There are 4 important considerations in any staff development program, but, they are particularly (but not exclusively) important in technology staff development.

1. Audience In addition to their readiness to change, your audience has various technology skill readiness, and considering their developmental readiness for technology implementation is a necessity before providing training. There are beginners who are willing and beginners who are terrified of technology. There are teachers who are comfortable with technology for their own productivity, but don’t have a clue as to how to integrate it into their teaching strategies. There are teachers who use it seamlessly in their teaching, but want to expand their knowledge and techniques to include cutting-edge technology. They want someone to show them how to “do” the new technology, and they’ll take it from there. Then there are teachers just don’t have time to take classes and want to work on their own to create a project to use in their classroom that can be shared throughout the district. Each of these audiences has their unique staff development needs and each need is fulfilled with a different type of staff development program.

2. Incentives. Especially in a time when there are so many new teachers coming on board to accommodate class size reduction, so many baby-boomer teachers nearing retirement, there is a real difference in what types of incentives appeal to teachers. Newer teachers need units to move up the salary schedule and to clear their credentials. They’re young and have lots of energy. They are willing to put in time after school or even Saturdays to earn their units. More experienced teachers don’t need units any more. They’ve been giving up Saturdays or working late for 20-30 years. They don’t really want to give up a Saturday to earn units or classroom supply money. They may be enticed to attend for additional pay or to receive the software they are being trained to use. These incentives provide an immediate acknowledgement that their time is valuable and needs to be rewarded. For some teachers, seat time is not necessary. Given $100 to create a project for their grade level, to work on at home or as time allows, is very appealing to them, and takes advantage of their expertise to create rich curriculum resources for the entire district to benefit from..

3. Participant Responsibilities or Obligations. Teachers taking classes NEED TO use what they learn. Just as students who take keyboarding need to practice their skills doing word processing, teachers need to use the skills they learn in practical and down-to-earth classroom situations. If they learn how to use Inspiration, a mind-mapping software, they need to use it in their own curriculum in a lesson they actually do. So, the class must specifically give an assignment to do that and to write up a unit of study describing that use. If you have ever conducted a session where teachers just “explore” software, you know how aimless and scattered that session can be and can end up being a waste of time because there’s no closure and it lacks focus. Teachers go away with nothing besides some vague impressions of a variety of software. The unit of study and the assignment to use the software in a lesson helps to guarantee its use.

4. Follow-up is always the hardest service to provide. We always seem to be making choices between providing new training for additional teachers to “spread the news”, or moving teachers along after they receive initial training. We have to make these choices because there are scarce resources, to few trainers, not enough time, and subs are scarce in the late 1990’s. Almost every research study done on staff development emphasizes the need for follow-up and coaching, yet teachers rarely schedule follow-up sessions of their own volition and often don’t take advantage of follow-up sessions offered after school (though if subs are provided, they more than likely will attend). How to deal with this contradiction? Perhaps making the follow-up or coaching sessions part of the participant responsibilities or obligations up front will help to institutionalize the follow-up practices. It will also help to schedule that follow-up so that new trainings do not take precedence over follow-up sessions.

The following diagrams outline the above-mentioned staff development considerations.

(See the diagrams following on next 4 pages).