Remote Professional Development Opportunities for K-12 Teachers during a Pandemic

Howard S. Kimmel; John D. Carpinelli; Ronald H Rockland; Mark R O’Shea

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Conference: 2022 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference
Location: Newark, New Jersey
Publication Date: April 22, 2022
Start Date: April 22, 2022
End Date: April 23, 2022
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 9
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--40067
Permanent URL: https://strategy.asee.org/40067
Download Count: 202

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Paper Authors

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Howard S. Kimmel New Jersey Institute of Technology

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HOWARD KIMMEL is Professor-Emeritus of Chemical Engineering and Retired Executive Director of the Center for Pre-College Programs at New Jersey Institute of Technology. In 2019 Dr. Kimmel was a recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, one of 15 awardees nationwide. In addition, Dr. Kimmel has received numerous awards in recognition of his service, including: ASEE 1985 Vincent Bendix Minorities in Engineering Award, and ASEE CENTENNIAL MEDALION for ”Significant Lasting Impact on Engineering Education,” 1993. The NJIT Foundation Overseers Public and Institute Service Award, 1981 (First Recipient) and in 2005; and the Allan R. Cullimore Distinguished Service Award (NJIT) for 1991.

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John D. Carpinelli New Jersey Institute of Technology

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Dr. John D. Carpinelli is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He has served as coordinator of activities at NJIT for the Gateway Engineering Education Coalition and as a member of the Coalition’s Governing Board. He previously chaired NJIT’s Excellence in Teaching Awards Committee and is Past Chair of the University Master Teacher Committee.

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Ronald H Rockland New Jersey Institute of Technology

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Dr. Ronald H. Rockland received his B.S.E.E. and M.S.E.E. and Ph.D. in bioengineering and electrical engineering from New York University, and received an M.B.A. in marketing from the University of St. Thomas. After almost 25 years of industrial experience in research, engineering, marketing and sales management and general management with several high technology corporations, he joined New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) in 1995 as an Assistant Professor. He is currently professor emeritus, Engineering Technology. Prior to retiring, he was the chair and professor of the Department of Engineering Technology, with a joint appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Previous to that he served as Associate Dean, Undergraduate Studies for the Newark College of Engineering of NJIT.
His research in industry was in the area of pacemakers and defibrillation, and his research at Medtronic Inc led to five patents. He was a principal investigator for a three year, $1 million NSF grant entitled Medibotics: The merging of medicine, robotics and IT, and was a co-principal investigator for a $2.5 million grant on pre-engineering workforce enhancement from the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education, as well as a principal investigator for a Whitaker Foundation grant. His current research was in biological signal processing, related to cardiovascular signals, and in enhancing STEM education through use of engineering principles. He has written over 50 articles in both journals and conference proceedings, in both the educational and biomedical fields.
Dr. Rockland was the recipient in 2015 of the ASEE Middle Atlantic Distinguished Teaching Award, in 2004 of the F.J. Berger award, a national engineering technology award presented by ASEE, and a 2000 award winner in Excellence in Teaching for NJIT, was named a Master Teacher in 2004, and was the chair of the Master Teacher’s Committee. He is also very active in the Engineering Technology community, have served in numerous capacities for the Engineering Technology Division (ETD) of the American Society of Engineering Educators (ASEE), most recently as the Chair for ETD, as well as serving as a commissioner on the Technology Accreditation Commission (TAC) for ABET. He was selected in 2011 as a Fellow of the American Society of Engineering Educators. He is currently a Professor Emeritus in the School of Applied Engineering and Technology of NJIT.

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Mark R O’Shea California State University Monterey Bay

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Mark taught science at the K-12 level for over a decade before moving on to science teacher education at the university level. Most recently he is the author of Five Domains of Classroom Management.

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Abstract

This paper will explore pathways for providing professional development for K-12 teachers during the time of a pandemic which requires the utilization of a mode of remote education. While K-12 and post-secondary education have shifted from the face-to-face learning to a virtual or distance learning setting for student learning, teacher training and professional development for K-12 teachers have also been affected. The pandemic caused learning loss not only for the students, but also for the teachers. With schools closed and most everyone in “lockdown”, professional development opportunities for teachers became almost non-existent. While their undergraduate degrees and teacher certification provides teachers with the foundation of knowledge and skills necessary to begin classroom instruction, it should also be recognized that continuous professional development for teachers is necessary to ensure that their content knowledge and instructional practices keeps up with the changing base of knowledge and practices required in order to maintain effective classroom instructional practices regardless of the mode of instruction. In addition, teachers need to be prepared to provide effective, engaging learning by using available technology in meaningful ways. Our experience with providing web-based professional development programs for teachers can serve as a model for distance learning programs for teachers, where they can enhance their content knowledge and instructional practices, and also network with others. Two professional development programs are described that can be described as forerunners for present and future mixed modes programs.

