Professional Development to Encourage Pedagogical Use of the Schoology Learning Management System

Abstract

This purpose of this study was to provide teacher professional development to the Franklin High School science department teachers about the Schoology learning management system purchased by the El Paso ISD. The teachers were engaging minimally with the new technology because of a lack of time to experiment with the new platform and limited opportunities for professional development during their work days. Technology integration at the Franklin High School campus was important because it was a one-to-one computer to student campus. The participants worked at Franklin High School in the science department, covering all the science courses taught on the campus. They were experienced with technology in general but most did not have experience with Schoology. Six teachers completed the pre-training surveys, 17 to 20 teachers participated in each of the training sessions, and seven were interviewed. Three training sessions were developed around the basics of the Schoology platform. Pretraining surveys from experienced users provided information about the most useful aspects of the platform to guide planning for the training sessions. Science department teachers selected the topics chosen for the trainings. I observed the teacher engagement and behaviors and recorded them during the sessions. After all three sessions were complete, I individually interviewed seven teachers about the sessions. I employed a qualitative research method. I coded the interview data and categorized them to generate the common themes. Results indicated that teachers’ attitudes towards the Schoology platform improved and their interest in using it in their practice increased. Receiving participant input about training topics increased their engagement during the training sessions, suggesting that involving teachers in content selection increases interest in the training.