| The Learning and
Performance Support Laboratory, a collaborative group of more than
a dozen professors and research scientists in the College of Education,
has received a $1.068 million federal grant for a project that is
part of an ongoing national effort to prepare future teachers to
use technology in their classrooms.
The grant will fund a three-year project titled “Evidence-Based
Technology Enhanced Alternative Curriculum in Higher Education,”
or E-TEACH. Faculty and students from nearly a dozen departments
in the education college and five more in the Franklin College of
Arts and Sciences will be involved.
The project emphasizes technology integration in teacher education
courses, in core arts and sciences undergraduate courses, and in
majors in both colleges. Michael Hannafin, LPSL director and professor
of instructional technology, and Art Recesso, an LPSL research scientist,
are co-principal investigators.
“This approach should help improve technology integration
in UGA’s teacher education programs through a mix of faculty
development, curriculum refinement, student use of technology appropriate
to their teaching field, and ongoing support,” says Hannafin,
the Charles H. Wheatley– Georgia Research Alliance Eminent
Scholar in Technology--Enhanced Learning.
The grant comes from a U.S. Department of Education program,
begun in 1999, called “Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers
to Use Technology.” The program awarded 25 grants totaling
$30 million in 2003.
“Technology is an important tool for enhancing teaching practices
and improving the capacity to communicate, share and distribute
resources and ideas,” says Recesso. “It is important
for future generations of students to be more technologically savvy
and construct higher-order thinking skills. Matching the state’s
investment in technology to the learner-focused models of technology
integration suggested by E-TEACH will engage students in ways that
are meaningful and address their future workplace needs.”
Future teachers must better understand the scope of the digital
divide between people and communities who use computers effectively
and those who do not have the resources to do so, the scientists
say. Some common issues of concern are the ability of teachers to
use technology effectively, student and teacher access to computers
inside and outside the school, lack of technical support, and access
to culturally relevant content.
In Georgia’s classrooms the digital divide is not the only
technology problem teachers face.
“The greatest challenge,” says Recesso, “may be
working with what you have in your classroom. Implementation of
technology varies greatly by room and school system. We need to
prepare teachers for a variety of situations.”
To address issues raised by the digital divide and varying classroom
technologies, UGA faculty in the E-TEACH project will revise some
course content to allow more use of technology in teaching, learning
and improving practice.
E-TEACH will also support faculty development through seminars and
individualized professional learning opportunities focused on technology
integration. Faculty from the department of instructional technology
will work with E-TEACH faculty participants.
Hannafin and Recesso will work with education faculty in the departments
of science, mathematics, language, social science, elementary, reading
and special education. They will also work with faculty in English,
mathematics, psychology, chemistry and biology.
Other E-TEACH partners include the Georgia Department of Education,
the Georgia Professional Standards Commission and the Georgia Board
of Regents.
|
