LWT - Teacher roles in an IT supported world

TEACHER ROLES in an IT SUPPORTED WORLD

Preamble

The main sources of information for my research analysis of Teacher roles in an IT supported world are journal, magazine and internet articles, syllabus and curriculum documents and discussions with currently employed teaching professionals.

It is undeniable that we are now living in a society and a world in which ICT is a natural and essential part of life. The advent of ICT is changing the world we live in, and the way we learn to live.

The resulting educational implication is that ICT is both a cause of change and a means of changing it, thereby calling into question many of our assumptions about education.

As ICT enters every classroom, we must ask what is the impact on teachers? Does it give teachers more work, or less? Is it a tool that assists teaching the curriculum or does it add extra curriculum content? Does it change what Teachers teach and how they teach it?

Along with the expected variance in opinions and perspectives that these and other questions expose, I have discovered there are particular issues, facts, viewpoints and implications common to all sources.

My aim in this analysis is to draw attention to the issues which appear to be the most significant.

Main Themes

The NSW Teachers Federation article ICT in Education, par 2.1 and 2.2 states “There is a growing expectation from employers, parents and students that good teachers of the 21st century can reasonably be expected to be good users of learning technology”...and that “Enhancing learning should be the main focus in the development of information technology in the school environment.”  Furthermore; “All teachers should develop a knowledge and an understanding of the appropriate use and effective application of various types of information technology in the curriculum.”

There appears to be common agreement from all sources on this. Syllabus documents from all Australian States are undergoing revision to include specific outcomes addressing the use of ICT and clear statements requiring both teachers and student to involve ICT in course content. Distance Education, the Music Syllabus and the role of the Library / Teacher Librarians in particular have experienced major changes.

In order for teachers to meet new compliance's, the issue of training and development arises.

Main Issues and Concerns

"The challenge of integrating technology into schools and classrooms is much more

human that it is technological. What's more, it is not fundamentally about helping

people to operate machines. Rather it is about helping people, primarily teachers,

integrate these machines into their teaching as tool of a profession that is being

redefined through the ... process" (Means, B et al (1993) using Technology to support Education Reform, OR-93-3231,Washington DC, US Department of Education Office of Research, pp83-4)

Again, numerous studies concur that to be effective, teacher training and development must encompass both the skills to use computers as a tool in lesson preparation, curriculum planning, assessing and reporting and other administrative requirements of teachers and the skills and knowledge to incorporate technology into pedagogy.

However, Teachers should not be put in a position where their low exposure to information technology hampers the ability to improve educational outcomes through ICT. This demoralising to teachers who highly value their professional skills and are motivated to do all they can to ensure their students have the optimum opportunities to make the best of their education. (NSW Teachers Federation article ICT in Education, par 2.1 and 2.2)

(Honey and Moeller 1990), studied, interviewed and incontestably argued that educators who envelop and understood the need for technology based learning were successful at integrating technology. In some cases there was a clear presence of anxiety about computers from the teaching community, thus preventing the utilisation of the technology in a lesson framework.

Teachers who have been involved in facilitating the curriculum for many years and have a more traditional approach to delivery methods have a much harder time understanding the benefits of technology in the classroom. (Albion, 1996; Downes, 1993) Research showed, despite all the best intentions, willingness and development opportunities some education officers had reduced confidence in adapting technology into their lessons.

But technical know-how is only part of the story. Effective use of ICT cannot be separated from attitudes and approaches to teaching and learning. There needs to be a balance between using technology and traditional methods of teaching and learning.

 (“Teaching for Tomorrow; the Changing role of Teachers in the Connected Classroom” – Janet Jenkins consultancy in Distance Education)

The Changing Role of the Teacher

My research reveals the following significant and dramatic changes for today’s teachers.

Change in:

·        relationship with pupils;

·        role to facilitators and managers who support learning;

·        the content and scope of teaching

·        focus of control, from teacher to learner.

