Page 136 - Innovative Professional Development Methods and Strategies for STEM Education

Teachers’ Professional Development in the Digitized World

Figure 1. SAMR Model by Dr. Ruben Puentedura, http://hippasus.com/rrpweblog

environments can be designed, implemented and developed in a meaningful way to support teachers’
professional practice and continuous development. The community of participating teachers in the cur-
rent course exemplifies such a group who wanted to promote their skills for integrating technology into
their lives, classrooms, and schools.
Potter and Rockinson-Szapkiw (2012) state that researchers are aware of the fact that adult learners do
not respond favorably to conventional, behavioral pedagogy and methods of instruction; they respond more
favorably to social constructivist pedagogy and methods. Similarly Vygotsky’s (1978) social constructiv-
ism also underlines the fact that learning is a social collaborative activity He adds that an instructional
guide is necessary and should use the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) to improve instruction. The
learning activities should extend into real world activities, so they should be applicable. Knowles (1980)
also states in his theory of andragogy that adult learners have prior knowledge and experience to build
upon and prefer experiential learning; they are more motivated to learn what is relevant.
Various trainings have been held and are still being held by many institutions. The impact these
trainings create on the teachers’ practices and future plans are not reported or investigated extensively.
Therefore, one of the aims of this paper is to inform about a teacher training that has been recently held
and how it has affected its participants in time (after 8 months) the training.

ETUSP 2 (Digitized Course)

This blended professional development course was designed and delivered by a group of professionals
whose common feature is their experience in integrating technology into teaching; they are four tech-
nology specialists. These trainers specialized themselves in the integration of technology through their
academic studies or joining some training activities abroad and in Turkey. They are also working at 1:1
schools where they lead the technology integration into teaching.

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