Designing effective professional development for technology integration in schools

This study aims to explore the critical factors for effective professional development (PD) activities to support teachers' technology integration and suggests a design model: flipped PD. The following questions are investigated: What are the core features of effective teacher PD, what are the implications of core features in effective technology integration PD, and what are the best practices for designing a flipped PD model for preparing teachers to integrate technology into their classrooms? First, we discuss the core features of effective teacher PD: content focus, active learning, coherence, duration, collective participation, and the role of context. Second, we explore design factors in recent technology integration PD studies: learner centred, relevance and reflection, evidence of student learning, support and follow-up, student voice, and initial implementation with teacher leaders. Finally, we present a discussion of our recommendations for a flipped model for technology integration PD.