Teachers discuss instructional technology

By Paul Oh, special to the Chronicle

Westhampton Middle School teacher Irene Laroche uses a British Broadcasting Company website to shape a discussion on the Arab-Israeli conflict. (Deva I. Djaafar photo)

ixty primary and secondary teachers from around the state were schooled in the use of technology in the classroom during the 10th annual National Teacher Training Institute conference held March 29 in the Computer Science Building.

     Hosted by public television station WGBY of Springfield, the School of Education and the Center for Computer-Based Instructional Technology (CCBIT), the conference featured 10 NTTI "master teachers" presenting lessons to small groups of colleagues.

     Participants constructed bridges out of newspapers in conjunction with an interactive website exploring the concepts of tension and compression, and also used the intelligent tutoring program AnimalWatch, to assist elementary-age students in acquiring math skills. AnimalWatch was developed by associate professor Carole Beal of Psychology and professor Beverly Woolf of Computer Science.

     The day included a four-part keynote speech by David Hart, executive director, and Paul Oh, K-12 project director, of CCBIT; and Robert Maloy and Ruth Verock-O'Loughlin from the School of Education. Both CCBIT and the School of Education have been partnering with WGBY to provide an innovative professional development model for the NTTI teachers, something new to the project this year, according to Hart.

     In the fall, Maloy identified teachers to participate in the NTTI program who were not well-versed in the use of instructional technology and most of whom identified themselves as "not very comfortable" in using technology. In the past, WGBY has sought and "trained" teachers already employing technology in their classrooms in an interesting and innovative manner. Maloy then appointed technology "coaches" to work with the NTTI teachers. The coaches are graduate students at the School of Education, all of whom have been classroom teachers, and all of whom are proficient at the use of technology to facilitate student learning. The coaches provided their teachers with assistance in the classroom by researching websites, meeting to discuss teaching strategies, reviewing lesson plans and helping to prepare for the NTTI conference presentations.

     Maloy and Hart are also principal investigators for a Massachusetts Board of Higher Education grant that calls for the continued implementation of this coaching model with a new round of K-12 teachers next year.

     This was the first year the conference was held at the Computer Science building and Sarah Cothran, education manager for WGBY, deemed it a success. "The aura of having it here provided a sense to teachers that they were in a university environment that fostered and encouraged their learning," she said.

     Cothran noted that educators from as far away as the Boston area attended and that Springfield College professor Robert Barkman brought pre-service teachers from his class to the event.

     NTTI is sponsored by WNET, the public television station in New York City, and is supported by the Cisco Foundation and the GE Fund. WGBY is one of 26 NTTI sites nationally, and one of just a handful of NTTI satellites to partner with a local university. NTTI teacher participants are given a teaching methodology to follow that calls for the true integration of technology tools into teaching practice rather than simply using computers and videos as a way to occupy a student's time. Over the course of the year, the NTTI teachers are expected to develop two lesson plans that are then stored as part of a national warehouse of lessons, available at the WNET website (www.thirteen.org/edonline/ntti/index.html) The lessons are also burned onto a CD.

     Cothran praised the wide-ranging collaboration in this year's event. "It was a pleasure to work with two totally separate departments in the same university. We were working with the School of Education and CCBIT towards a common goal: to benefit the teachers of the region."

     Paul Oh is Humanities and K-12 project director at CCBIT.