Integrating ICT in Pre-service Teacher Education Reframing teacher education
Conclusion
The low response rate allows only for tentative suggestions rather than informed recommendations, however it appears that the majority of the student teachers enjoyed the experience and also felt that it was worthwhile doing, in addition to being a useful tool for their future teaching career.
Qualitative data supports this claim. The most frequent comments on the beneficial aspects of the project were around the two themes of learning ICT skills and sharing of knowledge, although some of the responses to the most challenging aspects of the project were also the around the theme of team work and organization as well as learning the ICT skills. Perhaps the student teachers perceived the project to be worthwhile and so persevered to overcome the challenging aspects.
A number of students felt they would have liked more time to complete the project satisfactorily. When asked what they would change, some specified the ICT student teacher attributes, and some indicated that they would have liked to have had more input into the program used to make their learning resource more interactive.
The multidisciplinary team approach to learning has enabled students to consider and concentrate on the pedagogical issues of teaching and learning with ICT, by providing them with a context for their learning about ICT and enabling them to learn ICT skills at the same time as producing a learning resource. In order to confidently assert that this was a success, the study would need to be repeated and a much stronger instrument for testing developed as well measures to raise the response rates.
It would be interesting to follow up students from this part of the study a year into their teaching to discover how they make use of ICT in their teaching and compare that to participants from Part I of the study. However as a pilot study it gives teacher educators an insight into what type of ICT teaching and learning students feel is worthwhile and useful to them as future teachers. It may also suggest that teacher educators need to build flexibility and space into their course design in order to provide students with the opportunity to fulfill their potential as teachers (O'Neill 2000)
This trial does indicate that by providing students with an opportunity to participate in contextual, problem-based learning, as part of a multidisciplinary teaching team with a task that relates to their future needs as teachers, learning can be enhanced (Simpson 1999). The model promotes the notion that the learning that takes place is not detached from their view of immediate and future usefulness, they have something concrete to take away and use and students have experienced skill learning simultaneous with pedagogical application, which is hoped will enable them to continue to learn as they teach and move from the integration stage of Welliver’s instructional model (Welliver 1990) towards reorientation and revolution.
Whilst some of the issues raised in part I of this study and by others (Taylor, 2004; Jones, 2002; (Simpson 1999) have been addressed by the small trial of this model, some have not and are beyond the scope of this study, specifically the issue of teachers in schools modeling the integration of ICT within their curriculum, which could be focus of a future study. It is hoped that part III of the study will help formulate a more rounded picture of how students learn about ICT and pedagogical implications. In order to do this, a slightly different model will be trialed with student teachers in the Diploma of Education (Primary), to cope with the differences in their course structure. The three models will be compared and evaluated, taking account of the differences in the three cohorts involved.
Integrating ICT in Pre-service Teacher Education Reframing teacher educationConclusionThe low response rate allows only for tentative suggestions rather than informed recommendations, however it appears that the majority of the student teachers enjoyed the experience and also felt that it was worthwhile doing, in addition to being a useful tool for their future teaching career. Qualitative data supports this claim. The most frequent comments on the beneficial aspects of the project were around the two themes of learning ICT skills and sharing of knowledge, although some of the responses to the most challenging aspects of the project were also the around the theme of team work and organization as well as learning the ICT skills. Perhaps the student teachers perceived the project to be worthwhile and so persevered to overcome the challenging aspects. A number of students felt they would have liked more time to complete the project satisfactorily. When asked what they would change, some specified the ICT student teacher attributes, and some indicated that they would have liked to have had more input into the program used to make their learning resource more interactive. The multidisciplinary team approach to learning has enabled students to consider and concentrate on the pedagogical issues of teaching and learning with ICT, by providing them with a context for their learning about ICT and enabling them to learn ICT skills at the same time as producing a learning resource. In order to confidently assert that this was a success, the study would need to be repeated and a much stronger instrument for testing developed as well measures to raise the response rates. It would be interesting to follow up students from this part of the study a year into their teaching to discover how they make use of ICT in their teaching and compare that to participants from Part I of the study. However as a pilot study it gives teacher educators an insight into what type of ICT teaching and learning students feel is worthwhile and useful to them as future teachers. It may also suggest that teacher educators need to build flexibility and space into their course design in order to provide students with the opportunity to fulfill their potential as teachers (O'Neill 2000)This trial does indicate that by providing students with an opportunity to participate in contextual, problem-based learning, as part of a multidisciplinary teaching team with a task that relates to their future needs as teachers, learning can be enhanced (Simpson 1999). The model promotes the notion that the learning that takes place is not detached from their view of immediate and future usefulness, they have something concrete to take away and use and students have experienced skill learning simultaneous with pedagogical application, which is hoped will enable them to continue to learn as they teach and move from the integration stage of Welliver’s instructional model (Welliver 1990) towards reorientation and revolution. Whilst some of the issues raised in part I of this study and by others (Taylor, 2004; Jones, 2002; (Simpson 1999) have been addressed by the small trial of this model, some have not and are beyond the scope of this study, specifically the issue of teachers in schools modeling the integration of ICT within their curriculum, which could be focus of a future study. It is hoped that part III of the study will help formulate a more rounded picture of how students learn about ICT and pedagogical implications. In order to do this, a slightly different model will be trialed with student teachers in the Diploma of Education (Primary), to cope with the differences in their course structure. The three models will be compared and evaluated, taking account of the differences in the three cohorts involved.
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