In my consulting as well as administrative technology work, I am often asked the same questions by different schools and officials. One of the most common is: “How do you get teachers who are hesitant or resistant to use technology?”
I am keenly aware that many of my colleagues are not, for various reasons, gung ho about educational technology. And it’s interesting. Quite often, the teachers who are hesitant to adopt new educational technology are great — in fact, amazing — educators. They are frequently veterans and usually leaders in their academic field and within their institutions.
In my role as tech advocate, I habitually find myself trying to coax these established educators to use new tools and incorporate new methodologies. Here are some ways I have found to be successful in this endeavor.
1. Do not set out to “fix” anyone’s teaching
If you’re working with veteran educators, this is especially important. They have been successful in their field for many years, often decades. Perhaps they teach an AP course and are used to a high percentage of 4’s and 5’s on the AP exam. Maybe they teach a writing class and feel that they are effectively preparing their students with advanced writing skills. Regardless of their specialty, approaching a hesitant teacher with an eye to radically change their curriculum and pedagogy can feel threatening and critical.
Instead, try this: observe what they do in the classroom that’s made them successful and build out from there. Offer suggestions on how to make their good teaching practices more efficient or effective, using tools that clearly make tasks easier to accomplish. Perhaps DropBox will facilitate distributing handouts in the classroom, Google Drive is a better alternative to emailing drafts back and forth, or Google Earth can provide more interactive exploration of the Grand Canyon. Tailor your approach to each faculty member, with specific ideas to facilitate and/or enhance their teaching. As they become comfortable with new tech, they will very likely be open to conversations about other digital tools you are using in your own work.
2. Be open and alert to each teacher’s technology wants and needs
If teachers express a want or need for educational technology in the classroom (a particular browser, program, hardware, etc.) accommodate them! If teachers feel you are there to help them, they are more likely to reach out. The best way to demonstrate your desire to enhance their teaching is to jump through their hoops to meet their needs. If a teacher wants to use Safari, don’t dismiss their interest in favor of Chrome. You may know the tool that is “superior,” but remember it’s about their level of comfort.
3. Use peers to model and train
Teachers respond better to other teachers who share their situation. They trust them. Such teachers are “pre-vetted.” They understand what it’s like in the classroom, what can go wrong, how students can respond, etc. The absolute best way to get educators to feel comfortable seeking help with technology is to make the point person someone who does not assess their teaching. It is important to limit, if not eradicate, the intimidation factor often associated with asking for help or training in a particular tool. If a teacher feels that they are being assessed or judged (and perception is key here), they simply will avoid seeking advice. Make sure that the technology point person is someone that their peers trust and admire.
4. Give them time to “play”
Teachers are not done at three o’clock. Many work 10-12 hours a day during the school year and on weekends too. In my 12 years of serving as an educator, I have never had a “summer off.” Instead, summer is slightly less busy and my time more flexible.
Remember we’re working to lure hesitant teachers into the technology fold. Do not hold training days in the middle of the year or distribute new hardware or software in August. May and June are the best months to introduce new concepts. If you are rolling out new iPads or Netbooks, hand them out at the end of the year, just before summer. Let your faculty have the summer to play with the new tool, get comfortable with it, learn how to use it. Letting teachers edge up to a new hardware tool at home will remove the intimidation of performing under a watchful eye, and also allow them to get acquainted at their own pace. It can also help them to have “tool awareness” as they build lessons for the Fall.
I would also encourage allowing faculty to treat their school tools as their own. Let them put their music on it, have administrative privileges, set up personal email, and more. This promotes the extra level of comfort that comes with a feeling of ownership. Set up certain parameters (no illegal activities, no questionable images — and retain the rights to delete malware) and provide some education (“safe” versus “suspicious” software, best practices, etc.), but let them make the laptop or tablet or other mobile device their own. By providing your faculty the ability to intimately connect with their technology, you are providing them the capacity to really explore it and understand how it works. Give them wide latitude and allow them to be their best, professional selves.
5. Make professional development “real” and pertinent
Don’t be afraid to differentiate your approach to professional development. Most faculty are realistic about their abilities when it comes to technology. Likewise, provide them opportunities to become effective users of real and pertinent tools that they can employ in their particular subjects and classroom. Math teachers will probably benefit more from a workshop on Geometer’s Sketchpad than quizlet. While they may seem like babes in the technology woods, in truth, your faculty members are sophisticated professionals. Treat them as such. Focus on their pedagogical needs when you present tools. Don’t geek out.
