PT3 > Team 4



		TEAM 4 Using Technology as a Powerful Learning Tool in Teacher Preparation and K-5 Classrooms Tom Bird, Cheryl Rosaen & Ed Smith The Pedagogical Problem: Many teacher educators are well aware that before prospective teachers enter teacher preparation, they have already formed many habits of mind regarding teaching and learning. ; Wwe also know that these habits tend to persist throughout a teacher preparation program. At the same time, teacher candidates have formed habits of course-taking that often lead them to produce what's asked in each course, sell the books, shelve or trash the notes, and move on. We have also seen that, left on their own, teacher candidates show few tendencies to make connections across courses and field experiences. Moreover, practices in classrooms where field experiences take place may not match the standards-based practices that are explored in teacher preparation courses. For example, course work in MSU's Teacher Preparation Program emphasizes critical appraisal of educational websites for their potential to promote meaningful, standards-based uses of technology, but teacher candidates lack consistent exposure to such uses in the K-5 classrooms where they spend time. Thus, there is a need for instructors and classroom teachers to work together in ways that make it possible for teacher candidates to experience more coherence across the program from year to year and to perceive more connections between the schools in which they participate and the university where they take their course work. One approach to addressing this need is to create a collaborative community to explore the extent to which contemporary information technology can be used to stimulate and support connected and cumulative work by teachers candidates within the teacher preparation program, and so to construct a potentially powerful complement to instructors' initiatives. A parallel approach to addressing this need is to collaborate with K-5 teachers to build their capacities to use technology in meaningful ways in their classroom and school, which can lead to the development of technology-rich sites for teacher candidates' learning that promotes coherence between teacher candidates' course and classroom experiences. Progress Made During 2000-01: These issues were addressed during the 2000-01 year through the work of two design teams led by Team Two faculty: The TeachersFile and Portfolio; and Intelligent Uses of Technology. In the TeachersFile and Portfolio Design Team, Tom Bird and Cheryl Rosaen worked on developing and pilot-testing specialized software and assignments for portfolio processes intended to help prospective teachers to work cumulatively, coherently and thoughtfully as they move through our teacher preparation program. In the fall semester, 2000, in TE 301, Tom piloted a piece of software called "TeachersFile." This is essentially a multimedia database, built with Filemaker Pro 5.0, that provides teacher candidates a workspace, a paperless office, an aid to memory that is supportive of their work in the teacher preparation program. Teacher candidates learned to use TeachersFile as part of their work in the course on the e-mail, web browsing, word processing, and database components of the teacher preparation program's information technology requirement. The longer-term question is whether teacher candidates might use this tool throughout their course work to accumulate, construct, connect, share, and retrieve connected teaching knowledge. Results from preliminary analysis of data collected indicate that TeachersFile has the potential to be a powerful tool for "collecting" and "working" with key course concepts, in ways that increase and deepen the connections they were able to identify between and among ideas. Because it enables exploration of substantive questions related to course content and makes visible analytic processes, use of TeachersFile provides a context for modeling and scaffolding analytic processes. It also has the potential to engage teacher candidates in goal-oriented learning across the course. As such, it can become an authentic professional learning tool for engaging in portfolio processes. We are therefore encouraged to think of use of TeachersFile as an effective introduction to using technology as a professional learning tool and as a boundary object that can travel with teacher candidates into their senior year course work so they can be encouraged to continue using it. For the coming year's work, it is relevant that all Team Two teacher candidates in TE 301 who did not test TeachersFile did use a simpler version, for text only, executed in Microsoft Excel. In fall semester, 2000, TE 401 (literacy and mathematics), Cheryl and Sharon Hobson developed a range of course assignments that were designed to promote three interrelated portfolio processes that were made explicit to teacher candidates at the beginning of the course: collecting, working, and showcasing (generating and sharing new knowledge). They explored with teacher candidates the following question: What role can technology play--as cognitive and communication tools--in supporting portfolio processes? Preliminary findings show that some teacher candidates' goal-oriented work with technology provided a way for them to synthesize their learning both within the course and across their course work and other experiences. These findings are encouraging us to do more