Teachers, pedagogy and professional development - Teaching with Technologies: The Essential Guide - page 88

Technology CPD: stage-models and typologies

A number of more detailed models for teachers' continuing professional development
with technology have been put forward, which can be characterized as 'stage models'.
For example, Novello's (1989) five-stage model, entitled SAPID (self-familiarization,
authoring, presentation, integration and design); Dwyer, Ringstaff and Sandholtz's
(1991) five-stage evolutionary model; Comber, Lawson and Hargreaves' (1998)
'familiarization-adaptation' model, which was based on Hall's (1979) 'concerns-based
adoption' model. Also there has been the emergence of typologies that describe
different types of technology users, Dawes (2001) in the UK and Hadley and Shein-
gold (1993) in the USA.
Dwyer et al.'s (1991) major study into how technology-rich classrooms changed
teachers' beliefs and practices over a period of years discovered that the changes
were significant, but only occurred after teachers had confronted deeply held beliefs
about the nature of learning and the efficacy of their pedagogical activities. Using
an American study, the changes were theorized into a five-stage evolutionary model,
which teachers pass through in order to become fully competent users of technology
in the classroom: entry, adoption, adaptation, appropriation and invention.

1. Entry - teachers struggle to cope with technology

2. Adoption - successful use of technology at a basic level

3. Adaptation - discovery of potential in a variety of applications and can

troubleshoot

4. Appropriation - mastery over the technology and use it to accomplish various

classroom goals

5. Invention - active development of new learning techniques using the

technology.

Dwyer et al. (1991: 13) observed that, initially, teachers demonstrated 'little pen-
chant for significant change and, in fact, were using their technological resources
to replicate traditional learning activities'. Consequently, they argue that teachers
have little 'incentive or direction for making changes which might jeopardise . . .
performance on existing criteria . . . They did not seek to create new approaches to
[pedagogical] excellence' (Dwyer et al. 1991: 13). However, by the fourth stage change
did occur. This was evidenced by teachers' personal appropriation of the technology
and was seen as particularly significant, since it enabled new pedagogical strategies.
Teachers had gained a new perspective on how they could change classroom practice
using technology. This stage would be classified as 'transformative' using McCormick
and Scrimshaw's (2001) model, which includes how technology can also change the
nature of the subject itself - for example, art and the rise of digital technologies.
In the UK Comber, Lawson and Hargreaves (1998) developed a two-part model
connecting teacher attitudes to technology with actual use of technology. Comber
et al. (1998) refined a three-stage model (familiarization - utilization - adaptation)
in light of the work done by Hall (1979), Hall and Hord (1987) on a 'concerns-based
adoption' model. The new model identified six 'stages of concern' that represent