Evaluating Teachers’ Professional Development for ICT Use: Towards Innovative Classroom Practices

Abstract

This paper describes an evaluation study designed to investigate the impact of an ICT-Instructional digital innovation in teaching Mathematics, English and Integrated Science subjects from the teacher capacity building professional development programme to classroom implementation at senior high school levels in Ghana. Interviews and survey data were used for data collection following a week professional development programme on the instructional digital learning training. The study demonstrated that the teachers increased in ICT proficiencies but this was limited to their own professional development and not so much of classroom implementation of ICT which results when transfer of learning takes place from training to practice. The study reported that teachers faced a complex mix of factors that when combined, contributed to challenges in transferring the ideas gained in the training programme to the classroom situation. It was evident from the findings that more systematic efforts are needed at the school levels and at the level of stakeholders who implement in-service teachers’ professional development programmes to move the goal of transforming teaching and learning through ICT-based innovations. Based on the outcomes, the study discussed recommendations to help smoothen the transition from teacher professional development programmes to actual classroom implementations in Ghanaian senior high schools and such similar contexts.