Developing University-School Partnership in Multidisciplinary Technology Integration Sergei Abramovich Rick Tomlinson Glenn Mott Stacy Rush Valarie Simmons SUNY Potsdam and Banford Elementary School - Canton

Overview  Theoretical background  Description of the project  Multidisciplinary activities  Conclusions

Theoretical background  Assessment by NCATE Task Force on Technology and Teacher Education (1997):  Pre-service teachers rarely have an occasion for applying technology in their courses and are not engaged in role models of faculty teaching with technology  This finding applies to all content areas, including mathematics, science, and social studies

Context It has been suggested by several authors that teacher education programs should provide learning experiences for pre-teachers in using a computer as an exploratory tool in both theoretical and applied contexts with a focus on “learning with technology, not about technology” (Shaw, 1997) during all stages of their education including regular coursework and student teaching.

Context  As Browning and Klespis (2000) have pointed out, pre-teachers should be given authentic experiences in developing technology- enabled activities for a pre-college classroom.  Willis (2001) has extended this recommendation by arguing that pre-teachers should be given opportunities for professional growth including teaching their own technology-enhanced lessons.

Three approaches to technology- enhanced mathematics pedagogy for elementary pre-teachers (SUNY Potsdam) Introduce pre-teachers to the pedagogy through a computer-enhanced mathematics methods course Offer a course that focuses on the design of technology-enabled lessons of mathematics Introduce technology into a mathematics teacher preparation program that is grounded in pre-teachers’ participation in a methods course with a student teaching (field experience) component.

These three approaches parallel Garofalo’s (2000) notion of the primary user of technology Teacher educator as the primary user Pre-teachers are being prepared to be the primary users Pre-teachers are being prepared to have their students to be primary users

Participants Pre-service elementary teachers in a graduate program (SUNY Potsdam) Third-grade students (Banford Elementary School) University faculty School faculty

Goals of collaboration Develop set of multidisciplinary activities for younger children that integrate off- and on-computer activities, including the Internet and spreadsheets Use spreadsheet as an exploratory tool Using computers in elementary teacher education in the strongest sense

Goals of Collaboration Affecting elementary pre-teachers’ beliefs about technology Helping the school to integrate computers into curriculum

Classroom environment

Multidisciplinary activity: Temperature project Use of the Internet to collect data Use of spreadsheets to represent data Use of spreadsheets to analyze data Use of spreadsheets to put mathematics in the context of temperature patterns Use of sequential building of task complexity

Student’s response

Conclusions Authors believe that the project: enabled the pre-teachers to act as agents of change in the PDS environment helped them to develop a disposition towards the fieldwork classroom as a site for inquiry

References Browning, C.A., and Klespis, M.L., (2000). A reaction to Garofalo, Drier, Harper, Timmerman, and Shockey. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education [Online serial], 1 (2). ( Garofalo, J., Drier, H., Harper, S., Timmerman, M.A., and Shockey, T. (2000). Promoting appropriate uses of technology in mathematics teaching. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education [Online serial], 1 (1). ( National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. (1997). Technology and the new professional teacher: Preparing for the 21 st century classroom. Washington, DC: Author.

References Shaw, D. E. (1997). Report to the President on the use of technology to strengthen K-12 education in the United States. Washington, DC: President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, Panel on Educational Technology. Valli, L., Cooper, D., and Frankes, L. (1997). Professional Development schools and equity: a critical analysis of rhetoric and research. In M. W. Apple (ed.), Review of research in education, pp Washington, DC: AERA. Willis, J. (2001). Foundational assumptions for information technology and teacher education. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, [Online serial], 1(3), (