Tomorrow's Teachers -- 2003

Cover Story

High-Tech Teaching

Tomorrow's teachers stay cutting edge by using technology as a tool instead of a teaching gimmick.

By Kristen Loschert

The sight of wasp larvae burrowing out of a hornworm was pretty gross to Anne Bowen's biology students--but it was also pretty cool. Bowen, a student teacher from the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education, didn't want any of her students to miss this one-time event. So she placed the worm under a digital microscope and, using the built-in digital camera, recorded the event with time-lapsed photography overnight. The next day, she shared the digital images with her 10th-grade students at Albemarle High School.

"The kids were definitely grossed out by the worm," Bowen says. "But they were pumped when we told them how we got the time-lapsed images. They were impressed."

With the microscope's capabilities, Bowen could preserve the fleeting event so all of her students could witness it. And by using digital time-lapse photography instead of a camcorder, Bowen did not have to sift through hours of videotape.

Since then, Bowen's students have used the microscope to watch seeds germinate, observe plant cells, and even document the life cycle of a butterfly.

"You can look through a light microscope to check out cells, but you can't take a snapshot and save it. You can't capture what you're seeing," says Bowen. Technology such as the digital microscope lets her students do that.

In the not too distant future, technology-based lessons like Bowen's could become the norm. So teacher education programs, like the one at the Curry School in Charlottesville, Virginia, have transformed their curriculum to prepare future teachers to use much more than basic word processing programs.

Teacher, Teach Thyself
As recently as 1997, the majority of teacher preparation programs still viewed technology as an "add on," according to the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). Colleges saw technology as just another topic future teachers needed to know, not a critical component to integrate into the curriculum. Consequently, teachers-in-training received instruction in computer literacy but rarely received guidance on how to use technology in their own classrooms. More importantly, future teachers lacked appropriate role models, since many college professors failed to use technology in their own research and lessons.

By 2000, the scene had changed. That year, NCATE incorporated technology requirements into each of its six accreditation standards, which gave many teacher colleges the incentive to re-evaluate their programs. NCATE-accredited colleges now must demonstrate that preservice teachers can use technology to aid student learning. NCATE also expects college faculty to model effective teaching practices with technology.

The majority of colleges meet the standards, according to NCATE. For some, though, technology remains a weakness, partly because of a lack of resources.

But the technology requirements for prospective teachers don't end on graduation day.

Increasingly, states require teachers to demonstrate their technology proficiency for licensure and certification. Virginia, Idaho, North Dakota, and Rhode Island, for example, require some form of computer literacy from candidates seeking a state license. Meanwhile, states such as Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Oregon, Texas, and Hawaii expect their teacher education programs to equip future teachers with essential technology skills.

Most often, states refer to the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS), a set of standards developed by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). ISTE, a nonprofit professional organization focused on educational technology, collaborated with NCATE to develop its technology standards for teacher education programs. The NETS outline core technology competencies that students, teachers, and school administrators should meet.

So far, 31 states have adopted, adapted, or otherwise referenced the NETS for teachers in their state technology plans or other state education documents. Many tie the NETS to their licensure and re-certification requirements.

Some states require students to meet certain technology standards as well, which means teachers need those high-tech skills to prepare their students. Twenty-four states have incorporated the NETS for students into their curriculum or technology plans. Some, like Virginia, test students or require them to demonstrate their skills.

At the same time, students use computers and surf the Web more and more on their own. Consequently, many develop skills and a comfort with technology that surpasses their teachers' abilities. A survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that more than 78 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds go online, often for help on their schoolwork. Those same Internet-savvy students, though, say their in-school exposure to technology is not as engaging. Future teachers need the skills to develop interesting and relevant technology-based lessons if they want to keep their students' attention--or just keep up.

Teacher colleges like the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia (UVA) and Peabody College at Vanderbilt University want to make sure that happens.

Setting the Standard
Technology has played a pivotal role at UVA's Curry School of Education since the mid-1980s. Since then, the school has integrated technology instruction throughout its program and into the classes and field experiences undergraduate and graduate students complete.

"The basic philosophy is, and has always been, that technology is integral to teacher preparation," says Sandi Cohen, director of teacher education at Curry. "If you look at technology as something separate, it's never going to be used. It would become a college text that is put on the shelf that has no meaning."

Curry students begin with a basic technology course where they learn how to use programs such as Microsoftš Word and PowerPointš and evaluate educational websites. But they then progress to a course on educational technology where they develop technology-based lessons in their respective content areas.

In addition, professors use technology and model effective teaching strategies in each of the content area methods classes. Some professors also require preservice teachers to incorporate technology-based lessons into their student teaching or other field experiences.

For instance, all elementary education majors participate in a computer tutoring program at a local school where the college students teach the children about webpage design and PowerPoint. Meanwhile, students enrolled in the secondary math education program partner with a local school teacher to integrate technology into the teacher's curriculum.

