Technology and Teacher Retention

Journal # 7
Technology and Teacher Retention
By: Robert Kadel

This article asks what effect does technology have on teacher retention? He answers his question with two questions: “Consider, first, that school districts rich in technology resources and professional development may be quite enticing to teachers, especially those who have recently graduated from technologically driven preservice programs. Teachers want to work in these districts, and once there, they want to stay. On the other hand, consider districts that have technological resources, but no support for teachers to use them. Or consider districts that have only limited or inadequate resources. Would teachers be more likely to leave such places?”

What can be done to use technology professionally in schools?

There is one program that has been successful in intergrading technology approximately into schools. It takes about 2.5 years and has multiple phases:

Planning Phase (spring of school year prior to implementation) this phase will determine site readiness. Administer a teacher technology survey to gauge technology skills, use, knowledge, and attitudes toward its use. Develop an implementation. Select initial mentees Implementation Phase (first school year) One-on-one mentoring of teachers who will then become technology integration mentors themselves. Whole staff workshops, twice per year, to address, among other things, issues raised in the teacher technology survey that needs to be addressed. Online administrative meetings, quarterly, to discuss the administrators’ role in supporting the program. Re-administering the teacher technology survey to determine how much teachers’ knowledge, skills, and so on have changed over the course of one year. Transfer Phase (second school year) Development of a year-two implementation plan, using data collected from the teacher technology survey at the end of year one. Select year-two mentees, to be mentored by those who were mentees in year one. One-on-one mentoring from year one mentees (now the mentors) to year two mentees. And a final administration of the teacher technology survey to gauge growth over the course of the program.

Will this long program do what it needs to to address many of the issues discussed above?

I think that teachers would be turned off by the sound of all of that work, especially ones who had a strong technology background. Some of it seems tedious and I’m not sure how excited teachers would be about having to have a mentor, attend online support meetings and workshops.