Teacher Education

Transforming Teacher Education: Visions and Strategies

Peggy Ertmer

In 1997, the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) suggested that in order to achieve effective use of computers in schools, a ratio of four to five students per computer was needed. Now, just a few years later, this ratio has been attained. According to recent reports from Market Data Retrieval (MDR, 2002), the student-instructional computer ratio in U.S. schools has dropped to an all time low of 3.8 to 1, with a favorable ratio of 4.9 students to each Internet-connected computer. We have achieved an unprecedented level of access. Today, 98% of schools and 77% of classrooms in the United States are connected to the Internet (MDR, 2002). Despite this increased access, or perhaps because of it, concern has been raised about the level of preparedness of new and future teachers to use technology in their teaching. According to the 2000 report of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), only 44% of new teachers (three or fewer years in the classroom) feel well prepared to use technology in their teaching. Although this percentage has increased since the 1999 NCES (NCES) report, much work remains to be done. Assuming that this lack of preparedness is rooted in, or at least linked to, current teacher preparation programs, the United States government initiated the PT3 program, Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology, in 1999 (U.S. Department of Education, 2002). As stated in the overview of the program (http://www.ed.gov/teachtech/about.html): “Profound changes in the way future teachers are taught are necessary if we are to meet the demand for teachers prepared to educate 21st century learners.”

Based on the vision of Tom Carroll (U.S. Department of Education, 2002), the founding
director, PT3 applicants were challenged to be bold in their proposed solutions to issues of technology, learning, and education. Recipients were asked to do more than simply “bolt” new technologies onto existing practices. Thus, this was not so much a program designed to provide greater access to technology as one designed to “transform teacher preparation programs into 21st century learning environments” (http://www.pt3.org/technology/ 21century_learners.htlm). As noted on the PT3 Web site: “The PT3 program is based on the understanding that it is not enough to ensure that preservice teachers understand how to use a computer or access the Internet; they must understand how to create and deliver high-quality technology-infused lessons that engage their students and improve learning.” Given this overall vision of the PT3 program, I was pleased to see the extent to which the five projects described in this special issue of Educational Technology Research and Development are attacking the issue of change in their teacher education programs. Project directors and participants at Arizona State University (ASU); Iowa State University (ISU); University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV); University of Pittsburgh; and Vanderbilt are employing a range of approaches to transform their teacher preparation programs, including specialized faculty development, intense field experience mentoring, and innovative course restructuring. The efforts of these project teams are inspiring; I’m honored to review and discuss these projects.

Effecting School Change

As we all know, “Any organization that adopts a new technology without significant organizational change is doomed to failure” (Schlechty, cited in Carroll, 2000, p. 130). Even small changes to a complex dynamic system, such as a K– 12 school or a teacher education program, can have far-reaching and unforeseen effects. If new technologies are going to successfully transform education, significant changes will be needed not just in terms of roles, rules, and relationships (as noted by Schlechty), but also in terms of the very purpose of the entire educational enterprise. Still, significant changes cannot occur
overnight; rather, small, incremental modifications must be made if true transformation is to be achieved and sustained. Organizations will experience learning curves just as individuals do, and a great deal of scaffolding will be needed to support them as they climb the upward slope of the curve. For the most part, the projects described here are still on that upward slope. A variety of support structures have been put in place and the
learning process has begun. However, as noted in the article by Thompson, Schmidt, and Davis: “Teacher education faculty can be certain that learning how to use and integrate technology will take time, as it will probably be several years before they are comfortable using these technologies with students in their courses” (p. 75). Furthermore, taking faculty to the point where they are comfortable using technology does not, unfortunately, equate to taking them to the point where they can use technology in innovative or “transformed” ways, as advocated by the PT3 founder. A number of researchers have documented the stages that inservice teachers typically progress through as they become accomplished technology users (e.g., Sandholtz, Ringstaff, & Dwyer, 1997) and the “transformation” stage is always near, or at, the end of the process. Moreover, according to Becker (1994), it often takes K–12 teachers more than five years to get to this level. Assuming that teacher education faculty are likely to experience a similar process, is it reasonable to expect them to begin using technology in transformational ways if they are only now becoming aware of how they might use computers in their teaching, and at a more basic level, just now gaining some of the fundamental skills? Without a doubt, these PT3 project directors have their work cut out for them! But there is more. Although skills training and follow-up support are necessary to start current and future teachers along the road to transformational technology use, project directors also recognize that teachers’ ability and willingness to achieve higher levels of integration are affected by other important factors. These in- clude the amounts and kinds of collaborative structures that are available to support their efforts, opportunities for observing and interacting with peer and exemplary models, and opportunities to reflect on current practices and beliefs (their own and others) about teaching and learning. Although skills training may initiate changes in teachers’ uses of technology, these additional scaffolds will be needed to support and sustain the types of meaningful changes being promoted.

