How to effect change with your colleagues – some tips for effective training.

One of the things I love the most about the job I do is the opportunity I have to meet with so many dedicated teachers. Our schools have some amazing teachers who are doing fantastic things within their programmes. But like anything, some are more digitally savvy than others. As this is the area we are most often focusing on, we have some intriguing conversations around creating change.

Teachers are just like their students. They are a mix of people with a very divergent set of skills, interests and strengths. When it comes to working digitally some teachers are more adept at this than others. One of the most common frustrations we experience is with those ‘early adopters’ who struggle to motivate their less confident colleagues to give digital experiences a go.

So what are some of the strategies you can use to help your colleagues who are yet to embrace the digital world in their classroom?

Here’s some food for thought for you:

1. Reflect back on what motivates you

When you attend training or professional development opportunities, what is it about the presenter or the content that engages you? When you were first beginning your digital journey what were the ideas that motivated you?

Not everyone is hooked in by the same things, so get to know your colleagues and you may be better able to identify what their trigger point could be.

One of the things that I found working in my own school was that if the reluctant teachers saw how the use of digital learning engaged my students AND made my job easier it soon piqued their interest.

[bctt tweet=” Show reluctant teachers how #digitaltools can make their jobs easier and they often see the light! ” username=”donnagolightly1″]    

2. Honour the knowledge and skills your colleague brings to their practice

Malcolm Knowles in the article ’ Andragogy in Action reminds us that “Adult learners are motivated when they are presented with personally relevant and replicable content.”    

Working with your colleagues and working with your students are two very different things. Often we try to ‘teach’ our colleagues in the same way that we would our students – but these practices actually require two very different approaches.

[bctt tweet=” Working with teachers is not the same as working with students, #respect the difference. ” username=”donnagolightly1″]    

3. Be seen as credible with your approach

It’s also very important that your colleagues see you as credible – just exactly what is it that gives you the ability to help them out in this area?

Do you have a recognised certification? That may be a Google Certified Educator Level 1 and/or Level 2 qualification. (If you  don’t have one or other of these and you are interested in gaining either of them you could check out our online course for Level 1 here or the Level 2 course here). If you’re at a Microsoft school it could be that you’ve gained the Microsoft Certified Educator badge. You may have completed the Apple Teacher badges in the Apple Teachers Center or you may be an Apple Distinguished Educator.

Of course, you don’t need to have a formal badge or certificate to have credibility with your colleagues – but it does show you are someone who peruses that life long learning ethos and you know what you are talking about.

4. Help your colleagues to set SMART goals

If you have a clear, well-defined goal it is much easier to know what you are working towards and how you can get there.

It could be that as a team everyone is going to be working towards the same thing. This often helps less confident teachers get started as they feel more supported along the way.

Knowing the shared vision and what it is that you want for your students will help you to establish achievable goals with a team or an individual.

[bctt tweet=” Set #smartgoals to help #teachers achieve a difference in their practice. ” username=”donnagolightly1″]    

Remember the goal needs to be specific. It needs to be worded in such a way that it’s very clear to everyone concerned just exactly what it is that you are working towards accomplishing.

It needs to be measurable. How will actually know that you have achieved it? What will the measurement of the before and the after be?

It must be attainable. Sometimes we set goals that are way too complicated, too far out of our reach or involve too many skills. It’s important to find that  ‘just right’ balance.

It should be realistic. There’s no point setting a goal that would involve using a programme you don’t have access to or that involves things that just wouldn’t be able to be included within your programme.

And finally, it needs to be timely. If there is not a time frame to work towards with this goal, we often let things drift and lose focus. Our journey deviates and we don’t reflect back on how we are tracking and the goal ends up not being met.

An example of a SMART goal could be:

By the end of term 2, I will have worked with X so that they can use Book Creator with their students to capture evidence of their students learning.

I will timetable in regular sessions with X.

I am going to model the benefits of this to them as the teacher, show their students how effective it is for them to track their learning and how it can be shared with their families.

We will use the camera tool, the text tool and the drawing tool to highlight areas of their work.

 

People will say what they believe but they will do what they value. Any goals you set need to be adding value for all involved.

Hopefully, that’s given you a few ideas on how you could work with your colleagues to help them make a move towards including more digital learning within their practice.

If you are keen to develop your own leadership practices you might like to check out our  Certified Leader course which is designed to help you grow your leadership skills within and beyond your school.

If you have your Level 2 Google Certified Educator certificate, you might be interested in our Google Certified Trainer course – designed to help you develop effective skills in leading Google training within and beyond your school.

If you have any question about working with others and helping them to develop effective and efficient digital skills don’t hesitate to contact us. Or check out all our online course here.

Related Post

How well do you use the
Apple Apps Google Workspace Microsoft 365
tools in your workplace?

Find out if you’re working with the tools OR if you’ve got the
tools working for you.

What Industry Are You In?

Using Apple Apps, Google Workspace or Microsoft 365?

What Type of user are you?

🫣 Entry User | 🤹 Skilled User | 👑 Elite User

Take the quiz to find out. 

Privacy Policy

Using Technology Better Privacy Commitment

Introduction

We hold the privacy of your personal information in the highest regard.

Using Technology Better regards customer privacy as an important part of our relationship with our customers. The following privacy policy applies to all Using Technology Better users, and conforms to Internet privacy standards.