The first program was implemented in the mid-1980s, when electronic conferencing was being utilized mostly for communications among academic researchers. A computer conferencing network was created to overcome the seriously limited dissemination of educational materials for K-12 educators, which allowed for communication between individuals, group discussions with a permanent transcript of the proceedings, a repository of educational materials, and an area for group preparation of educational materials. The initial program involved a series of in-person workshops and an electronic network of participants for planning and communications among the participants. In 1990, this became an international network involving teachers and students in other states, and other countries in Europe and Asia, which included joint projects that shared environmental data. The other distance learning program, entitled Virtual Medibotics, was designed to expand the reach of a face-to-face program for NJ teachers, to teachers outside our immediate geographical area by creating a web-based version of the original professional development program, Medibotics. The program, reaching teachers in the mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states, included the creation and implementation of a web-based program that teachers accessed remotely and, as a result of the training, were able to implement, in their classroom. Medibotics involved the application of robotics and information technology to solve biomedical problems.

Lessons learned from these two professional development programs can serve as a framework for the implementation of programs for teachers utilizing different modes of remote learning as well as face-2-face programs.

Citation
Format

Kimmel, H. S., & Carpinelli, J. D., & Rockland, R. H., & O’Shea, M. R. (2022, April), Remote Professional Development Opportunities for K-12 Teachers during a Pandemic Paper presented at 2022 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference, Newark, New Jersey. 10.18260/1-2--40067

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - This paper will explore pathways for providing professional development for K-12 teachers during the time of a pandemic which requires the utilization of a mode of remote education.  While K-12 and post-secondary education have shifted from the face-to-face learning to a virtual or distance learning setting for student learning, teacher training and professional development for K-12 teachers have also been affected.  The pandemic caused learning loss not only for the students, but also for the teachers.  With schools closed and most everyone in “lockdown”, professional development opportunities for teachers became almost non-existent.  While their undergraduate degrees and teacher certification provides teachers with the foundation of knowledge and skills necessary to begin classroom instruction, it should also be recognized that continuous professional development for teachers is necessary to ensure that their content knowledge and instructional practices keeps up with the changing base of knowledge and practices required in order to maintain effective classroom instructional practices regardless of the mode of instruction.  In addition, teachers need to be prepared to provide effective, engaging learning by using available technology in meaningful ways.  Our experience with providing web-based professional development programs for teachers can serve as a model for distance learning programs for teachers, where they can enhance their content knowledge and instructional practices, and also network with others.  Two professional development programs are described that can be described as forerunners for present and future mixed modes programs.

The first program was implemented in the mid-1980s, when electronic conferencing was being utilized mostly for communications among academic researchers.  A computer conferencing network was created to overcome the seriously limited dissemination of educational materials for K-12 educators, which allowed for communication between individuals, group discussions with a permanent transcript of the proceedings, a repository of educational materials, and an area for group preparation of educational materials.  The initial program involved a series of in-person workshops and an electronic network of participants for planning and communications among the participants.  In 1990, this became an international network involving teachers and students in other states, and other countries in Europe and Asia, which included joint projects that shared environmental data.  The other distance learning program, entitled Virtual Medibotics, was designed to expand the reach of a face-to-face program for NJ teachers, to teachers outside our immediate geographical area by creating a web-based version of the original professional development program, Medibotics.  The program, reaching teachers in the mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states, included the creation and implementation of a web-based program that teachers accessed remotely and, as a result of the training, were able to implement, in their classroom.  Medibotics involved the application of robotics and information technology to solve biomedical problems.

Lessons learned from these two professional development programs can serve as a framework for the implementation of programs for teachers utilizing different modes of remote learning as well as face-2-face programs.

AU  - Howard S. Kimmel
AU  - John D. Carpinelli
AU  - Ronald H Rockland
AU  - Mark R O’Shea
CY  - Newark, New Jersey
DA  - 2022/04/22
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Remote Professional Development Opportunities for K-12 Teachers during a Pandemic
UR  - https://strategy.asee.org/40067
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--40067
ER  -