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Volume 1, Issue 3 ISSN
1528-5804
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Sweeder, J., & Bednar, M.R. (2001). "Flying"
with educational technology. Contemporary Issues in Technology
and Teacher Education [Online serial] , 1 (3)
. Available:
http://www.citejournal.org/vol1/iss3/currentpractice/article2.htm
"Flying" with Educational Technology
JOHN
SWEEDER and MARYANNE R. BEDNAR
La Salle University
I said I wanna touch the earth
I wanna break it in my hands
I wanna grow something wild and unruly
In their recent CD release, Fly, dealing
with themes of independence and freedom, the Dixie Chicks (1999)
sing about wanting to break the earth in their hands. Being in
touch firsthand with any meaningful life experience, be it a
personal or professional, is crucial. This may be especially true
for preservice teachers who find it challenging to bridge
educational theory to pedagogical practice. This is even more
pronounced with graduate students who maintain their professional
careers while attending classes during evening hours in order to
meet family obligations and pay their tuition bills.
Many preservice teachers lack meaningful, extended
student-teacher interactions before they enter their final
capstone experience'namely, student teaching. In addition, these
preservice teachers may have had only limited opportunities to
connect theory to practice. Students may complete a two-year (or
more) program of study only to discover too late that teaching does
not suit them and consequently they do not fly. We wanted our
preservice teachers to recognize and appreciate how educational
theory can inform best practice, yet still retain a willingness to
teach creatively, to fly, because learners enjoy flying, learning
in a variety of ways.
Our Flight Plan: Rationale and Purpose
During the summer of 2000 the graduate education
program at La Salle University piloted its graduate secondary
education practicum. The experience consisted of two integrated
components. Education 647 was the evening seminar in which graduate
students began their discussions about how to structure plans and
motivate students using hard and soft technologies (Persing,
Molenda, Paulus, Lai Har, & Hixon, 2000), and created unit
plans blending the theme of leadership with specific content
disciplines. Education 648 was the follow-up clinical experience in
which the graduate students implemented their instructional plans
with the middle-school students who attended a two-week leadership
conference.
The framework for the summer practicum involved an
artful integration of idea and product technologies' educational
technology (Hooper & Reiber, 1995; Ryan, Sweeder, &
Bednar, in press; Sweeder, Bednar, & Ryan, 1998). Organizations
such as the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher
Education, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, and
the American Council of Education are consistent in their
recommendations for integrating educational technology into courses
and actual teaching events, as well as requirements for teacher
licensure (Dawson & Nonis, 2000; Rogers, 2000; Thomas &
Cooper, 2000). Tantamount to those recommendations, the practicum
reflects the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and
Technology's concern that there should be a 'focus on learning
with technology, not about technology [italics
added]' as well as an emphasis on 'content and pedagogy, and not
just hardware' (1997, p. 26).
In this article the varying degrees of success with
which the graduate students incorporated educational technology in
their planning and instruction to motivate their middle schoolers
is discussed. In addition, how Hooper and Reiber's (1995) adoption
stages'familiarity, application, integration, reorientation, and
evaluation'were used as a way to delineate degrees of educational
technology competence is described. Finally, recommendations for
improving not only preservice , but also inservice
technology development programs are offered.
The Tarmac and Ground Mechanics:
Practicum Specifics
La Salle graduate students were enrolled in a
10-night, 35-hour course of study that was primarily intended to
help them bridge theory to practice. Of the 13 graduate students
enrolled, 10 sought certification in mathematics and/or science
(i.e., general science, biology, chemistry), while 2 sought foreign
language certification (i.e., French) and 1 social studies. The
primary seminar activities involved videotaped microteaching
experiences, which were followed up with instructor and peer
feedback. The seminar readings, lectures, and discussions dealt
mainly, but not exclusively, with the topics of lesson and unit
planning, developing and adjusting instruction, and questioning
levels and skills, as well as preventive, maintenance, and
interventionary discipline measures. An additional area of emphasis
included extending the concepts of 'idea technology' to include
multiple intelligence (MI) theory (Armstrong, 2000; Gardner, 1999),
cognitive taxonomies of learning (Bloom, 1956), the moral system
(Damon 1995), and the Questioning Circle-System (Wilen, Ishler,
Hutchison, & Kindsvatter, 2000). The overarching goal of the
seminar instruction was to nurture within preservice teachers, a
willingness to quote the Dixie Chicks, to "grow something
wild and unruly," to be in touch firsthand with a new, meaningful
life experience, to get their middle school students excited about
learning something new using educational technology. This
experience occurred when the graduate students, who were directly
responsible for developing the daily leadership conference
activities, assumed primary responsibility for instructing and
managing their students during the final two weeks of the
practicum.
