Title: Teaching and Learning to Teach through Technology
Abstract: Using Technology in Teaching and Learning to Teach the Core Disciplines was the focus of a conference held in Washington, D.C. in October 1991. Co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and IBM, the meeting was designed to show how institutions of higher education are using computer technology to help achieve the National Education Goals (from America 2000: An Education Strategy(1) ), particularly those related to student learning in the disciplinary areas of mathematics, science, English, geography and history. Since what teachers know about teaching their disciplines is fundamental to what their students learn, the focus was on higher education's commitment to teachers' learning and teaching through technology. Seventeen institutions of higher education were invited to present their work in this area. All were recipients of IBM Teacher Preparation grants, but were encouraged to present whatever work seemed pertinent to the meeting's goals. In addition, all 17 were asked to use technology in their presentations. We have selected four presentations to share with you, ones that we think show the variety of possibilities for transforming teaching and the education of The institutions that made the four presentations are: the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, the School of Education at Arizona State University, the Department of Education at the University of New Hampshire, and the College of Education at the University of Georgia. The University of Virginia The University of Virginia's Curry School of Education based the presentation of their work in technology on the following three propositions: 1. Technology has the potential to radically transform how teaching and learning occur in the public schools. 2. Preservice teacher preparation plays an important role in whether this transformation will actually occur. Evidence shows that after three to five years, teaching styles are well-formed and difficult to change. 3. The university must provide the resources for the school of education to play this new and critical role in preparing teachers to use technology in the schools of tomorrow. Jim Cooper, Dean of the Curry School, said that, Faculty at the Curry School have predicted that schools will soon have two critical characteristics relative to technology: a global network and a graphical user environment. They employ these two characteristics in the education of their preservice teachers. In the early 1980s, the Curry School received a grant from IBM to help them link preservice teachers and their supervisors to university faculty. Called Teacher Link, this system was designed to reduce the isolation of student teachers and to bring university faculty resources to Teacher Link was headed by Dean Cooper and Glen Bull, one of his professors. It was so successful that the state used it as a prototype for the Virginia Public Education Network (PEN). Virginia PEN now links all of the state's public schools and institutions of higher education. The backbone for the linkage is Internet: all users gain access for the price of a local phone call. Every preservice teacher in the Curry School uses this system and keeps their account number throughout their teaching tenure in the state. A critical aspect of this system is the access to and use of this network by all the education faculty members. These faculty act as models for the preservice This access requires the support of the university administration, as Internet is not typically available to all faculty. Dean Cooper noted the importance of creating and supporting a single, seamless, open national system to facilitate communication across the country. A number of meeting participants echoed the importance of such a system in building a community for teaching and learning. Such a network improves teaching in at least three important ways. …
Publication Year: 1992
Publication Date: 1992-03-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 1
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