Reflection on Tech Scholars
Background/ Rationale
This paper presented at SITE 2003 is a pilot study of a follow-up national study on issues
and barriers to faculty’s continued use of technology in teacher education. It also ties in
with the theme of my research interest –faculty development. The article has a focus on
the sustainability issue of faculty development. It will contribute to resolving the issues
that have kept the faculty from continuing using technology in their teacher preparation
courses.
This pilot study was conducted with six faculty members identified as Tech Scholars
since the year 2000. Technology Scholars is a program connected with Iowa State
University’s Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) grant.
Specifically, this PT3 project provides teacher educators who applied and are named as
Tech Scholars with the necessary support to study and work one-on-one with a
technology mentor to develop materials and ideas for integrating technology into teacher
preparation courses. The results and emerging themes of the pilot study serve as
important indicators to inform an online survey that will investigate faculty’s continued
use and integration of technology on a national scale.
Reflection
My involvement with the Tech Scholars Program is a pleasant extension from that of the
existing mentoring program associated with CI610, Technology and Teacher Education.
For me, it provides an opportunity to make connections with faculty members in the
department and to be engaged in authentic learning environments. Each of them has been
a great role model of life long learners. The brainstorming process of developing ideas
with the Tech Scholars for technology integration was an excellent learning opportunity
for me. It is a real hands-on experience of combining the content and technology with a
focus of curriculum alignment. I still remember those “A-ha” moments when ideas were
implemented and worked just as well.
This pilot study also answered part of my questions on how the faculty who have used
technology significantly in their courses would perceive their future use of technology in
their courses. What are the concerns and what are the celebrations? Therefore, I continue
on to design an online survey to have access to a boarder view of how the faculty with a
similar level of technology uses see as issues or barriers to continue using technology in
their teacher preparation courses.
For me, this qualitative pilot study is to provide a “prototype” of the issues and barriers to
faculty’s continued use of technology. The follow-up quantitative large-scale survey
excels at summarizing large amounts of data and reaching generalizations based on
statistical projections. They serve different purposes at different stages of research in this
proposed study. I think there is value in mixing qualitative research with quantitative
research. In this study, for example, the pilot qualitative research excels at "telling the
story" from the participant's viewpoint, providing the rich descriptive detail that sets
quantitative results into their human context.