in the future in terms of structuring and supporting the use of technology as part of the collecting, working, sharing and showcasing components of the portfolio processes. For example, the seniors could be required to create a "rough draft" of a portfolio (collecting and working) with some electronic components (e.g., an electronic component of a teacher's resource file, a web-based template for a portfolio which includes a philosophy statement). Their draft portfolio could be developed further during their second senior-year methods course (TE 402) and throughout their internship year. Their use of TeachersFile could also become integrated into these efforts. A second design team, Intelligent Uses of Technology (led by Cheryl Rosaen, with co-instructor Sharon Hobson), worked toward two interrelated goals that complement the course-based work of the first design team: (a) building teachers' capacities in K-5 schools and classrooms to use technology in meaningful ways, in order to create technology rich sites for teacher candidates' learning; and (b) collaborating with CTs to foster meaningful connections between seniors' methods course work and their classroom-based experiences. Initial work on the project began in the spring of 1999. This year's group (2000-01) included 12 classroom teachers in two schools (K-5, Lansing School District) who supported the learning of 26 teacher candidates who were enrolled in fall semester TE 401: Learner Diversity and the Teaching of Subject Matter (English Language Arts and Mathematics) and spring semester TE 402: Designing and Studying Practice (Science and Social Studies). These collaborating teachers (CTs) worked four hours per week with teacher candidates for the "field placement" portion of the course, to enable the teacher candidates to observe and try out educational methods in teaching subject matter, and to support their educational use of technology in the classroom. The College of Education provided a laptop for all seniors for use across the year. In addition, the teachers met weekly with the project staff to learn about various uses of educational software and hardware and share ideas about K-5 uses of technology. As we all learned about standards-based uses of technology in K-5 classrooms, teacher candidates and collaborating teachers designed, implemented and appraised uses of technology in the classroom. Seniors reported modest increases in a range of technology uses and significant increases in development of basic skills. Collaborating teachers in the two schools made significant progress in working through initial software and hardware problems, and began to implement various uses in their classrooms. They are eager to continue their learning, and eager to get guidance in standards-based approaches to future work with technology. Proposed work for 2001-02: This proposal integrates and builds on the prior work of the two the design teams from 2000-01, and broadens the range of Team Two courses in which the design work will take place to include junior, senior, and intern level courses. The integrating idea is the creation of an actual and virtual community of teaching practice that: (a) uses informational technology intelligently; (b) spans three years of the teacher preparation program; (c) integrates the campus and school components of the program; and (d) enables graduates to continue to participate in the community by way of the Web. It The proposal has three interrelated components: (1) TeachersFile and Teachers Portfolio: We will build upon our pilot work to continue use of the TeachersFile and Teachers Portfolio in TE 301 and TE 401/2. This includes conceptualizing and refining the use of the TeachersFile as an introductory boundary object that introduces teacher candidates to using technology as a cognitive tool for their own professional learning. The Teacher's Portfolio will be used again in TE 401 as an integrating boundary object to support teacher candidates in synthesizing their learning both within the course and across their prior course work and other experiences. Moreover, its use will be expanded to TE 402 with the same group of teacher candidates, which lays groundwork for its use as a "draft portfolio" to be revised during the internship year. (2) School-Based Professional Development: We will continue our work with CTs in two Lansing schools (Post Oak, Mount Hope) in whose classrooms the TE 401/2 teacher candidates work (and where interns are also are placed). Next year's focus will be on helping CTs solve authentic pedagogical problems with technology and carefully consider ways in which technology uses promote standards-based teaching and learning in literacy, math, science and social studies. Critical appraisal of educational websites and software will be a key focus for this year's work. This will enable seniors and interns to work in environments where CTs are actively learning to use technology in meaningful ways with K-5 students. In addition, we are exploring the possibility of working with Dr. John Melcher from the Center for Urban Affairs to include parents of students in the two Lansing schools in the Closing the Gap Project, a project designed to support parents in recycling computers for their use at home. Through such efforts, children's use of technology in their K-5 classrooms has the potential to be extended to working with their parents at home. (3) Online Database of Educational