Evolution of Teachers’ Technology Integration Knowledge,Beliefs, and Practices: How Can We Support Beginning Teachers Use of Technology?

Abstract

In this study, we examined a group of four teachers who completed extra educational technology coursework and field experiences during their teacher education programs to determine how their technology integration knowledge, self-efficacy beliefs, intentions, and practices evolved over time. We conducted interviews and evaluated data sources at three intervals: (1) after teacher education coursework was completed, (2) after student teaching was completed, and (3) after two initial years of teaching. Results showed that school resources and environment had a strong impact on beginning teachers' practices, regardless of strong internal enabling factors.     

Personal Storytelling as a Medium of Socialization in Chinese and American Families

The goal of this study was to determine how personal storytelling functions as a socializing practice within the family context in middle-class Taiwanese and middle-class European American families. The data consist of more than 200 naturally occurring stories in which the past experiences of the focal child, aged 2,6, were narrated. These stories were analyzed at 3 levels: content, function, and structure. Findings converged across these analytic levels, indicating that personal storytelling served overlapping yet distinct socializing functions in the 2 cultural cases. In keeping with the high value placed on didactic narrative within the Confucian tradition, Chinese families were more likely to use personal storytelling to convey moral and social standards. European American families did not treat stories of young children's past experiences as a didactic resource but instead employed stories as a medium of entertainment and affirmation. These findings suggest not only that personal storytelling operates as a routine socializing practice in widely different cultures but also that it is already functionally differentiated by 2,6.     

Problem-solving in a case-based course: Strategies for facilitating coached expertise

This paper proposes the use of specific coaching strategies to facilitate student use of expert-like problem-solving strategies while analyzing and solving instructional design case studies. Findings from an exploratory study, designed to examine changes in students' problem-solving skills as they analyzed case studies, suggested that students could show expert characteristics at times, under some circumstances, but did not perform like experts on a regular basis. At two midwestern universities, 37 students analyzed 6 to 10 case studies both in class and in on-line discussions. Comparisons were made both within and across students, as well as across time, to examine patterns and changes in student problem-solving approaches. Findings suggested that primary influences on the incidence of expert performance were more external than internal and might be more aptly characterized as “coached expertise”. Specific suggestions are included for coaching the development of student problem-solving skills within a case-based course.     

The Effects of Instruction on Students' Generation of Self-Questions When Reading Multiple Documents

The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of instruction on students' generation of questions when reading multiple documents. Participants were 151 undergraduate students who were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a treatment condition that received question generation instruction and a control condition that did not receive question generation instruction. All participants read four primary-source documents and were asked to generate up to 10 questions based on those documents. Results indicate that students generated significantly fewer higher-order integration questions without instructional support. These results are replicated with an alternative document set to demonstrate that the effects found were not due to the specific historical topic.     

Using VoiceThread to Create Community in Online Learning

A sense of belonging to a learning community has been identified as one of the factors contributing to greater student satisfaction and persistence in online education programs. Using the community of inquiry framework as a theoretical guide, the purpose of this study was to explore the role of VoiceThread, a web-based platform that facilitates cloud communication, in creating a sense of community for U.S. adult learners in the online environment. This study surveyed 39 students in a College of Education fully online master’s program and in a blended doctoral program regarding their experiences using VoiceThread in their courses. Results indicate that students perceive VoiceThread positively in the creation of online community. Students reported feeling more connected their classmates due to the tool’s ability to add voice to online activities. Students also felt more connected to their instructor due to VoiceThread’s ability to humanize, or make the instructor seem real.     

Developing a Test of Scientific Literacy Skills (TOSLS): Measuring Undergraduates�� Evaluation of Scientific Information and Arguments

Life sciences faculty agree that developing scientific literacy is an integral part of undergraduate education and report that they teach these skills. However, few measures of scientific literacy are available to assess students’ proficiency in using scientific literacy skills to solve scenarios in and beyond the undergraduate biology classroom. In this paper, we describe the development, validation, and testing of the Test of Scientific Literacy Skills (TOSLS) in five general education biology classes at three undergraduate institutions. The test measures skills related to major aspects of scientific literacy: recognizing and analyzing the use of methods of inquiry that lead to scientific knowledge and the ability to organize, analyze, and interpret quantitative data and scientific information. Measures of validity included correspondence between items and scientific literacy goals of the National Research Council and Project 2061, findings from a survey of biology faculty, expert biology educator reviews, student interviews, and statistical analyses. Classroom testing contexts varied both in terms of student demographics and pedagogical approaches. We propose that biology instructors can use the TOSLS to evaluate their students’ proficiencies in using scientific literacy skills and to document the impacts of curricular reform on students’ scientific literacy.     

Not Mechanics but Meaning: Error in Tertiary Students' Writing

This paper draws upon an extended report to the now‐defunct Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission which analyses the errors found in over 300,000 words of writing in a British History course, produced by two groups of first year students in 1974 and 1984. There were no statistically significant differences between the two year groups. More interestingly and importantly, the results of the study indicate that the most statistically significant elements in error‐prone writing are those concerned not so much with the formal mechanics of writing but with the constitution of meaning. We interpret these results to suggest strongly that most of the problems of those writers who make many grammatical errors in their writing are problems which do not lend themselves to ‘purely’ grammatical solutions