Emerging Considerations for Professional Development Institutes for Science Teachers

This paper describes two professional development institutes in project-based science. We collected data from these institutes in the form of structured questionnaires, individual written reflections by the teachers, and focus-group interviews. An analysis of the data revealed three factors that had been underrepresented in previous research: comfort, technology, and balance. In terms of comfort, the teachers expressed a need for both physical and psychological comfort for them to learn. The technological emphasis in our institutes caused teachers to stress in their comments our developing software. We found that, depending on teachers' previous knowledge, technology could be a barrier or a support to the success of institutes. Finally, we found a necessity to balance elements within the institute and a need to balance cognitively demanding time on task with less demanding opportunities for informal interaction.     

A Dynamic Framework to Guide the Implementation and Evaluation of Educational Technologies

One vision for Ontario schools is that the use of information and communication technology (ICT) will profoundly change both teaching and learning. Given the diversity of school settings, however, system-wide ICT integration and implementation must necessarily be defined in multiple ways. This paper presents a decision-making framework for guiding the infusion of ICT into different school settings. First, sustainability of the ICT initiative is the identified as the key goal. Next, multiple contextual variables are distilled into five essential qualities. Then, sustainability and the essential elements are combined. The result is a dynamic framework that can be used to identify specific priorities for implementation and strategies for evaluation of ICT initiatives. Finally, it is illustrated how the framework can be used to guide the successful infusion of ICT in any situation, regardless of a school's previous experience with ICT.