6. Pick hardware and software that’s easy to use
The best way to overcome hesitancy with your faculty is to provide them with hardware and software that is easy to use. Modern devices and apps are more user friendly than ever. Pick tools that have “drag and drop” features, are nearly devoid of bugs, and have a low learning curve. If an educator is intimidated by coding or thrown off by a product that’s prone to crashing, they are not going to use it. Teachers know that their students get frustrated and restless if they cannot move quickly through the learning process. Technology that does not work transparently will be readily discarded.
7. Don’t sit in judgment!
I cannot emphasize this enough. It is easy to think that hesitant educates do not adopt new technology because they are lazy or stubborn or uncreative. In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that modern education is now a high-stakes, test driven environment. State tests and AP exams determine job security, funding, and professional perception. Experimenting with new tools and pedagogy requires not only a learning curve but some risk-taking.
The idea of “starting over” in your methods of teaching while being hyper-aware of the severe consequences for failure is daunting to all of us. Recognize this as you approach your faculty. Assuage their fears (give them test score amnesty for a year or assure them that you will present a united front should parents become frustrated). Assume the best of your staff, because that is what they are willing to give.
The world of educational technology is exciting, but it can also be frightening for some. There are a lot of tools out there and the connected world can seem chaotic to the uninitiated. Be professional with your fellow educators, understand their concerns, meet their needs, and be a champion for their growth and success.
This post appeared originally in March 2013 and was written by Jennifer Carey.
Jennifer Carey
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This is a great post. Thanks for the insight!
Thanks Jeff! I hope you will share your own experiences.
Thanks for your article it was very informative
This a well articulated post! I will be sharing with my tech committee in an effort to stay focused on these ideals, thanks so much.
I hope you will share with us some of the accomplishments your tech committee has made and plans for the future!
Jen – This is really well written, and you’ve hit on the big points here. I would add three points… just to make it an even 10! 🙂
1. We need to publicly celebrate/support/encourage teachers who are putting themselves out there and trying new things to improve their practice.
2. We need to be patient… Baby steps are ok! For those who have tackled a large learning curve, we need to be patient and let them learn at their own pace. If we try to push everything on them at once, it’s overwhelming.
3. We need to offer tech PD at different levels – Don’t frustrate those at either high or low ability levels because the training is either completely overwhelming or painfully slow! Much like our teaching, we need to meet each learner where they are.
I’d love to hear your thoughts about how we could put those peer mentors in place without teachers feeling judged or intimidated – Many teachers in this position are embarrassed that they need to ask for help. They’ll come find me so that they don’t have to let those in higher positions know they are struggling. I’ve even had folks say, “Please don’t tell anyone that I needed help with this.” 🙁
Thanks for your comments Patti! I wholeheartedly agree!
I’ve had some success with the peer mentoring in a few arenas. We had a “Genius Bar” after school a few times a semester where we asked certain “tech savvy” teachers to staff tables and be there to answer any questions faculty might have about their new iPads. It was the best attended Tech Day we had!
Another successful practice I’ve seen implemented is to offer faculty a stipend to lead a Tech Workshop. This allowed individuals to self-select and to get compensated for stepping up. Asking for a help from a peer is far less intimidating than going to someone you perceive as a “superior” (as in they are an administrator).
Hi Jennifer,
This is a great blog post and I have tweeted it. I have worked as an AV reseller/integrator in the education world for a long time so I know the challenges educators face when you introduce new technologies. My focus was on the SMART Board and how it would become an extension of the curriculum, not a replacement. As for educators who had been teaching for a long time, I was very careful in my approach as not to force feed or cause discomfort.
Smart stuff. I find that the sense of being evaluated is often the most intimidating things for teachers thinking about using technology. We’re about to start a tech PLC in my building. I will be sharing this with participants (particularly facilitators).
I hope you will come back and share with us some of the things that were most successful!
Great article! I am one of those “veteran” teachers (year #33!) but I do not want to be a dinosaur when it comes to technology!! I get a little frustrated when others within my building whine and complain about learning new technology. Thanks for your words of advice and maybe I can encourage “baby steps” for some of my co-workers! 🙂
Thanks for your comments Deb. Let me know how it goes!
Great tips – thank you!
Informative! I believe you have to have simplicity & reliability to get adoption, without one or the other teachers will not adopt.
Great article! Im gonna pass this one along to my scoop.it, excellent job.
Thanks Coach! I appreciate your sharing.
