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=Theme 3 Table 3 (Pink) = Implications of continuously emerging technologies for professional learning and educators

Facilitator: John Travers Provocateur: **John Travers** Topic: How we got professional learning wrong for 30 years: a confession and a (potentially) happy ending.

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 * Comments from the Table to be added below**

Skills Teaching is a "closed door" profession - anxiety about sharing practice. Examples of this shared by group - expert teachers refusing to be taped for fear of error. Suggestion that open plan design changes this - teachers watch each other at work, no corridors. Early changes to ICT use replicates text equivalents - need to shift to outcomes which cannot be achieved in other ways.

Models of professional learning Teachers who are "doing better" should be sharing processes with others. Teachers haven't spotted the honey pot e.g. using Photostory to achieve learning outcomes. Focus should move from teacher skills to student outcomes.Suggestion that if we prove it "works" then teachers will adopt ICT. Dissenting views: using ICT is a professional requirement, ought not to be regarded as optional, As teachers are teachers of literacy, they are also teachers of/with ICT.

Self directed

System directed Outcome has been a period where teachers choose own method and content. Greater success in "training" teachers who have the pedagogy and those able to see potential of resources rather than those who are "technologists." Failure in providing unconnected training. Issues in "losing ground" when changing pedagogy - work through new tools and approaches to return to previous levels of student outcomes. Argument to mandate technology use cannot be paralleled to other professions because of absence of evidence cf. medicine.

Other John Travers' provocation: Notion of teaching as an individual activity - privacy "hold". Suggestions that there is no "best" way to teach need to be challenged. Need also to remove notion of "volunterring." Principal was to foster environment where individuals could "grow" rather than measuring what kids are learning. Schools exist for learning outcomes. Past involved no discussion of how to teach "better" or to achieve demonstrably improved student performance. Parallel issue to why teachers may not embrace technology - do not 'see' success. Evidence needed. Difficulty to encourage change in "successful" schools - if outcomes, particularly at HSC, are sound, there is no incentive (often high disencentive) to change. Need to assess what we value. Efforts in WA to change assessment to match teaching approaches have been unsuccessful.