Academic
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ISSN 1096-1453 Volume 14, Issue 1
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Pilar
Gonzalez, Loretto Academy, El Paso, TX
Olga Kosheleva,
Pilar Gonzalez is a teacher
at
Abstract
In this study we qualitatively
analyzed electronic discourse in the online graduate course. The data were
collected through students’ personal reflection, surveys and semi-structured
interviews. The purpose was to study: the teachers’ attitudes towards using
Internet resources in their classrooms, how they find them and to motivate
teachers to integrate the use of technology. The findings indicate that most of
the teachers became more active and effective in finding relevant and
meaningful online resources for teaching mathematics and science in elementary
grades.
Introduction
The use of
technology has become a necessity in our society. Being technology literate is
a critical 21st Century skill our children must have and it is no longer a
luxury. It is very important to teach our pre-service teachers the appropriate
use of technological tools. The challenge is not just to use technology, per
say, but to use it in a meaningful way, integrating it with some content areas (Ertmer, 2005).
Teachers are
eager to acquire new knowledge, and request better technical training (NEA, 2008). Research shows that adoption of
technology in schools is a slow process (Zhao & Frank, 2003). Very little is known about how in-service and pre-service teachers find,
access, and use technology resources for their teaching (Johnston, 2009). There are studies demonstrating that
teachers tend to use the technology more as an administrative tool than as an
instrument to help their teaching (Wilson, Notar, & Yunker, 2003).
Research has
shown how the teachers’ proficiency in the use of technology will affect the
integration of it in the classroom. The teacher has to feel comfortable with
the use of technology before he/she will use it with the students (Inan & Lowther, 2009).
“Teachers are being asked to learn new methods of teaching, while at the
same time are facing even greater challenges of increasingly technological
changes and greater diversity in the classroom…[given such challenges]
relatively few teachers (20%) report feeling well prepared to integrate
technology into classroom instruction.”(Lewis, et al., 1999)
The purpose of this
study was: a) to identify the teacher’s attitudes towards using Internet
resources in the classroom, b) to motivate teachers to integrate the use of
technology and c) to study how in-service and pre-service teachers find,
access, and use technology resources. The authors considered that by modifying
a regular online course on teaching math and science, they could embed a structured
set of activities that would compel the teachers to use available WEB resources
in their classrooms.
Our study focused
on 26 in-service and pre-service teachers during the spring semesters of 2008
and 2009 (14 in 2008 and 12 in 2009). They were enrolled in the online class
“Development of Math and Science Concepts in Young Children”. This class was
part of the ATCP (Alternative Teacher Certification Program) program and it was
also part of Master in Education program. The class was offered through Blackboard,
and students were located all around
Specifically we
wanted our teachers to embed Internet resources with the content/pedagogy that
they could use into the classrooms. Students reflected on their approaches to
finding, accessing and using internet resources in order to design effective
mathematics and science lessons in elementary grades. Preliminary results of
2008 study were presented by authors at the 13th Asian Technology Conference in
Mathematics (Kosheleva & Gonzalez, 2008).
Methodology
To achieve our purpose we designed several intertwined activities involving
weekly class assignments, interviews and surveys. During this class teachers
studied concept development in math and science of young children and the
teaching strategies necessary for fostering these concepts development at each
developmental stage of learning. These teachers already acquired some
technology knowledge during previous courses in the ATCP program. Teachers also
were exposed to knowledge about reform, innovative, constructivist pedagogy
through their previous education.
We decided to
investigate the process of how teachers progressed in developing strategies for
finding math and science resources on Internet. The authors believe that this
could be the first step for most of the teachers in terms of incorporating
technology in their classroom.
The class was
designed to have a high interaction within: students with students, and
students with instructor(s). Students were provided with modules intended to be
covered on a weekly basis. The weekly modules were comprised of the following
activities:
1)
Read chapters from the required books (Charlesworth, 2007; Van de Walle, 2007)
2)
Post personal reflections on the chapter(s). In these
reflections we asked the students to express their own experience as teachers
in the classroom, or their experience as students if they were not teaching
yet.