Great tips. Let’s face it: EdTech is NOT going away. Hesitant teachers need to embrace it, and articles like this help so much!
Such a well done and poignant post.
Right on the money, Jennifer. Teachers want to teach, and all too often technology coordinators get the priorities backwards, putting use of technology before pedagogy. Very insightful article!
As an educator, I believe it’s all about the learning. Tools are there to aid us in that endeavor.
I really needed to read your point number4. I honestly have a hard time with letting them become their own but I am going to give it a try with some new iPad minis we are buying for the teachers.
Wow Heidi! That’s awesome. I hope you will keep us posted on this process. I applaud you for taking such a bold step.
Hi Jennifer!
Congrats for the article! Awesome tips!
That’s really a crucial aspect of the whole movement of innovation in education – cooperation and collaboration among all educators. Down here in Brazil a lot of teachers will have difficulties in this transition, and initiatives like yours can be a great support.
My little contribution: in this learning process where educators can feel threatened at the possibility of failing, Carl Rogers’ Person Centered Approach could be of great help.
True empathy, congruence, genuineness and unconditional positive regard (sincere caring) can certainly facilitate and promote self-actualization, which is in consonance with the essence of the whole innovation movement…
Best regards for all (from Brazil)! = )
I’ll check out Roger’s approach. Thanks for sharing. I look forwarding to hearing how technology initiatives progress in Brazil!
Hi Jennifer, check out this beautiful and revolutionary project in Rio! This is the English version.
http://gelprio2012.rioeduca.net/rj_gente.html
Thanks for great advice! I’m a tech support specialist and I help develop PD for teachers. This post is a mindshifter for me!
I love so many of these tips … making PD pertinent (and differentiated to teacher abilities and needs … it’s so frustrating to be expected to attend an after-school or Saturday workshop on “my” time and have it end up being something I would never use), extending and improving current practices instead of claiming it’s an all new and much better way, allowing “ownership” of the devices and not discouraging anything not directly school related, and choosing easy to use tools. The only one I don’t love is rolling out new stuff in May/June. Our district does that and it drives us crazy (both the tech-savvy and tech-hesitant). While we don’t have the summers “off” and spend lots of time planning … if it’s tech we’re not going to be actively using over the break it ends up locked up on campus or sitting in the back of a closet at home after we’ve signed our lives away to keep it over the summer. Who is going to spend the summer creating lessons with (for example) new SMART Notebook software without any feedback/input from kids to see if it will truly be useful? Who is going to spend the summer learning iMovie on the iPad without the kids to help film or be IN the video?
Thanks Ms. O for sharing your perspective. When I suggest that new software/hardware be rolled out in the summer, it is with a thought of educators being able to “make it their own.” That way, the summer can be a time of getting comfortable with the new tech. So if they are using it to check their personal email, do Facebook, listen to music, put up pictures of their kids or grandkids, then they are more likely to be comfortable with it when PD starts in August. Also I love it when schools do this is in conjunction with some summer PD.
Your thoughts are also relevant as well. It’s hard to plan a lesson without the kids to help you right there. In my vision, it’s a process that takes some tim.
Excellent article! I hope it’s ok if I translate it into Swedish and put it in my blog to reach my fellow collegues in Sweden? (with this site mentioned as the original source of course)
Yes please share it (with the original source cited). I hope you will come back and share with us some of your peers’ comments!
Dear Jennifer,
What a great initiative to start this discussion and to share your ideas, which I totally agree with.
One other thing that I learned is that it is important for school leaders to understand why they believe that innovation in education and didactics is necessary. It is important to know and communicate the reasons for this innovation. And another thing is that many schools can achieve their innovation objective without necessarily having all teachers adopt these new technologies. As you also have observed, among the ‘hesitant’ adopters, there are often great teachers that you would not want to lose for the institution. Sometimes wonderful and creative solutions can be found within teams of teachers allowing some to progress further in new technologies and others to continue in their way of excellent teaching. This has the advantage that you acknowledge that groups of learners are often best served with a mix of didactical methods including modern and traditional ones; all teachers have their preferred and best methods and indeed with peer learning they can all learn from each other as profesionals and contribute to the mission and goals of the institution.
All the best with your work!
Thanks Kees for your poignant contribution! i whole heartedly agree that adopting technology just for the sake of adopting it is dangerous and can hinder your most skilled educators. In fact, I wrote about it on my own blog in a very short piece called “Why you should or should not adopt technology in your classroom.”
http://indianajen.com/2013/03/26/why-you-should-or-should-not-adopt-new-technology-in-your-classroom/
Learning from Peers is really key! I wish I had more space and time and I would have gone on that point and talked about building a schedule for collaboration, fostering collegiality (events and activities, PLN, etc).
