School of Education

The Teacher as Software Developer is the name of a program integrating technology instruction, curriculum, and field experiences in teacher preparation. In an introductory education course for all undergraduate education students, a required technology lab links to a one-day-a-week prepracticum. Preservice students produce a Web site or "software" for their supervising teacher, who is their "client," and the supervising classroom teacher directs them to authentic curriculum objectives. Preservice teachers learn about software while learning about teaching, lesson planning, curriculum, and technology. Supervising classroom teachers' gain an opportunity to experience designing and using software with their own students and curriculum and access to the preservice student produced Web sites after the student has completed the lab. Evidence of the program's success comes from student survey data and student reflections. Despite the program's productivity, ...

The Teacher as Designer of Instructional Technology (TDIT) program focuses on improving teachers’ knowledge of technology and curriculum integration and common teaching practices. Delivered in the first year of a four-year undergraduate education program, previous findings showed a Cohen d effect size of 1.85 (p<0.001, n=228) on knowledge of technology and curriculum integration (Whittier, 2009). Use of the same survey instrument and consistent program organization allows combining findings over an 11-year period. Two paired t-tests showed significant differences (p<0.001, n=552) between the pre- and post-test. Preservice teachers reported increased knowledge of technology and curriculum integration competencies with a Cohen d effect size of 1.97(t/√n) and increased knowledge of common teaching practices with a Cohen d effect size of 1.73(t/√n). Additional study of graduating seniors (n=69) who completed student teaching found a 28% decline in knowledge of technology and curri...

The Measuring Technologies Value to Learning (MTVL) survey instrument was developed and deployed to collect data on the value learners place on 37 specific technologies and in some cases, the processes they facilitate. Administered to university students in three different locations in the spring of 2014, findings provide evidence to educators on the value to learning of measured items. Surprisingly, “writing with a word processor” was rated number one for its value to learning (n=386). The constructivist and didactic deployment of technologies was also surveyed for their value to learning. Constructivist usages with technology ranked four of the top five and didactic learning from technology occupied four out of the top ten and eight of the top 15 value rated positions, indicating value of both types of use. Respondents indicated a high degree of meta-awareness of technologies value to learning and a higher degree of ability to communicate and collaborate in-person compared to thro...

A nonrandomized quasi-experimental, mixed-method double pretest-posttest design was used to compare the effects of a multilinguistic word study model of instruction –RAVE-O program (Wolf, Miller, & Donnelly, 2000) — in comparison with a phonics word study model of instruction — Fountas and Pinnell Phonics Lessons — Letters, words, and how they work (Pinnell & Fountas, 2003). Repeated measures data were collected over 12 weeks, reflecting three points in time (i.e., Time 1: Fall pretest – baseline to Time 2: April pretest to Time 3: June posttest) to examine 50 first-grade students' growth in word reading and spelling. Additionally, the linguistic patterns of spelling errors were examined across approaches. It was hypothesized that first-grade students who received explicit multilinguistic word study instruction would demonstrate greater literacy achievement (i.e., word reading and spelling) than first-grade students receiving traditional phonics word study instruction. It was al...