This policy will be continuously assessed against new technologies, business practices and our customers’ needs.

If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should first contact the support team on our Contact Us Page.

Collection of Information

In order to use the Using Technology Better website, we may require information from you in order to provide the best service possible.

All correspondence may also be collected and stored, particularly in regard to sales, support and accounts, including Email.

Any information collected by Using Technology Better is collected via correspondence from you or your company. This may be via the telephone, Email, mail, fax or directly through our website.

Visitors and customers of japan.usingtechnologybetter.com will have their information shared back to DAIWABO INFORMATION SYSTEM CO., LTD. and DIS Service & Solution Co., Ltd.

Use of Collection Information

Any details collected from Using Technology Better customers is required in order to provide you with our

products and/or services, and a high level of customer service.

Correspondence is recorded in order to provide service references, and to assist in our staff development.

Web Site Use Information

Similar to other commercial Web sites, our Web sites utilize a standard technology called “cookies” (see explanation below, “What Are Cookies?”) and web server log files to collect information about how our Web site is used.

Information gathered through cookies and Web server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our Web site, and the Web sites visited just before and just after our Web site.

Storage of Collected Information

The security of your personal information is important to us. When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card numbers) on our website, we encrypt that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL).

When Credit Card details are collected, we simply pass them on in order to be processed as required. We never permanently store complete Credit Card details.

We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it.

If you have any questions about security on our Website, you can email us at <ContactEmail>.

Access to Collected Information

If your personally identifiable information changes, or if you no longer desire our service, you may correct, update, delete or deactivate it by emailing us at <ContactEmail>.

Orders

If you purchase a product or service from us, we may request certain personally identifiable information from you.

You may be required to provide contact information such as:

Name

Email

Postal address

Your school or organisation

Financial information (such as credit card number, expiration date, name on card, card billing address).

We use this information for billing purposes and to fill your orders. If we have trouble processing an order, we will use this information to contact you.

Communications

Using Technology Better uses personally identifiable information for essential communications, such as

Emails

Accounts information

Critical service details.

We may also use this information for other purposes, including some promotional Emails.

If at any time a customer wishes not to receive such correspondence, they can request to be removed from any mailing lists by contacting support.

You will be notified when your personal information is collected by any third party that is not our agent/service provider, so you can make an informed choice as to whether or not to share your information with that party.

Third Parties

Using Technology Better may at its discretion use other third parties to provide essential services on our site or for our business processes.

We may share your details as necessary for the third party to provide that service.

These third parties are prohibited from using your personally identifiable information for any other purpose.

Using Technology Better does not share any information with third parties for any unknown or unrelated uses.

What Are Cookies?

A cookie is a very small text document, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier. When you visit a Web site, that site’s computer asks your computer for permission to store this file in a part of your hard drive specifically designated for cookies.

Each Web site can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser’s preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a Web site to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites.

Browsers are usually set to accept cookies. However, if you would prefer not to receive cookies, you may alter the configuration of your browser to refuse cookies.

If you choose to have your browser refuse cookies, it is possible that some areas of our site will not function as effectively when viewed by the users.

A cookie cannot retrieve any other data from your hard drive or pass on computer viruses.

How Do We Use Information We Collect from Cookies?

As you visit and browse our Web site, the site uses cookies to differentiate you from other users. In some cases, we also use cookies to prevent you from having to log in more than is necessary for security.

Cookies, in conjunction with our Web server’s log files, allow us to calculate the aggregate number of people visiting our Web site and which parts of the site are most popular. This helps us gather feedback to constantly improve our Web site and better serve our clients.

Cookies do not allow us to gather any personal information about you and we do not intentionally store any personal information that your browser provided to us in your cookies.

Legal

We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our Website.

Links

Links on the Using Technology Better site to external entities are not covered within this policy. The terms and conditions set out in this privacy statement only cover the domain name of usingtechnologybetter.com

Changes to Privacy Policy

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.

We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it periodically. If we make material changes to this policy, we will not use the personal information you have submitted to us under this Privacy Policy in a manner that is materially inconsistent with this Privacy Policy, without your prior consent

Delivery Policy

Most goods are digitally delivered instantly via email.  Our services may be delivered either via an online medium or live in person.

For our online delivery see below.  For services delivered live onsite, please refer to our speaker agreement form which is emailed to you on confirmation of booking.

Refund Policy

We do not offer refunds or returns unless we cannot supply goods or services or the goods or services are not delivered as promised.

Australian law is the governing body for all work, goods and services supplied by Using Technology Better.

Marketing Release

Using Technology Better (UTB) may film, record, and photograph me (the results of which are the “Recordings”). UTB may also incorporate into any production(s) any separate content (e.g., quotes, testimonials, biographical information, profiles, photos, videos, sound recordings, artwork, etc.) I provide to UTB or approve in writing (“Materials”).

1.License

I grant to UTB an irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free license to, in its sole discretion, (i) edit, translate, and modify the Recordings and the Materials, (ii) attribute the Recordings and Materials to me by my name, age, and city and state of residence, (iii) incorporate the Recordings and the Materials into content to promote UTB, its programs, or products (“Content”), and (iv) publicly use, distribute, reproduce, create derivative works from, and perform/display the Content, and any excerpts thereof, in any language.

2. No Compensation.

I grant this permission without any financial or other obligation of any nature.

 

For any issues or concerns please contact us