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Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM)

When introducing change into an organization, the aim is to get meaningful acceptance and saturated use throughout the organization. Many professional development programs fail to take into consideration the needs and concerns of the teachers.

Attendance at a training session assumes that teachers are ‘trained’ and that change can then commence in the classroom.  The CBAM provides a framework to define and follow teacher’s attitudes and behaviour towards the technology being introduced.

The CBAM model:

  • Accepts that professional development is a journey, not an event (Christou, Eliophotou-Menon and Philippou, 2004; Hall and Hord, 2011).  The change process may stop and start depending on the concerns of the group.
  • Focuses on the individual as the most important part of the change process (McKinnon and Nolan, 1989); PD must be client-centered, using evidence to guide decision-making.
  • Regards change as a personal and potentially threatening experience for most people, therefore teacher librarians (TLs) need to work in an adaptive, yet systematic way to stay in touch with the progress of individuals within the organization to alleviate their concerns. (Hall & Loucks, 1978) 
  • Evidence based practice (Todd 2003) where methodologies can show a clear improvement in the level of understanding and acceptance of the introduction of a new type of technology in the workplace