Dissertation Proposal Abstract

School from the practice

Feb 24, 1999

Tentative dissertation title: “Obtaining, using, and discussing educational technology understanding by student teachers and cooperating teachers”

Two overlapping trends within the American educational atmosphere have boosted these studies: The advantages of 2 million new teachers next decade along with the upsurge in technology utilized in schools.

Individuals who enter the thought of teaching within the coming decade may have had different teacher preparation and background encounters in comparison with practicing teachers they join. Their teacher preparation will embrace constructivist theories of learning and teaching, emphasizing reform-oriented educational strategies. Many incoming teachers, by dint of occasions period they’ve become up, will also have greater educational technology skills and understanding when compared with norm for presently practicing teachers.

Meanwhile, educational technology me is being a fundamental bit of learning and teaching inside an ever-growing amount of American schools. While there’s evidence that computer me is connected with elevated academic achievement. teacher preparation remains an essential to effective educational technology implementation.

An objective of teacher preparation in educational technology me is growing teachers’ understanding of educational technology. Understanding during this context has frequently been restricted to content understanding computer software and hardware affordances. Understanding of educational technology utilized in learning and teaching is a lot more complicated, including understanding of pedagogical methods for teaching with computers, assessment method of student products produced using technology, understanding of student abilities and customary obstacles, along with other factors yet unknown.

To look at what new and experienced teachers learn about technology use for learning and teaching, the way they use understanding of technology utilized in their practice, and exactly how understanding is shared, I would suggest to look at pairs of student teachers and cooperating teachers since they use educational technology in their teaching.

Questions for Study

An overarching question using this study is “How’s understanding about teaching with technology acquired, used, and shared by pairs of student teachers and cooperating teachers?” In crafting a solution, I’ll concentrate on three subquestions: “So what can participants learn about using educational technology for learning and teaching?Inch, “Inside the classroom atmosphere, how do participants find out about educational technology use?”, and “What’s the link between understanding and fitness?In .

To evaluate these questions, I would suggest to create a descriptive multiple embedded situation study. Link between the research will most likely be reported utilizing a mix-situation analysis, based on written cases inside the individual participant and student teacher/cooperating teacher pair levels. The sections below give presenting the study setting, participants, causes of data, data collection procedures, suggested analysis, while focusing period of time. The general design uses guidelines supplied by Yin.

Research will most likely be conducted at Monroe Junior Secondary School, a junior secondary school situated in an operating-class suburb of the giant industrial city within the Midwest. As being a school within the lower-earnings area with technology funded through grants, Monroe is typical of countless schools within the u . s . states.

Participants are three pairs of teachers, each comprised of students teacher in addition to their cooperating teacher. These participants were selected according to their field placement at Monroe Junior Secondary School, their readiness to own fun playing the study, and my primary perception that they are effective teachers.

Causes of Data

Data will most likely be collected from interviews while using the participants, ongoing conversations using the data collection period, classroom observations, and observations of participants’ instructional planning sessions.

Data Collection Procedures

A data collection protocol will most likely be developed iteratively with the first phase within the dissertation study. Primary data collection will occur round the ten week period lasting roughly from March 15 to June 15, 1999. Because period of time, I’ll observe classroom teaching and instructional planning sessions, collecting data through the use of extensive field notes. As being a focus for conversations, some classroom sessions will most likely be videotaped, with excerpts inside the videotape serving to help reflection. Two kinds of semi-structured interviews will most likely be conducted, audiotaped, and transcribed.

Just as one embedded situation study, there’s two units of research to obtain examined. Inside the finer grain of research, situation studies will most likely be written for every participant. Consequently, these cases will condition the bigger unit of research, the pairs of a single student teacher in addition to their cooperating teacher. The 3 bigger cases will most likely be compared to create a mix situation analysis, which will make however area of the results.

To lessen and measure the information itself, I would suggest to make use of Chi’s verbal analysis coding. This process, which i’ve present in previous research. enables a investigator to formalize his impressions in the data set, yielding quantitative findings regarding the frequency of occurrences furthermore with a qualitative picture produced by using selections inside the data within the results. Data management will most likely be facilitated through the use of QSR NUDIST, a unique-purpose qualitative data analysis tool.

Through the development of a descriptive multiple embedded situation study, I’m wishing to produce a wealthy description of teacher understanding of educational technology inside the setting of Monroe Junior Secondary School which teachers’ classrooms. This description may help me to solve questions in the products teachers learn about educational technology, the way they learn within the classroom setting, and exactly how their understanding is expounded for practice. As American education handles the advantages of large figures of recent teachers, with an episode in utilizing educational technology, Hopefully the task will inside a couple of small way inform how new teachers are ready, furthermore to how practicing teachers develop.

Chi, M. T. (1997). Quantifying qualitative analyses of verbal data: An operating guide. The Journal within the Learning Sciences, 6(3), 271-315.

Glennan, TKay. Melmed, A. (1996). Fostering using educational technology: Areas of a nationwide strategy. Santa Monica, CA: Rand.

Margerum-Leys, J. Marx, R. (1999, August). British teacher education students’ beliefs about technology. Paper presented inside the Annual Meeting within the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, CA.

Office of Technology Assessment. (1995). Teachers and technology Washington, Electricity: U . s . states . States Congress.

Wenglinsky, H. (1998). Will it compute? The text between educational technology and student achievement in mathematics. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service (ETS).

Willis, J. Mehlinger, H. D. (1996). It and teacher education. In J. Sikula (Erection disorder.), Guide of research on teacher education (Second erection disorder. pp. 978-1029). New You can: Simon Schuster Macmillan.

Yin, RKay. (1984/1989). Situation study research: Design and techniques. (Revised erection disorder.). (Applied Social Research Methods Series, Vol. 5). Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.