March 2006

Technology and Teacher Education

EDC staff presentations at the SITE (Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education) Conference

Several EDC staff members will make presentations at the SITE Conference held from March 20-24, 2006 in Orlando, Florida. SITE represents individual teacher educators and affiliated organizations of teacher educators in all disciplines, who are interested in the creation and dissemination of knowledge about the use of information technology in teacher education and faculty/staff development. SITE is a society of the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education.

Learn more about the SITE Conference

Ellen Mandinach, Katie McMillan Culp, and Daniel Light, Center for Children & Technology
Building Common Frameworks for the Evaluation of International Educational Technology Programs
Monday, March 20, 1:30-2 p.m.

The educational research and evaluation community is beginning to respond to the impact of globalization on national education systems. Increasingly there are common problems and similar educational agendas across countries, and the new phenomenon of multinational education programs is emerging. Many of these programs are in the field of educational technology and practitioners need a broader understanding of how technology can be leveraged to prepare students to contribute both to a globalized society and to their distinctive local communities. Yet research on these programs presents a fascinating methodological challenge of designing multi-site international research programs that can track common elements across multiple sites, but yet respond to the local variation of context. This paper explores methodologies that could be used in the evaluation of educational technology programs to ensure that findings are both locally useful and broadly relevant.

Babette Moeller, Center for Children & Technology
Similarities and Differences in Using Video Case Studies in Pre-Service and In-Service Math Teacher Education
Tuesday, March 21, 3:05-3:25 p.m.

Utilizing a case study approach, Bank Street College of Education and the Center for Children and Technology are collaborating to develop digital video resources for pre-service and in-service professional development to better prepare teachers for serving students with and without disabilities within a standards-based mathematics curriculum. The purpose of this paper is to share what we are learning through our formative research about the specific needs and questions of pre-service and in-service teachers concerning the inclusion of students with disabilities in standards-based mathematics education and to describe the similarities and differences in how we are using the video case materials with these two audiences to address their needs and questions and to achieve our key learning goals.

Julia Hermos, Babette Moeller, and Bill Tally, Center for Children & Technology
Using An Action Research Approach to Develop Cooperating Teachers’ Capacity to Mediate Student Teachers’ Experiences with Technology in Field Placements: Emerging Findings
Tuesday, March 21, 4:40-5 p.m.

This presentation will address findings from the second year evaluation of the federally funded PT3 grant, Project ConTExT. Through this grant, Bank Street College of Education implemented a multi-pronged approach to provide professional development to cooperating teachers in an effort to enhance their ability to effectively mentor student teachers in the use of technology in K-8 classrooms. The presenters will share the both the methods and findings of their evaluation of this program. They will also address the challenges involved in developing classroom contexts in which meaningful conversations about the use of technology, and experiences using technology, are present.

Dara Wexler, Center for Children & Technology
Integrating 21st Century Skills and Technology into Student Learning: How Teachers Respond to the Challenge
Tuesday March 21, 5:15-7:15 p.m.

EDC's Center for Children and Technology shares findings from an on-going, formative evaluation study of Intel® Teach to the Future Workshop on Teaching Thinking with Technology, a professional development program for K-12 teachers. The workshop trains educators to use a suite of online tools designed to foster higher-order thinking skills and promote a project approach to learning. In this paper, we examine how teachers’ efforts to engage students in using 21st century skills are demonstrated in the projects they developed during their training. Through these examples, we explore the range of ways that teachers responded to the task of aligning their projects to 21st century skills, and raise issues related to the challenging aspects of this work. By examining teachers’ projects we hope to contribute to the research on professional development and student learning connected to information and communication technologies (ICT) and 21st century skills.

Leslie Goodyear, Education, Employment, and Community Programs
Commonalities in Innovative Professional Development and Research Designs: Setting the Stage for Cross-Project Findings from NSF ITEST Activities, Part 1
Thursday March 23, 1:30-2:30 p.m.

In this symposium, projects from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Information Technology Experiences for Teachers and Students (ITEST) Program will describe their teacher training models and research designs from a perspective of sharing plans that will contribute to the common goal of extracting findings across projects. ITEST projects employ an extended summer institute with follow-up sessions throughout the school year as their professional development model. The National Staff Development Council (2001) describes this model as one that “improves the learning of all students” in its National Standards. This common basis forms the foundation for cross-project research designs. This symposium will be facilitated by staff from the NSF-funded ITEST Learning Resource Center (LRC). An NSF ITEST Program Officer will be invited to attend and take part.

Leslie Goodyear, Education, Employment, and Community Programs
The ITEST Participatory Research Experience: Findings and Lessons Learned
Thursday March 23, 1:30-1:50 p.m.

As the technical assistance provider and research partner to the ITEST Projects, the National ITEST Learning Resource Center at EDC collaborates with the ITEST Projects to achieve program goals, weave together promising practices, and leverage their combined achievements into new knowledge. The ITEST LRC is tasked with development of an ITEST Program research agenda that brings together the learning from all of the ITEST projects. The paper describes the Negotiated Centralized Research Framework (an adaptation of Lawrenz and Huffman, 2003), which leverages data collected in ITEST projects as part of their evaluation efforts.

Leslie Goodyear, Education, Employment, and Community Programs
Commonalities in Innovative Professional Development and Research Designs: Setting the Stage for Cross-Project Findings from NSF ITEST Activities, Part 2
Thursday March 23, 2:45-3:45 p.m.

In this symposium, projects from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Information Technology Experiences for Teachers and Students (ITEST) Program will describe their teacher training models and research designs from a perspective of sharing plans that will contribute to the common goal of extracting findings across projects. ITEST projects employ an extended summer institute with follow-up sessions throughout the school year as their professional development model. The National Staff Development Council (2001) describes this model as one that “improves the learning of all students” in its National Standards. This common basis forms the foundation for cross-project research designs. This symposium will be facilitated by staff from the NSF-funded ITEST Learning Resource Center (LRC). An NSF ITEST Program Officer will be invited to attend and take part.

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