Scaffolding Teachers’ Change Efforts

Whereas four of the five projects presented here have focused a great deal of their early efforts on providing skills training and technical support for faculty, they have all embedded these efforts within comprehensive programs that provide additional scaffolds related to three components:
(a) collaboration, (b) modeling, and (c) reflection. In the next few sections, I discuss how these projects address these key components.

Building collaborative structures.

An emphasis on collaboration is, perhaps, the strongest commonality among these programs. Not surprisingly, this collaboration takes many facilitative forms:

• Between technology mentors and teacher education faculty,
• Between technology mentors and inservice teachers,
• Among pre- and inservice teachers,
• Among teacher education faculty and subject- area faculty,
• Among faculty and pre- and in-service teachers, as well as
• Among teacher education faculty members themselves.

Furthermore, in many instances, pre-service teachers are engaging in their own collaborative efforts, made possible by attending classes in cohort groups (ISU, ASU), participating in online discussions about fundamental issues of teaching and learning (Vanderbilt), and working as teams to create technology-infused lessons for K–12 students (ASU). Together, these collaboration strategies allow participants to assume and
share responsibility for the changes they are expected to make. In almost all cases, relationships are reciprocal; members provide varying degrees of technical, pedagogical, and moral support for each other.

Modeling effective technology use

In true learning communities, participants serve as both teachers and learners, drawing on each other’s expertise as they work to solve authentic problems. Because all of the projects highlighted in this special issue established some form of learning community as part of their change efforts, modeling activities developed almost implicitly within their community-based efforts. That is, as faculty, in-service, and pre-service teachers worked together to create technology infused lessons, the modeling of technology occurred naturally, with more expert users modeling effective uses for more novice users.
Still, in at least one instance (ASU), modeling was used in a very explicit manner to help
Pre-service teachers understand what a technology- infused lesson might look like before creating and implementing such lessons themselves. Models can provide important information about how to complete a complex task, as well as increase the confidence of those who observe them. Given the complexity involved in creating and implementing technology-rich lessons, it is likely that teachers (at all levels) will benefit from observing varying degrees of expert performance as they move toward more advanced levels of technology use themselves.

Reflecting on current practices and beliefs

Reflection among participants is believed to be a critical component of any innovation effort; the projects described here have incorporated participant reflection in a variety of direct and indirect ways. For example, the Vanderbilt project is designed specifically to “make visible” the thinking of pre-service teachers. Thus, it anchors student learning in reflective, inquiry-based activities. Pittsburgh’s participants kept reflective journals as one way to help them “extract from the experience the knowledge that leads to improved
practice” (p. 97). Similarly, ASU students were required to write post-unit reflections and to participate in whole group debriefing sessions after implementing technology-based lessons. At both ISU and UNLV, participants engaged in reflective activities as part of the data-gathering process, usually through participation in interviews or focus groups. These activities provided participants with the opportunity to reflect on their learning progress and to consider how their practices and beliefs were changing. At ISU, these interviews were described as being generative (inspiring new ideas and strategies) and cathartic (enabling project leaders to express frustrations, reflect on past successes, and anticipate future needs). As these PT3 projects near completion, it may be expected that the need for reflective activities will increase as the various stakeholders come together to consider the overall success of the project and to determine critical next steps. It is important to point out that while all project participants engaged in some type of reflection, they did not all reflect on the same things. Whereas Vanderbilt students reflected on the principles of how people learn (i.e., focused on beliefs), students at ASU reflected on their personal implementation of a technology-based lesson (i.e, focused on practice). In somewhat of a combined approach, the Pittsburgh participants appear to have reflected on new practices in order to facilitate changes in beliefs. What is not at all clear at this point, however, is whether one of these approaches is more beneficial than the others in terms of facilitating meaningful uses of technology in the future. It would be useful to follow these participants for a few years to examine how beliefs and practice do
change, if at all. Will a change in practice lead to changes in beliefs, or is a change in beliefs necessary to facilitate a change in practice? The answers to these questions may help us determine how best to focus our students’ reflective inquiry.