The clinical component, the leadership conference
itself, in which graduate students taught 12 and 13-year-olds from
urban and suburban, public, and private schools, was held on La
Salle University's main campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The
conference was intended to help those middle-school students
discover that they could learn in variety of ways, become more
confident when they gave presentations by using different product
technologies, negotiate effectively with peers to solve an
assortment of problems, and adjust to a simulated high school
routine. As conference participants, each student attended three
classes per day, typically math, science, and humanities. The
conference instructors emphasized how leadership qualities are
often reflected in specific subject matter domains as well as the
occupational end states of those disciplines. For example, one math
class discovered that business leaders need math to make effective
production-line decisions for their tee-shirt business, while a
social studies class compared and contrasted the different positive
attributes of several renowned political leaders.
Flying, Landing, and Deplaning:
Design,
Instruments, and Results
By reviewing all preservice teacher lesson plans
and related materials, we discovered that collectively, the
graduate students used a number of idea technologies including
multiple intelligence theory with its linguistically adapted 'MI
Pizza' (Armstrong, 2000, p. 33); questioning levels (Wilen et al.,
2000); K-W-L+ (Carr & Ogle, 1987); the moral system (Damon,
1995; Ryan et al., in press); and small-group cooperative learning.
Their product technology use included videocassette players,
camcorders, keyboards, music synthesizers, overhead projectors,
transparencies, handheld calculators, multimedia computers, and the
Internet, as well as a variety of realia (Heinich, Molenda,
Russell, & Smaldino, 1999) and manipulatives that supported
their content objectives. Despite the array of products and ideas,
we were more interested in the degree to which the graduate
students were able to bridge theory and practice.
Thus, to what degree were graduate students
individually able to bridge theory and practice by using
educational technology to plan and motivate? To address this
central question, a variety of instruments were used. First, each
preservice teacher was observed at least three times, during which
university faculty rated each lesson using the Formative Assessment
form ( Appendix A ).
Each preservice teacher's unit lesson plans were reviewed for
evidence of idea and/or product technology use ( Appendix B, part 1 and Appendix B, part 2 ). In
addition, the preservice teachers' final evaluation essays were
reviewed ( Appendix C
).
The Summative Evaluation ( Appendix D ) represents a
comprehensive analysis of each preservice teacher's performance for
the entire two-week practicum. Using the Summative Evaluation form
each individual preservice teacher was rated by assessing the
degree to which she or he successfully blended idea and product
technologies in support of adolescent learning. A four-point scale
was used: a 4 meant exceptionally competent; 3, very competent; 2,
competent; and 1, not yet competent.
Five of the graduate preservice teachers
demonstrated exceptional competence, for they used educational
technology in a creative and systematic manner. They did not merely
blend idea and product technologies competently for one or two
70-minute lessons; rather, they did so throughout their entire
two-week units. Equally significant, they put the technologies
themselves'both products and ideas'into their students' hand,
demonstrating what Hooper and Reiber referred to as the
'reorientation phase...[where students] construct and shape their
own knowledge' (1995, p. 158). For example, four chemistry teachers
artfully blended MI theory with a variety of product technologies
to help their middle schoolers create nutritious food product
advertisements, the culminating event for their science units.
Learners chose their own collaborative work groups to reflect a
balance of 'smarts' using Armstrong's (2000) MI Pizza, which had
been presented to them by their teachers. The photos (Figure 1)
illustrate one group's final product, an appetizing new breakfast
cereal. Teachers such as these 'encourage[d] and expect[ed]
students to appropriate the technology in ways that could not be
anticipated' (Hooper & Rieber, p. 159).
 
Figure
1. Final product, new cereal
Five preservice teachers were deemed very competent
because they blended one or more product and/or idea technologies
into several of their lessons in a controlled and systematic
fashion. For example, one social studies teacher, whose unit was
entitled, 'Leaders: Past, Present, and Future,' blended Damon's
Moral system with Ogle and Carr's K-W-L+ to emphasize more
dramatically how effective leaders gather information and make
decisions. Such preservice teachers more closely resemble ones who
have reached Hooper and Rieber's integration phase, where, when
'the technology is suddenly removed or is unavailable, the teacher
cannot proceed with the instruction as planned' (1995, p. 158).
Unlike their five exceptionally competent peers, these teachers
often focused on teacher instruction rather than on student
learning.
Three preservice teachers were judged simply
competent because, while they used either products or
ideas to complement individual lessons, they did not blend
them. Thus, they were best characterized by the application phase,
the 'at least I gave it a try' stage (Hooper & Rieber, p. 158).
For example, on different occasions, one foreign language
preservice teacher used products such as an audiocassette tape
player, a multimedia computer, an overhead projector, handheld
calculators, and a videocassette player. Nevertheless, none of
these product technologies were used in conjunction with idea
technologies in any systematic fashion. Moreover, if any one of
these products were to have 'failed,' instruction could have
proceeded unencumbered.
In addition to the faculty analysis of their
performances, the graduate students submitted final self-evaluative
essays reflecting critically upon their instructional,
professional, and classroom management skills as well as their
teacher/student relationships with the middle schoolers ( Appendix C ). These
documents were reviewed for explicit mention of how idea and
product technologies may have helped them structure lessons and
motivate students. Twelve of the 13 preservice teachers directly
referenced the idea and product technologies they incorporated into
their instruction. Interestingly, the graduate students' own
self-assessments mirrored Hooper and Rieber's technology adoption
stages. For instance, one of the 'competent' graduate students
stated,
I used different types of technology in my
classroom: PowerPoint , TV, VCR, and overheads, and even
though each time they weren't working at first, I stubbornly
insisted and eventually succeeded. Using many different forms of
technology varies instruction and helps all learning styles.
