Hubbard’s 2006 article entitled “Critical Issues: Professional Development” discusses the need for teachers to develop and to keep up to date with technology. According to Hubbard, proficiency in CALL includes two steps: “(a) building foundational competencies and (b) updating, upgrading, and adapting that foundation based on changes in technology, language teaching approach, and current teaching context. (278)”
The first part of the article focuses on professional development. Hubbard mentions that there are not any “fieldwide standards” for language teachers and that for many of the teacher preparation programs do not require the teachers to have any computer knowledge. He continues by saying that it is usual TESOL that creates the standards in the field but at the time that the article was written, those standards where not out and they did not come out until January 2009. Today, they exist but I cannot seem to access them without having to pay for them, click here to see the product detail. Hubbard also mentions that the ISTE has laid out some technology standards for K-12 known as the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) initiative.
The article also discusses individual objectives and quotes Pettis’ (2002) observation where “commitment to professional development must be ongoing and personal” and Hubbard mentions his own framework that he created with Levy in 2006 that has two assumptions: “(a) what one needs to know and be able to do depends on the role one is assuming at any given time, and (b) roles may be defined to a large degree by the expressed, or perceived, expectations of those affected by the individual.”
Hubbard discusses the different learning processes for reaching professional development objectives and choosing among them. He mentions that different combinations of formal training, situated learning, project-based learning, mentoring, and collaborative learning are all important for an individual’s professional development trajectory. In addition, he brings up the different resources and strategies for CALL professional development such as individual courses, workshops, organizations, interest groups, websites, and other reading materials.
As teachers, I believe that we should continually work on improving our methods. Reading parts of this article made me think about my professors here at Indiana University and their involvement with technology. For example, I have a French teacher (from France), in his 60s, who has just started using PowerPoint. I enjoy watching him teach and seeing his evolution over the past few semesters that I have had him as a teacher. In the very beginning, his presentations were very basic with just text and then sometime later he learned how to add pictures. Unfortunately, he still has not figured out how to put the presentation in full screen mode nor does he add any sort of design to them but he has recently started adding color to the text. Even today, he adapted more to the technology in Oncourse and assigned us to discuss an article using the forums. The only problem was that the students could not access the forums but that is not the point. The point is that he is making the effort to adapt to technology, even if he does not have a complete grasp of it. He even made to me saying that the University ‘does not teach him how to use these things’ (which goes against what Hubbard said, “teachers have an individual responsibility for the maintenance and growth of their own CALL proficiency”(280)).
Hi Brian,
ReplyDeleteI love your example of your French teacher. I think it's FABULOUS that more seasoned instructors are attempting to use the technology available to them. That is one great thing about education - we are all life-long learners and, usually, we are not afraid of trying something new :) This is a great example of that.
Most of what I have learned about using technology in the classroom has come from observing the instructors who have worked for me and by being in this fully online graduate program. I can read about using technology all day, but until I actually see it in action, I can't always conceptualize how it works. I wonder if all those who I have observed and all those who have taught me realize just how much I have learned from them in regards to pedagogical methods.
Bian,
ReplyDeleteThe story about the French teacher reminds me of my first experience with PowerPoint. It was last century when I first experienced the presentation maker. I thought it was some kind of new word processor with different backgrounds are already installed. I wondered what I should do with the file--in fact, I didn't realize that the projector was a necessary part of the presentation.
These days, I frequently use PowerPoint and pretty comfortable with using it with verious skills. When I say skills, I would like to include using it properly. I may have talked about this before but here's my favorate example of using PowerPoint inapproprately:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tGq3tH4qSw
I think this happens when "adopting" fails even if updating and upgrading are successful.