3)
Search the companion websites for the textbooks, explain
the search strategy, and post their selected websites together with its
critical assessment.
4)
Read and answer at least 2 of their classmates’
reflections.
Final project was
to design a Thematic Unit. It required construction of several innovative,
technology-enhanced mathematical and science lesson plans that integrated the
use of technology along with different content areas.
We assessed
students' success, participation in class and use of online resources through
a) personal reflections, b) surveys and c) semi structured interviews. Eleven
students agreed to voluntarily participate in the semi-structured interview (5
in 2008, and 6 in 2009). The entire class participated in final surveys and
reflections.
Results
The results of
this study indicate that:
1.
Developing advanced strategies for searching online
resources are appropriate and effective activities for an online mathematics
and science education class.
Since the teachers were already taking this online
class; we developed this intervention to have them exploit the internet
resources, which would help them to better deliver the content while having the
students not only engaged but exposed to the use of the internet.
For
example a student responded to the interview question “To what
extent and how your attitudes toward using internet resources in teaching
changed?” with the answer:
“They have improved [her attitudes toward
internet], because, like I said, when we
started this class I thought: “Why do I have to do ALL this work, who cares?” I
was like the grouchy, lazy student. But now I know it was a worthy investment.
It was something like I thought that Dr. Kosheleva encouraged doing because she
knew what benefits it would have. So, I’m appreciative to that she made us do
it because she changed our attitude. Now if I need to do something that I don’t
have any information at hand. I will just look for it.”
2.
Chapter readings provided good content knowledge about
reform, innovative, constructivist pedagogy that helped develop strategies for
Internet searching.
Teachers mentioned that their search for internet
resources was facilitated by reading the chapters first. After they read, they
knew what they really needed for their students. During the spring 2009 semester, we asked the
teachers not only to look for the websites they could use with the specific weekly
chapter, but to also define their criteria when searching. For example in one
of the survey question “Which criteria guided you in selecting this or that
website?” The student’s response was: “What I did is I read the chapter and
whatever information I thought it was important to reflect on, I searched the
websites for that.”
The teachers that participated during the semester
spring 2008 class, made use of the companion websites that the textbooks
provided. During the semi-structured interview 4 of the 5 teachers that
answered it mentioned that they used these websites. Since the companion
websites are divided by chapters, they thought that it was easier to look into
the recommended sites first. The fifth teacher mentioned that the tool she was
using was Google.
Even though the teachers that participated in the
spring 2009 class expressed that the companion websites were not as useful as
they thought they realized that when searching through the internet they need
to be careful with the keywords they used.
“I tried narrowing my search by using key words from the chapter”.
3.
As evidenced by final surveys, most of the students
became more active and efficient in finding relevant and meaningful online
resources for teaching mathematics and science in elementary grades. As per a
student comment: “Fortunately, I became a
better web surfer over the course of the semester. I will say that the search is anything but
efficient however; I am hoping that implementing the ideas will make
instruction more efficient.”
After the
teachers took the class and answered to both pre-survey and post-survey, we
analyzed their results and we could see an increment in the use of technology.
During both semesters after taking the class teachers tended to use technology during
several more days per week. Data show the different amount of days the teachers
used to teach with technology, before and after taking the class in both
semesters (Spring 2008, Spring 2009). Here we see how the use of the internet:
When we asked the
question: “How many days per week were you able to teach with technology?” in
2008 we saw the following changes:
a)
Before taking the class 69% were using technology only
one day a week. After taking the class this percentage decreased to 46%.
b)
Before taking the class only 8% were using technology
five days a week. After the class this percentage increases to a 23%.
In 2009 we saw
the following changes:
a)
Before taking
the class 42% were using technology only one day a week. After taking the class
this percentage decreased to 25%.
b) Before
taking the class only 8% were using technology five days a week. After the
class this percentage increases to a 25%.
When we asked the
questions: “What is your level of interest in searching good/effective
mathematics activities?” on pre-survey and similar question on post-survey in
2008 we saw the following changes:
a)
Before taking the class 36% had low or no interest in
the search. After taking the class only 7% had low or no interest in the
search.
b)
Before taking the class 36% had a very high interest
in the search. After taking the class this percentage increased to 64%.
