interesting for the ICT (like making slides and giving animation effects was a great deal of interest to the teachers i trained)
3. If possible give them some benefits for learning.
4. Focus on practical work and reduce the theoretical.
Hope it may help you - GOOD LUCK
All the discussions are interested and beneficial for teachers and administrators. I think it relates to the institutional environment and teachers beliefs about their teaching strategies in the classroom. We have to develop proper planning for teachers training in the ICT and to eradicate those hurdles faced by the teachers in the real world situations. Curricum development and ICT integration may foster them to change their beliefs about students' learning as well as the ongoing concept of professional development with proper incentives specifically in the context of Pakistan may improve the situation.
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