Whereas, another 'exceptionally competent' student
wrote,
Idea and product technology was an important
part of our lessons. I found that the use of Multiple
[I]ntelligence, cooperative learning, questioning levels and peer
support helped to provide motivation for our first period students
who were often difficult to engage. [I was] also successful in
using product technology such as PowerPoint , video clips,
and overheads...to help get the student interested....I found that
if one medium does not seem to be reaching the learners, I need to
move on and try another type of technology. This philosophy works
for both idea and product technologies.
The middle-school students also provided insight
regarding the degree to which their teachers used educational
technology to motivate them. On the final day of the summer
conference the middle-school attendees completed a 13-question
conference evaluation ( Appendix E ), which
consisted of 10 Likert scale items and 2 additional items requiring
a narrative response. Several questions targeted student motivation
and response to technology issues. For example, one
motivation question asked, 'Did you talk about the
conference with family or friends at home at night?' Another
educational technology item queried whether or not a middle
schooler was more interested when her or his conference teachers
used technology such as the computer, VCR, and so forth. In order
to encourage the students to share their own feelings about the
conference explicitly, two open-ended questions, numbers 12 and 13
respectively were created: 'What part of the conference would you
change for next summer?' and ' What part of the conference got you
excited?'
A total of 44 middle-school students completed the
Summer Leadership Conference Evaluation forms at the end of the
two-week period. Analysis of the results is as follows:
-
Over 97% of them reported that
their conference teachers made them think.
-
Ninety-three percent of them
responded that they talked to friends and family about the
conference, with 59% responding that they did so
'often.'
-
Ninety-one percent responded that
they were more interested when their teachers used such product
technologies as the overhead, VCR, PowerPoint presentation,
and video cameras.
-
Over 82% reported that their
teachers taught them in a variety of ways.
-
Over 77% responded 'yes, very much'
when they were asked whether or not they 'did something creative
during the conference.'
-
Sixty-two percent responded that
the various classroom activities kept them interested.
Preparing for Future Journeys:
Discussion and Recommendations
In this study the degree of success with which
graduate students used educational technology to structure and
motivate middle-school students during a summer immersion program
was identified. It appeared that collectively, preservice teachers
were successful. Almost all used a variety of product technologies
in their day-to- day lessons; most blended specific idea
technologies with those products to strengthen and enrich their
unit plans and make them more coherent. Several were confident and
competent enough to put the technology into learners' hands.
As self-evaluations indicated, preservice teachers
were emphatic in their recognition of how much more engaged their
students were because their lessons incorporated educational
technology. Given the encouraging feedback received, the summer
practicum model is offered'with its educational technology
emphasis'as a template for fellow teacher educators to adopt.
LaSalle University continues to enroll an
ever-increasing number of graduate students seeking secondary
teacher certification. These graduate students possess broad ranges
of discipline or content area expertise, but little or no actual
classroom experience with adolescent learners. Other universities
may have a similar shift in graduate student populations. This
practicum proved to be helpful to these highly motivated graduate
students. They reported that they were much more comfortable in
their newly chosen professional roles as teachers as a result of
the overall experience. Although these students were at the
preservice level, it is believed that this model of using
educational technology to structure and motivate could also be used
at the inservice level.
But more importantly, the authors realized that
Hooper and Reiber's technology adoption model can serve as a useful
rubric for assessing the various competency levels that teachers
may demonstrate as they instruct in their classrooms. This adoption
model could also be easily adapted for inservice use by principals,
department chairs, and so forth.
We discovered how teacher educators such as
ourselves can more effectively assess the degree to which
preservice teachers incorporate/blend idea and product technologies
into 'real' planning with 'real' kids by operationalizing Hooper
and Reiber's theoretical construct. If, for instance, graduate
students approached us and asked what made them 'very competent'
student teachers, we could more concretely communicate our
assessment by reference to Hooper and Rieber's technology adoption
model. We could explain how, in our professional view,
'exceptionally competent' teachers not only integrate educational
technology into their instruction, but also empower their students
by putting both idea and product technologies into the hands (and
minds) of students.
Not merely a theoretical, macrocosmic tool to
assist university professors, academic researchers, or technology
specialists, Hooper and Rieber's model was a helpful clarifying
schema that allowed us to explore more fully what we, ourselves,
meant by our terms competent through exceptionally
competent as we supervised and evaluated our preservice
teachers. We recommend that Hooper and Reiber's model be used at
the microcosmic (i.e., school or department) level by teacher
educators, department chairs, principals, and the like who want to
improve the quality of teaching and learning through educational
technology infusion. It would serve them in much the same way it
served us, a common language to clarify what we observed in the
classrooms.
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Contact Information:
John Sweeder
Maryanne R. Bednar
La Salle University
1900 W. Olney Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19141 USA
sweeder@lasalle.edu
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