In 2009 we saw
the following changes:
a)
Before taking the class 25% had low interest in the
search. After taking the class this percentage decreased to 8%.
b)
Before taking the class only 25% had a very high interest
in the search. After the class this percentage increases to a 33%.
Comments from students
Below are examples of students’ responses taken from interviews and weekly
reflections.
“I plan to do a Google
search to find the websites by searching the keywords “supercenter, virtual manipulatives and math games.” I then will choose sites from the list that
look age appropriate for first graders.
I then will spend some time just exploring the website and check how
easy it is to navigate and whether it is designed for students or teachers.”
“Ah, well none of
my classes has been so intertwined with the internet as yours has. So this was
like my first like website searching.”
“Reading [the
chapter] created a graph of what I was
trying to find at the websites.”
“... at the first it was like “Oh, more time, more
work Blah, blah, blah you know? But after a while I was like: Oh, I’m so glad
they made us do this because I learned a lot and I know it’s out there now.”
“I have always known the importance of using
internet resources in classroom. This class has reinforced that theory”
“I definitely plan on using Internet resources
in my classroom. The internet offers students access to resources that we might
not otherwise have access to.”
“On a
scale form 0-10 [0 = not at all, 10 = very much], I think that I have rethought my teaching
practices to about a 9”
“My
criterion for online resources has evolved over this course. My search is more refined now. It is not enough for students to have fun
games to play….I want the content to truly build on concepts not just give them
something to do. Also, I am looking at
more sites that help me with teaching content instead of my searches being only
for student consumption. I am beginning
to look online more often.”
Discussion
We found that the majority of the teachers expressed that
their initial attitude towards the use of internet resources in the classroom
was negative because they considered it an overwhelming and time consuming
activity. Some of the teachers thought it was not worth pursuing, because they
don’t have the technological resources in the classroom nor the time to
implement the use of it.
All of the teachers recognized that they had to have the
skills and the confidence to know how to use the Internet resources. They felt that
if they don’t have them, they would be in a disadvantage compared with their
students.
After taking the class, the teachers realized that even
though there is a vast amount of internet resources, they need to be careful
and critical when searching for activities to use with their students. They
realized that there is a difference between having the students “busy,” and
having the students practicing a targeted skill. The surveys demonstrate that
the teachers with a low interest in searching for websites decreased 17% during
spring 2008 and 29% during spring 2009.
To motivate teachers to integrate the use of Internet
technology, we structured all the weekly activities in such a way, to compel
the teachers to follow a predefined set of steps. They had to integrate the
content with the use of technology. The final project had to use some of these
resources in integrated lesson plans; at least one lesson plan for mathematics
and one for science.
To discover how in-service and pre-service teachers find
access and use internet technology resources, we used the discourse from weekly
postings and answers from surveys and interviews. Teachers in general stated
they started their searches just using Google and Yahoo. While students from
spring 2008 reported they made extensive use of the companion websites from the
textbooks, students from spring 2009 kept using Google and Yahoo. For the later
group, the change was that for narrowing their searches, they used the keywords
and concepts from the readings.
Conclusion
The authors wanted to teach a graduate class about basic mathematics and science
concepts online leading to a natural incorporation of activities including
exploration of mathematics and science resources available online.
Our results indicate that developing advanced strategies for
searching online resources are appropriate and effective activities for an
online mathematics education class that lead to a change in the teachers’
attitudes.
The teachers were provided with a framework that included
chapter readings, weekly postings and critical assessments, repeated constantly
through the semester. They learned how to integrate the content with the
technology and realized at the end that this is a useful and worthy tool they
could use in their classrooms.
As evidenced by final surveys, most of the teachers became
more active and efficient in finding relevant and meaningful online resources
for teaching mathematics and science in elementary grades.
For future work we could study the possibility of transfer
the methodology to different areas of content, besides mathematics and science,
and how these teachers can transfer the experiences gained in this course to
their coworkers.
References
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R. (2007). Math and Science for Young
Children (5th ed.). Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Learning.
Ertmer, P. (2005). Teacher
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