Teachers as E-designers: A Novel Approach to Professional Development in Elementary Science and Technology
Gillian Mulholland, Lachlan Forsyth, Lynette Schaverien · OPUS - Open Publications of UTS Scholars (University of Technology Sydney) · 2005
Providing effective, systemic, sustainable professional development for teachers of elementary Science and Technology is a key concern for large, geographically dispersed, centralised education systems. In this paper, we report on DESCANT-SciTech, an Australian Research Council project, being undertaken in collaboration with the New South Wales Department of Education and Training (DET). This project tests an innovative, e-learning strategy for seeding just such a future-oriented, scalable professional development system. The project's strategy, informed by a generative theory of learning, casts teachers as designers of their own e-learning environment for professional development. We describe and analyse outcomes of the project's initial phase, as the first cohort of teachers conceived this environment in community, supported by their consultant, DET officers and University researchers. We conclude speculatively, as two new cohorts of teachers to enter this environment.