ET4ET: A Large-Scale Faculty Professional Development Program on Effective Integration of Educational Technology

Educators have recommended that the affordances provided by ICTs should be used to promote student-centered constructivist learning. While the actual use of ICT in education has increased, not much change has occurred in terms of the pedagogical practices followed. Information transmission models of teaching are still being followed, albeit with the use of ICT. Efforts at the school level attempt to address this problem via teacher education programs that emphasize ICT integration with constructivist practices. In higher education settings, there are fewer reported studies on ICT integration at a systemic level, and most decisions related to the use of ICTs are left to the instructor. In this paper, we describe the design, implementation and evaluation of ET4ET, a large-scale faculty professional development program (1138 participants) on effective integration of educational technology for engineering college instructors in India. Guided by the Attain-Align-Integrate (A2I) model, the ET4ET program prepares instructors to implement ICT supported student-centric teaching strategies. To ensure engagement and learning of the participants, active learning strategies are implemented throughout the ET4ET program. This paper traces the development of ET4ET, from a small-scale face-to-face implementation to a large-scale mode mediated by technology, and suggests guidelines for similar training programs.