Contemporary Issues in Technology & Teacher Education has a whole new look, and article URLs have changed. We have found 2 articles that may match the URL you entered or followed:

Supporting In-Service Teachers’ Professional Teaching Knowledge With Educatively Scaffolded Digital Curriculum

by Cory Callahan, University of Alabama; John Saye, Auburn University; & Thomas Brush, Indiana University

This article advances a continuing line of inquiry into the potential of digital educative curriculum materials to support teachers’ development of professional teaching knowledge.  Instead of standalone levers of change, the educative curricula in this study were featured resources within a novel professional development approach.  The qualitative, design-based research experiment asked, “Can sustained, collaborative professional development experiences with digital educative curriculum materials help in-service social studies teachers develop professional teaching knowledge?”  Following a 13-month study, none of the six participants fully adopted the promoted wise practice pedagogy, problem-based historical inquiry.  However, findings suggested that sustained, collaborative experiences with digital educative curricula helped teachers in this study begin to articulate and demonstrate tenets of problem-based historical inquiry (e.g., purposeful student-inquiry grounded in recurring societal concerns, structuring classroom events to promote historical thinking).  The authors proposed three features to strengthen future teacher-support efforts: dynamic experiences modeling wise practices, digital curriculum designed for collaboration, and expert mentors to help facilitate learning.

Struggling to Move Beyond Projection: A Case Study of Instructional Use of an Interactive White Board in Elementary Social Studies

by Caroline C. Sheffield, University of Louisville

Interactive whiteboards (IWBs) are increasingly prevalent in U.S. classrooms. Yet, little is known about how this tool is being used to teach social studies. This case study through classroom observations, interviews, and student focus groups examines how two fifth-grade teachers use t he IWB to teach U.S. history.  The data indicate that when the teachers were observed utilizing an IWB in their social studies instruction, they shifted away from the student-centered instructional practices observed when they did not use the device. Their IWB-centered instruction was teacher centered, utilizing the device predominantly for projection. This trend is likely due to a lack of confidence in how to integrate the IWB technology with social studies pedagogy, as well as a perceived lack of ready-made social studies materials for the IWB. Hammond and Manfra’s (2009) giving-prompting-making model of technology-based social studies pedagogy was used to frame the teachers’ instructional practice.