Determining Project and Program Effectiveness

Given all the changes that have occurred in these teacher education programs, is it safe, then, to assume that the PT3 projects, and therefore the PT3 program, are a success? If we were to base our answer on the results reported in these papers, then surely we would give a resounding yes. Although most projects report a few lessons learned, or include a sampling of unfavorable responses from participants, the overwhelming tone is one of optimism. As well it should be: Changes are occurring; progress is being made. However, if we measured success in terms of the original program goals (i.e., to transform teacher education programs), then we still have a ways to go. What is needed, at least from this reader’s viewpoint, is a better description of the types of lessons being delivered, as well as the manner in which technology is being used to support the lessons. Without this, it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the extent to which teachers truly are transforming their traditional approaches to teaching and learning. Nonetheless, it is clear to me that the initial project efforts described in these papers were absolutely essential to getting existing faculty and teachers over the technology hump. According to the PT3 Web site (http//www.ed.gov/teachtech/ about.htm), the PT3 program “is creating a
movement that aims to break the cycle that leaves new teachers unprepared to use modern learning technologies because their education professors weren’t modeling appropriate technology use.” Once the cycle is broken, then, it is expected that the movement will perpetuate itself because the culture will have finally changed; pre-service students will be taught in innovative ways that model the types of teaching and learning
we expect them to implement in our K–12 schools. Given this point of view, then, these
projects can be seen as recreating their existing cultures; clearly this is a slow and complex task that cannot be rushed.

Future Efforts

The PT3 projects included in this issue represent only 1% of the total number of PT3 projects being implemented nationwide. Although each project has a unique approach, a number of common themes unite them. However, because we really don’t know which of these many approaches is best, in terms of long-range impact, it will be important to collect longitudinal data that enable us to compare students from these various programs. For example, what are the differences, if any, between students who are enrolled in belief-focused programs such as Vanderbilt versus those who work in the field as at ASU versus those immersed in technology-rich programs as at UNLV, Pittsburgh, or ISU? And more importantly, will the differences translate into real differences in classroom uses of technology and student learning? When will we see the real impact? How many years will it take before the NCES report finally indicates that more than 50% (75%? 100%?) of our teachers feel prepared to use technology in the classroom?

Undoubtedly there is a need for more data, particularly impact data that demonstrate effects on K–12 student learning. As Strudler and his colleagues point out, “Since the ultimate proving ground for these efforts is in K–12 classrooms, an increased emphasis needs to be placed on documenting the impact on teacher candidate outcomes in student teaching and beyond” (p. 55). As PT3 projects enter their final years of funding, I urge project directors to consider gathering more detailed and descriptive data, not only about the types of lessons being implemented, but about the impact these lessons are having on K–12 student thinking and problem- solving skills.

Given the 1999 status of teacher education programs in terms of their ability to prepare 21st century learners (U.S. Department of Education, 2002), the initial goal of the PT3 program may have been a bit optimistic. Yet, this program, more than any other recent effort, has revitalized teacher education programs in ways that have been recommended for years. According to the PT3 Web site, this program “comes at a time of opportunity; a teacher shortage has created a need to recruit, train, and retain two million new teachers in the next decade. Transforming teacher preparation programs now will ensure that the mass of graduates coming through the pipeline will be trained appropriately and will enter tomorrow’s classrooms skillfully prepared to teach using technology-infused methods” (http://www.pt3 .org/technology/21century_ learners.htlm). Still, it’s up to us to transform this opportunity into reality. By incorporating the critical elements of collaboration, modeling, and reflection into their organizational change efforts, I believe that the projects described here offer a very promising start.

Peggy Ertmer is Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.