Thank You Jennifer. Great ideas! I use some of these already but this is a comprehensive list.
Good tips.
It is important to avoid criticizing and judging others’ teaching. However, I think that the majority of tech PD should keep best practice pedagogy at heart.
It’s a fine line to walk. You have to earn someone’s trust and that may be with providing a tech. lesson that isn’t necessarily based in the ‘best’ practice out there to “hook” them in. Once there, you can offer suggestions and ideas to guide their thinking.
It is a disservice to the students to continually promote poor lessons just so someone adopts technology.
A school culture that promotes continual dialogue on best practices would open talks amongst all teachers-when using technology or not -so that isn’t such a taboo topic.
Thank you, Jennifer. I am a principal in NJ and I needed this post. I am always interested in hearing about ways to improve learning. My biggest takeaway from your post is to provide time to “play,” and to encourage teachers to take ownership of the tools. I believe that we must “multiply” the ideas of others and allow for discovery.
@EMS_Principal
Thank you for sharing Scott. I hope you will share with us some of your experiences as an administrator!
This is one of my big questions. My job is split between helping targeted students with tech and in helping the teaching staff / student population in general. When I work with individual students, I find using the SETT process invaluable in finding the best fit solution. The same considerations I find also help in finding how to match new tech to teachers needs. This focuses in on change that solves problems or improves situations, rather than just change to “keep up” with technology.
Lydia, can you explain the SETT program?
Sure. Here is the link: http://www.joyzabala.com/
Basically, SETT refers to Student, Environment, Task, Technology. Its a framework for looking at all factors in a collaborative setting in order to match best technology to trial with an individual basis for students who we believe would benefit from assistive technology (AT). Initially, whenever I worked with a teacher, there was a target student to focus on. But it then became apparent that there were many basic tools that I use with AT target students that teachers would benefit knowing about and using with the student population in general. The end result being that it is easier to implement AT in an inclusive environment if the overall tech usage is increased to benefit all students. Does that make sense?
I should point out that my focus when introducing new Tech to teachers is the applications that support accessibility: text-to-speech, word prediction, voice to text, plus anything that helps student keep focused and organized.
Thanks Jennifer for the insight into this.
How is the new technology brought to the attention of educators? As an educator, how do you find new educational technology that you implement into your classroom?
Personally, I do a lot of reading, I have a broad PLN, I attend conferences and workshops, I collaborate with colleagues, etc.
What publications do you find more helpful in finding these new technologies?
Personally, I like PLP EdTechTeacher, ISTE, NAIS, Edudemic, Edutopia, just to name a few. There are many, many others.
I can’t thank you enough for the info. I am developing a collaborative/education app and I am looking where to possibly reach my target audience, educators. This will hopefully be completed in the next month or so, would you be open to receiving a pre-launch “press release”? Simply a short story/description, link to the app, link to reference material? No expectations of a public review, I am more interested in thoughts and feedback.
Absolutely. My contact info is all over the web! Check out my blog and you can message me directly or send me a tweet!
I appreicate it, let me know if any of your colleagues may also be interested.
Thanks,
Derrick
Jennifer,
It took a little longer than a month but our app is finally available in the app store. Are you still open to a “press realease” and download. Very interested to hear your feedback.
Thanks,
Derrick
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Great post thank you, I’m working on educational technology to support teachers in Ethiopia and this is invaluable thank you. As a technologist it is all to easy for me to get sucked into technological and design issues, but it is the teacher support that will ultimately determine how much benefit the students get.
“Hi Jennifer, Good post…
As a K-12 teacher, I must admit that I was weary about new classroom technologies.
But I have been using an assessment tool http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/ for a little more than a year and found it to be useful for three things:
1) I get detailed reports for each quiz that my students take so tracking progress is easy.
2) Grading is automated so less paperwork
3) The is a quiz quiestions bank and I can get quiz questions on most topics pretty easily
Habving said this, I still am not convinced about all the hype about the physical world merging with the virtual world and other such wolly stuff. “
Great article!
“6. Pick hardware and software that’s easy to use
The best way to overcome hesitancy with your faculty is to provide them with hardware and software that is easy to use.” I very much agree and found that ExitTicket is extremely easy to use with endless amounts of support http://exitticket.org/get-teachers-using-tech/