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Case Study
Teaching with Technology: Facilitating the Process
Part 1: Strategies for adopting instructional technology
8/29/2007
Lee and Busch (2005) stated that lack of adequate training for faculty is the greatest challenge keeping P-12 teachers from becoming involved with the use of technology in their classrooms. Successful teaching depends greatly on effectively integrating technology use into course design. If instructors receive adequate training and gain more experience with technological advances, perhaps they will feel more comfortable in using technology in the classroom and gain a much better appreciation for its effectiveness and advantages. Trentin (2006) also discussed the motives and conditions influencing the choices of faculty as they began using information and communication technology as well as the importance of training follow-up. The study additionally helped the administration have a better understanding of the typical misconceptions that lead teachers to use various methodologies, including those using technology.
Various models for the change process, especially where professional or staff development is concerned, recommend a sequence of steps that should be followed for making the innovation take root and endure as a practice. What CEBS has provided mirrors the following steps of one of those models (SEDL, 2006).
Facilitating the Change Process
Step 1: Creating an Atmosphere and Culture for Change. CEBS, like most colleges of education, is guided by the dictates of the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), an organization that early on realized the impact that technology would have on the education of the nation's children. In the early 1970s, the Association for Educational Communication and Technology (AECT) began working with NCATE to incorporate technology standards into their accreditation guidelines. Using NCATE as the external impetus for change, CEBS began working with its faculty to critically examine how technology should be used in their programs to facilitate instruction in their courses and to provide direct instruction on the use of technology for the professional education students. Considerable effort was made to use not only NCATE and other accreditation organizations as motivation, but also the administration encouraged departments to engage in discussions on their professional responsibilities concerning the preparation the best teacher candidates. Naturally, the incorporation of technology was a part of these discussions.
Step 2: Developing and Communicating the Vision. CEBS created Educational Technology, a division within the college, which is extremely visible (attached to the Dean's Office in the core of the building) and which employs several individuals, including a director and a full-time computer programmer. The director attends all Dean's Staff Council and Dean's Administrative Council meetings. In addition, the director has the responsibility of not only providing the vision for the college and all of its technology needs, but also communicating to college stakeholders what the world of technology holds for university (and P-12 school) instruction.
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