I find myself agreeing with the notion that effective integration of ICT in schools may actually require the transformation of school culture as we know it.

I found this fascinating article on the Charles Stuart web site: As teachers we need to be aware that our own beliefs and levels of knowledge directly relate to the effectiveness of our lesson delivery and learning outcomes.

Teaching frequently involves solving ill-structured problems which are characterized by a large amount of information, open constraints and the absence of a single correct solution (Voss & Post, 1988). Nespor (1987) argued that the ill-structured nature of many of the problems encountered by teachers resulted in teachers' beliefs playing a major role in defining tasks and selecting strategies because, unlike other forms of knowledge, beliefs can be flexibly applied to new problems. He suggested that, rather than reflective and systematic study in the course of teacher education, it seemed "likely that some crucial experience or some particularly influential teacher produces a richly-detailed episodic memory which later serves the student as an inspiration and a template for his or her own teaching practices" (p. 320). Pajares (1992) found that there was a "strong relationship between teachers' educational beliefs and their planning, instructional decisions, and classroom practices" (p. 326) and that "educational beliefs of preservice teachers play a pivotal role in their acquisition and interpretation of knowledge and subsequent teaching behavior" (p. 328). Indeed, it seems that "beliefs are far more influential than knowledge in determining how individuals organize and define tasks and problems and are stronger predictors of behavior" (Pajares, 1992, p 311).

Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). http://www.usq.edu.au/users/albion/papers/site99/1345.html   VIEWED 14th September 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMdTBep3W9c

The classroom has very much evolved over the years with IT becoming such an integral part of our teaching. Educational foundations will however, never change. This funny cartoon shows that even though the environment in which we teach and resources we use may change, somethings will always be the same. Teachers really do have such large responsibilities holistically. Being able to adapt and have versatility to evolving technology and teaching tools and the integration of these.

IT Supported World

Computing is not about computers any more. It is about living. ~Nicholas Negroponte

An educational system isn't worth a great deal if it teaches young people how to make a living but doesn't teach them how to make a life. ~Author Unknown

The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. ~Robert Maynard Hutchins

Home computers are being called upon to perform many new functions, including the consumption of homework formerly eaten by the dog. ~Doug Larson

Abstract


Many decades after the introduction of ICT into classrooms there are still unanswered questions about the impact of technology in the long and short term on students’ learning, and how it has affected simple and complex learning tasks. These are important for (a) forming government policies; (b) directing teacher education programmes: (c) advancing national curricula; (d); designing or reforming classroom implementation and (e) analysing costs and benefits. While a plethora of studies has been conducted on the effects of ICT in education, major policy and methodological problems have precluded an unambiguous answer to such questions as:—“Does the way in which ICT is implemented have a major/minor impact on students’ knowledge and understanding?” and “Does the impact affect the surface or deep structure of students’ thinking and acting?” To date we have had no large-scale longitudinal studies of ICT’s impact in education such as we have in the form of studies of earlier major curriculum development projects. Nor have we had many comprehensive studies of the complex interactions between various types of ICT implementation and the effects of other factors such as school-based interventions, socio-economic status and school expenditures which have been shown to have a greater impact on education compared with other previous innovations in education. Furthermore we do not know if previous research studies have used research methods that matched learning objectives to instruments/procedures. Many previous studies are vague as to the actual measures used but we can infer that standardized tests were a frequent measure. In other instances, ad hoc analyses, with criteria that may have varied from analyst to analyst and were not “blind” analyses were certainly used to measure “success.” All of these limitations and uncertainties and many more point to the need for a thorough, rigorous, and multifaceted approach to analysing the impact of ICT on students’ learning. This paper draws on previous research evidence to identify relevant research strategies to address the gaps in our knowledge about ICT and students’ learning explained above.
 
Education and Information Technologies

Volume 12, Number 2, 59-70 Margaret J. Cox and Gail Marshall