Issue #6: Professional Development Needs Assessment

As due dates fall in my rearview and Thanksgiving looms in the near future, I finally finished Issue #6.  

This issue was about Professional Development - something that I am very interested in, because I know how difficult teachers can be to work with and how much professional development is needed.  This Catch-22--a need for more technology training with a lack of training time and cooperation--has interested me in my recent years as a teacher.

Unfortunately, this assignment did not interest me as much (sorry!).  The idea of writing a Needs Assessment was not only not interesting, but brought back dreadful memories of late nights spent working on my ID project a few years ago.  With that said, I completely agree with the rationale of a Needs Assessment and the necessity of, well, assessing the need for particular teaching & training.  On the other hand, I also completely agree with the rationale of root canals and taxes.

I was a bit confused as to what was meant to be done.  Were we to actually perform a needs assessment?  How would one go about assessing the needs of a make believe staff of teachers?  After some discussion with Dr. Ingram in Palace, I got a better grip on what was expected for this assignment and was able to proceed.

Once I started working on the assignment, I did find it interesting to consider where the levels of our teachers really were.  I assume that some are technological luddites, but what can and can't they do?  In the position of a technology director, it's obvious that there is a need to assess where one must begin to bring all teachers up to level.

This project helped me realize what a daunting task training a staff of teachers with varying ages, varying levels of technological experience and varying levels of motivation could be.