Professional Development For ITC Summary

Need a vision for Professional Development

Define
Connected to Technology
Using Technology in the context of teaching and learning.

Communication Bridge

Administration
Faculty/Teachers
IT Support
Graduate Assistants
Students
Professional Developers

What is it?

Identify Core Curriculum
What are we expecting IT Support System to be able to do?
Teach F/T to employ the tools and apply them in the context of teaching and learning.
Expect Incremental Learning
Address the changes in technology as it applies to individual goals.
Define Instructional Technology v. Technology [how do we fit instructional technology into professional development]
Define Instructional Technology and related terms
Focus on technology integration rather than "learning technology"
Individual Lessons for each faculty member -- Enhancements:
Know individual faculty members to best determine needs
Just In Time Assistance
Subject content knowledge
Discipline
Pay attention to individual learning styles
Basic technology literacy for faculty

Campus Structure for Faculty Development
What are the FD centers?
How do they relate to each other?
What is procedure for faculty to locate professional development opportunities?
The organization, mandated by memorandum 338 is a member of the Association of Teaching and Learning Directors….what is the technology responsibility?

Incentives and reward for TEACHING [not necessarily teaching with technology]

Tenure and Promotion
Financial
Recognition
If it becomes standard, incentive will be keeping job

How much of faculty development is the university's responsibility?

Physical Support Structure, Tools and Software

Sandbox for experimenting
Equalizing of infrastructure across departments on campus and between campuses

Instructional Technology Professionals-a professional community

Equity issues-what should faculty expect?

Most Important Point

• Collaborative can provide a community and networking for ITCs -- sharing expertise
• Center Directors can help strengthen the "high torch" skills that ITCs need -- consulting skills, training skills, feedback skills, etc.

Attendees' Comments

• I learned: There is a possibility of developing a core set of goals for staff and faculty development in new forms of composition and communication
• Concept of joint training
• Bring a team approach to issues: ITs and faculty together determine professional development needs
• Need to work on clarification of role -- Generalist with no support on small campuses -- More specialized with an array of support personnel to call upon
• Need to differentiate between support for faculty developing online courses vs. faculty integrating technology that will determine type of skills/development ITC needs
• Build collaborative opportunities for ITCs
• We must identify the relationship between the information technologies and the instructional technologies.
• There must be a professional development components for both groups. The tier might be the same.
• Glad to hear that other ITC folks consider themselves generalists, and agree that if we can become specialists in 1-2 areas we may be more effective in the future.
• We cannot continue with the hope of success unless we more clearly define the roles of all involved.
• Develop professional development needs list, resource list (people, products, expertise) and develop a plan for bringing all these together for a year-end bash of learning for us!
• I would like to see a merging of training opportunities related to technology with training opportunities related to working with teaching and learning issues.
• What did I learn
  1. Confusion over definitions of persons and tasks (IT - ITC - Instructional designer, etc.)
  2. Standardize training -
     develop triage tearm -
     identify core team - train by region
  3. Identify what we want to know develop teams to do it.
• Work with faculty not for faculty
• Unique roles and unique context
• Need to better understand expectation for faculty
• Need to better define service of ITCs
• Great needs everywhere; need to maximize support given limits in budgets and staff -- Collaborative can help
• Our campuses are very diverse -- must get creative with our solutions
• There is much confusion about: Information Technology, Instructional Techonlogy, and Instructional Design
• There are many more problems than solutions -- we need to find solutions

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