Helping teachers grasp mobile learning's possibilities

In EdTechTeacher workshops, we strive to put educators in the role of proactive consumers and creative problem solvers by emphasizing pedagogy and immersive learning. At the heart of the process is hands-on, “challenge-based” activities that put participants at the center of the learning environment. Instead of saying, “Here is how you take a picture” or “This is how you switch apps”—characteristics of passive, “do what I do” environments—we challenge educators to learn basic and advanced skills on their own, or in small groups. By completing even small challenges, participants gain a measure of confidence and comfort in their ability to overcome greater challenges. And they live a “don’t be afraid to fail” philosophy that they often try to instill in their own students.

With mobile apps specifically, we help teachers visualize new learning possibilities. For instance, we challenge educators to take a PDF document, or a blank screen, and turn it into a multimedia presentation, a tutorial, a short story, or a virtual tour. Challenge-based professional learning avoids creating a culture of dependency in which educators immediately turn to “experts” and ask them to “show me how to do it.” By providing both beginner and advanced challenges, we allow participants to work at their own pace, enabling us to model strategies for differentiated learning.

As our instructors circulate to offer tips and just-in-time guidance, we’re creating an environment that fosters a proper balance between self-exploration and direction. Furthermore, by facilitating a self-directed and immersive experience that is supported with personalized guidance, we are creating a mobile learning environment that we hope teachers will emulate in their own tech-infused classrooms.

For ed-tech professional development to be truly meaningful and successful, it must explore the instructional possibilities for augmenting—and even redefining—learning in digital-age classrooms. If we want teachers to integrate exemplary practices and inspire the next generation, we must prepare them in relevant mobile learning environments.

What we should be asking teachers to do is not master devices or apps, but think about learning in new ways. The pathway to success is not a click-here-with-me or a facile, “how-to” approach. It is rethinking learning in the context of new possibilities.

Tom Daccord is the director of EdTechTeacher, a leading professional learning organization.

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