"In most classes where we create lesson plans, at least one of our lessons has to have some sort of technology component," says Lindsey Desmond, a fourth-year elementary education student. "We focus on that from the beginning, so it really becomes very natural for us."

More importantly, the program encourages preservice teachers to use technology to enhance learning and discourages them from using it simply to attract students' attention.

"They want us to use technology in an effective way," says Karen Walker, a student in Curry's two-year postgraduate master's of teaching program, "because if the students are just watching images on a screen, then they might as well be watching television."

Peabody College at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, takes a similar approach. All education students complete an introductory educational technology course, where students learn how to work with instructional software and incorporate it into lessons. Students also develop their own websites, which later become their electronic portfolios.

The school integrates technology into the various methods classes as well. In the reading methods class, for example, students work with Web-based video case studies as part of their curriculum. Meanwhile, students in an educational psychology class use weekly Web-based discussions to ponder the ways technology impacts student learning.

"I have never been in a Peabody class where the professor did not take advantage of the available technology," says Kristen Quirk, a senior studying secondary math and special education. "We are taught about technology-based practices and technology-based learning, which has given me more confidence in my ability to use technology with my own students."

Peabody faculty also model effective teaching strategies for their students, says Amy Palmeri, director of undergraduate studies. During their classes, professors analyze their uses of technology, she says, and talk with students about why they include it in their lessons.

Ahead of the Curve
Even as colleges of education graduate more and more tech-savvy teachers, many K-12 schools still struggle to incorporate technology into their curriculum.

"I hear a lot of frustrations when teachers leave the technology-rich environment at the university and go into a school to implement it," says Palmeri. "The school's equipment is out of date and when student teachers encounter that, they see it as more frustrating than it was worth, and they are less likely to use technology in the future."

Although 99 percent of schools have access to the Internet, only about one-third of current teachers describe themselves as "well-prepared" or "very well-prepared" to use computers or the Internet for instruction, according to the Center for Education Statistics. And despite the increasing presence of computers in schools, student access to those computers remains limited, which hinders teachers' abilities to use technology in their lessons.

"One of the big myths out there is that students have good access to computers and high technology. That's not really true," says Randy Bell, professor of science education at Curry. "Most computers are in labs, not in classrooms. So even if a teacher has the inclination and ability to do creative things with computers, he or she doesn't have good access."

Consequently, when teachers do use computers with their students, they focus on business applications, such as word processing, or searching the Web for reference information, Bell says.

But the situation isn't hopeless. In fact, preservice and beginning teachers can influence the ways schools use technology.

"Our students recognize that what they're getting at Curry is not what they automatically--at this point--see out in the field," says Cohen. "But what we keep telling them is that they are part of the change process, and so they see themselves as the ones going out and might be the very ones who bring the technology to their school or school division."

Future teachers, like Angie Ashby, realize that. So they seek out technology resources during their student teaching assignments and even borrow equipment from their universities to provide engaging, technology-based lessons. In the end, they get results with their students.

"Whenever I use computers, the students are 120 percent motivated, so that helps get them excited about learning, which is our goal as teachers," says Ashby, a student teacher in the elementary education program at Curry. "Access can be a problem, so it means investigating what is available. It takes some extra effort, but it's worth it."

The Wired University

Universities across the country have integrated technology into their teacher education programs. Here's a look at how four universities did it:

The University of Northern Iowa puts a new spin on classroom observations. Instead of visiting schools on their own, education students observe classes together--on television. Through the university's televised observation system, pre-service teachers watch live broadcasts transmitted from a laboratory school located a quarter mile away. The technology allows students to conduct real-time conversations with the teacher they observe and to share observations with their professor--all from the comfort of a college classroom.

The University of San Diego in California has partnered with the Chula Vista Elementary School District to offer preservice teachers a weekly "multimedia academy." Staff from a local elementary school and former student teachers show the college students how to work with a variety of media, including scanners, laser disks, the Internet, music CDs, graphics, clip art, and video systems, in an education setting. When they begin their own student teaching assignments, the preservice teachers conduct a multimedia project with students from the school district.

At Wake Forest University in North Carolina all education faculty and undergraduate students receive new laptop computers every two years. The laptops come in handy since the university has aligned its education methods classes with its educational technology courses and integrated technology into the entire teacher education curriculum. The approach provides more opportunities for students to practice their technology skills across several courses and reinforces appropriate uses of technology. In addition, all preservice teachers complete an online technology portfolio to demonstrate their technology competence. The project helps future teachers develop technology-based instructional strategies they can use in the classroom.

At the University of Texas at Austin, the education faculty prepares preservice and in-service teachers to work with technology. The College of Education provides training and technology resources to mentor teachers from the Austin Independent School District who work with the university's education students during their field experiences. The training allows the mentor teachers to model effective uses of technology. It also provides an opportunity for the mentor and student teacher to collaborate on technology-rich lessons.

--Sources: NCATE and ISTE