Technology: We propose a new component that will can become a valuable resource for preservice and intern teachers, and collaborating teachers who work with Team Two, and Team Two's graduates: the development of an online database of educational technology resources designed to guide critical review and intelligent use of technology. This database will serve teacher preparation courses and school-based work in two three ways. First, it will provide guidance in thinking critically about resources being sought and reviewed. It could become a key tool for the school-based professional development (described above) as CTs learn about technology uses and contribute to the database. Second, it will provide a source of quality resources and guidance in thinking about the uses of those resources in teaching that address state (Michigan) and national standards in science, mathematics, literacy and social studies. To date, there are no databases that make specific linkages to standards and to the MSU teacher preparation courses. Third, it will enable instructors, teacher candidates, interns, collaborating teachers and graduates to contribute to and draw from the shared resource. The data base will be web-based, and designed to reflect our best understanding of practices that promotes achievement of those standards, and integrated with our teacher preparation program curriculum. It would include: (a) cross references to specific subject matter standards; (b) descriptive analysis of what is provided in the resource; (c) access information (URL and links for web-based resources); and (d) user critiques. The descriptive analysis framework will be designed to guide the user's thinking about the potential uses of the resource in terms of the needs it might address for specific standards. Design Team: Leaders of the 2001-02 design team are: Tom Bird (TE 301), Cheryl Rosaen (TE 401), and Ed Smith (TE 402, TE 801), who are instructors in a range of Team Two courses. Additional Team Two instructors associated with these courses (e.g., the math instructor for TE 401 and the social studies instructor for TE 402, TE 801) will also be invited to participate. Collaborating teachers who work with seniors in TE 401/2 and with interns in two Lansing schools will be part of the team. Graduate assistant support and student hourly support will be used to: (a) support teacher candidates and collaborating teachers in learning to use the technology associated with the project components; (b) study the implementation and results of the pilot efforts. In addition, project personnel will consult with project programmers and Web designer to develop the online database. Impact: This pilot work will enable the three instructors and their teaching partners to try out and refine the three components in the context of the courses they teach and eventually share results with all Team Two instructors for wider impact and further program development. As Team Two Leader, Cheryl Rosaen can facilitate this ongoing development beyond the 2001-02 year. For example, in the future, component #1 can be shared with other TE 301 instructors so that all TE 301 students would have experience using TeachersFile. Component #1 can also be shared with other TE 401/2 instructors so that all teacher candidates have experiences with constructing draft portfolios prior to the internship year. Team Two has already implemented the same conceptual framework for portfolio development (used during TE 401) during the internship year for the past two years, so the groundwork is laid for beginning the portfolio processes prior to the internship year and then building upon that work during the internship. Component #2 provides on-site, on-demand support to CTs in two Lansing schools. This model of supporting CTs' professional learning and use of technology could be extended to other Team Two schools. Component #3 can be made available to all teacher preparation program teacher candidates, interns, collaborating teachers, and graduates both within Team Two and across the MSU program. Our approach to investigating the crafting of course tasks and assignments "from the ground up" is enabling us to use portfolio processes as a conceptual framework to guide the development of program resources, curriculum, teaching and assessment, rather than starting with the creation of a portfolio as a product. It emphasizes the professional learning processes that are needed to make the construction of a portfolio authentic and meaningful. It gives us a way to work together on course and program design which allows for our own course tasks and content to take center stage during different parts of the program while still focusing our teacher candidates' attention on seeking coherence across separate courses. Our approach to working with teachers in schools to help them use technology to solve authentic pedagogical problems and to create a database that can be used by a variety of professionals promotes standards-based technology uses in schools. As we work to use technology in meaningful ways within the program, a simultaneous effort in the schools where teacher candidates and interns work is essential for providing connected, coherent experiences for teacher candidates and interns. Our approach to community makes instructors, teacher candidates, collaborating teachers, interns, and graduates all colleagues in developing intelligent uses of technology for teaching.