Tech and teachers: The expert or accomplished novice?

While starting the book How People Learn: Brain, mind, experience and school I started thinking how none of this was new! I wondered why I was reading this. I mean this isn't new research, it was around when I started teaching college.

My first international job was at a school in Kazakhstan that was implementing a Cambridge curriculum and part of my job was to be a mentor teacher, or an "expert teacher" as they liked to introduce us. I was half the age of my Head of Department and was always stunned at her accomplishments in Chemistry, having a PhD and worked for many years in industry. How was I an expert compared to her? I soon found out that they don't do teacher training in Kazakhstan and this was really what they wanted me to do... yikes!

Bransford et al. (2000) talk about the difference between experts and novices as "not simply general abilities such as memory, intelligence nor the use of general strategies” but as having extensive knowledge in their field and the way that they recognize and organize information. This chapter made me think about my experiences building professional development for my department and is explored more here in Teachers as Experts or Novices: the Realm of Educational Technology and Professional Development. Considering the benefits of technology in education I wanted to consider how we create PD sessions and strategies for technology implementation while exploring whether teachers really are experts or not.

References

Bransford, J., Brown, A.L. & Cocking, R. R. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience and school. National Academy Press. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/9853/chapter/5

Image credit

Teacher meme (2014) https://thepensivesloth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/meme-look-at-all-these-new-mandates-back-to-school.jpg?w=520&h=362