Teacher Professional Development in the Digital Age

In a recent survey of professional development opportunities offered by the TDSB,

the author concluded approximately 5% are delivered through an online mode of
delivery: currently, on the TDSBs Key to Learn web portal, only 2 of 42 professional
development opportunities are offered online.
A single department within the TDSB, the Teaching and Learning with Technology
team, is spearheading online teacher professional development, and accounts for all of the
online sessions offered within the TDSB. Outside of this group, instructors who lead
professional development sessions (instructional leaders) have yet to integrate technology
into their sessions.
Teachers may be slow to integrate technology into their classrooms but their students,
K-12 learners, live in a technology-rich environment when outside of school. Inside
school, they are asked to shut off their technology to focus on learning using traditional
methods. When these students move on to college or university, they will find that those
institutions have moved ahead with integration of educational technology. The traditional
modes of teaching are becoming increasingly alien to these K-12 students. In order to
update their mode of delivery, K-12 teachers must have new modes of delivery modeled
for them in professional development sessions.
The board is recommended to employ instructional design professionals to do the
following:

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Rob Kahlon, West Humber Collegiate Institute, 1675 Martin Grove Road, Toronto, M9V 3S3
Phone: (416) 394-7470, Email: rob.kahlon@tdsb.on.ca

an analysis should be conducted to determine which professional development

courses are suitable for migration to an online delivery format not all
courses are suitable for the online format, some may be more suitable for the
face-to-face classroom, or a blended model

courses that are deemed suitable for online or partial online delivery should
be assessed to determine whether the synchronous or asynchronous format is
more appropriate.

apply best practices of instructional design to develop courses

a learning community of teachers needs to be fostered research indicates that

learning is more accomplished more effectively when it occurs within a
community

instructional leaders should be trained in online modes of course delivery

These initiatives are beyond the mandate and capacity of the Teaching and Learning
with Technology team. The team is composed of only 5 people: a principal, a program
coordinator, a secondary-level instructor and 2 elementary-level instructors. The mandate
of the team is to train teachers in the integration of technology into the classroom. They
are not tasked with coordinating online professional development within the TDSB, nor
with training instructional leaders of professional development sessions.
The TDSB is recommended to increase funding and staffing for teacher professional
development. Either the existing team should be expanded and given adequate resources

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Rob Kahlon, West Humber Collegiate Institute, 1675 Martin Grove Road, Toronto, M9V 3S3
Phone: (416) 394-7470, Email: rob.kahlon@tdsb.on.ca

to implement the above goals, or a new team created that has the exclusive focus of
improving teacher professional development within the organization.

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Rob Kahlon, West Humber Collegiate Institute, 1675 Martin Grove Road, Toronto, M9V 3S3
Phone: (416) 394-7470, Email: rob.kahlon@tdsb.on.ca