Moursund and Bielefeldt set out to determine how effectively our teacher-preparation institutions are training future teachers to integrate technology into their classrooms. Just like any other teaching strategy or tool, educational technology demands that the teachers know the best uses of these tools to help students maximize their potential. After developing and conducting a survey of higher-education institutions, the authors determined that the current programs in place in our universities are not adequately preparing teachers to use educational technology. In addition to identifying this lack of training, the authors used the survey and other research to suggest changes that could be made to the teacher training programs in order to better prepare new teachers to effectively use technology once they have their own classrooms.
There were several reasons behind the timing of this study on educational technology. The positive impact that technology can have on student achievement was one of the driving factors behind this study. In the world of education, there are so many examples of engaging, content-rich technology activities that could not be done as effectively without using the technology tools. Also, this technology is becoming more affordable and accessible to teachers and students. With technology becoming commonplace in today’s classrooms, the need to assess the technology component of teacher training programs has become crucial. Finally, the impending increase in turnover among teachers in the next decade will mean that the changes that are made now to teacher education programs will have a greater impact on a greater number of our students (Moursund, p. 1). These specific reasons created a perfect storm of sorts for an extensive study on how we can best train tomorrow’s teachers to use technology to improve student achievement.
Since technology is so much a part of nearly everything we do, it was important for the authors to specify the different types of technology that can be used in today’s classrooms. The three uses for educational technology as defined by the authors were technology-assisted learning, tool applications, and computer and information science (Moursund, p. 6). While there is certainly some grey area in which these types of technology usage overlap, each of these has a specific purpose in the classroom. Technology-assisted learning is evident in situations such as online tutorials and virtual educational worlds. Technology tool applications would be evidenced by using software or hardware that does not specifically have an educational focus, but can be used to increase efficiency or improve the ability of students to perform “more complex tasks with greater independence” (Moursund, p. 7). Finally, computer and information science is not as common of a use of classroom technology. This tends to be more of a higher-level, specialized use that only applies to those required to program or design websites. By categorizing the wide array of educational technology, the authors of the survey are better able to stress the areas of strength and weakness in today’s educator training programs.
The results of this survey indicated several key areas in which improvement in our teacher education programs was needed. One interesting finding was that, despite the availability of technology in student teachers’ classrooms, most did not actually use these tools due to the fact that their supervising teachers did not use them themselves (Moursund, p. 2). This information suggests that educational institutions need to be more purposeful in their selection process when picking student teachers’ cooperating teachers. If we continue to place student teachers in classrooms in which technology is underutilized, this cycle will continue. Another interesting finding from the survey results is that the “faculty IT skills tend to be comparable to the IT skills of the students they teach” (Moursund, p. 2). Unfortunately, the university faculty did not tend to model uses of educational technology during their teacher education courses. This information supports the need for teacher education professors to practice what they preach when it comes to using technology to enhance their lessons. Without improved modeling by supervising and faculty teachers, pre-service teachers will continue to be unable to effectively integrate technology into their daily lessons.
In addition to the findings listed above, there were also other results that need to be studied further in order to better understand respondents’ answers. For example, despite the fact that most schools judged their own technology infrastructure to be adequate (Moursund, p. 22), their apparent inability to incorporate their existing technology into daily learning activities makes you wonder if they are the best judges of this characteristic. Also, the content of educational technology courses needs to be closely examined. The fact that there was no significant correlation between taking an IT course and higher scores on any other part of the survey is disturbing (Moursund, p. 22). Whether this means the curriculum of these programs’ IT courses needs to be revamped or if the courses need to be integrated into existing theory and pedagogy courses requires further attention. These are just a few of the areas of educational technology that need to be examined and further pursued for the betterment of our new teachers and students.
In order to improve the current state of the technology component of today’s educator training programs, there are several things that need to be addressed. One important shift in thinking needs to be from getting more technology “toys” to spending more on training teachers to use these toys effectively. In too many classrooms, we see thousand dollar machines simply gathering dust or being used for menial tasks. Also, integration of technology tools into the introductory teaching theory courses would help improve teachers’ familiarity with how technology can be used to achieve teaching goals that existed long before laptops. It is important for new teachers to understand that using technology often does not require reinventing the educational wheel. Existing lessons and activities can be supplemented and improved with technology. Once teachers have an increased comfort level with the available technology, they can produce more in-depth, technology-heavy activities. It is also important to realize that teachers with a high degree of technology knowledge do not necessarily do a good job of integrating technology into their lessons. There are many teachers that can proficiently use various technology tools in their personal lives that simply do not know where to start when it comes to using them with their students. Based on the findings of these researchers, it is evident that despite the significant progress we have made in educational technology, there continues to be an ever-growing need to investigate and implement best practices pertaining to these tools.
Moursund, David and Talbot Bielefeldt. “Will New Teachers be Prepared to Teach in a Digital Age?” Milken Exchange on Education Technology (1995): p. 1-52. Report.
No comments:
Post a Comment