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Can Computer Use Change Teachers’ Conceptions
of Social Studies Subject Matter and Method?
Margaret Smith Crocco, Stephen J. Thornton, and Thomas Chandler
ABSTRACT: This paper reports two years’ research into the effects of computer use on thinking about teaching
social studies subject matter among a small sample of pre-service students. Through extensive modeling by teacher
educators of the use of computers in teaching social studies and courses requiring project-based learning with
computers, teacher educators sought to support students’ adoption of more collaborative, student-centered, and
inquiry-oriented approaches to teaching social studies. Surveys and interviews provided data concerning the success
of these efforts to change students’ thinking about teaching social studies through the use of digital technology. This
paper shares research results documenting the degree of efficacy of these efforts.
Introduction
This paper concerns computer use in social studies teacher preparation and the
contribution it can make to promoting student-centered, collaborative forms of teaching social
studies. Although practically everyone agrees that new technology should play a major role in
social studies, research suggests that these technologies have not been fully integrated within
most teacher education programs (Boling, 2005; Sharma, 2005).
In the project described here, we were interested in knowing what impact the introduction
of technology might have on how student teachers considered social studies subject matter. We
followed closely two cohorts of students involved in a one-year master’s program with teacher
certification in a large urban institution. We focused research on subjects’ self- reports about
how they planned and taught social studies in their practice teaching settings. Although this was
an exploratory study, the insights afforded raise questions meriting further consideration about
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how technology use in a teacher education program may influence beginning teachers’
conceptualization of subject matter.
Digital Technology as a Lever for Change in the Teacher Education Program
Over a several-year span the pre-service master’s degree program described here infused
digital technology throughout its required and elective courses, relying chiefly on two strategies:
Teacher educators modeled applications of digital technology and course requirements were re-
directed toward technology-enhanced project-based learning. In virtually every course offered in
the program, the culminating requirement involved a curriculum project created by a small group
of students. Course structure was designed to support student success in creating these projects.
Class assignments between the first week and last week of class served as scaffolding for
understanding the steps necessary for successful completion of these projects. Instructors built in
ample time for student practice with necessary skills and gaining valuable feedback in improving
their practice.
In shifting the emphasis from didactic teacher-centered lectures and discussions toward
student-centered, inquiry-oriented, and project-based learning, we deliberately aimed at shifting
our students’ concepts of teaching. To put it another way, we wanted to foreground instructional
goals and methods directed at identifying and solving problems with subject matter and engaging
students in decision making about what methods and materials (including technology) might be
most useful in achieving the goals they identified as important to their student teaching
experiences.
We aimed to make a significant share of our project-based learning activities
collaborative because of our own purposes as teacher educators as well as the growing body of
literature on effective teacher preparation (Borko & Putnam, 1996; Feiman-Nemser, 1990);
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Howey, 1997; Tom, 1997). Likewise, as the research literature on teacher growth and
development so amply testifies (see, for example, Clark, 2001; Hargreaves, 2000; Huberman,
1993; Zeichner & Tabachnick, 1981; Zeichner, Tabachnick, & Densmore, 1987), changing
future teachers’ ideas about teaching based on their own “apprenticeship of observation” (Lortie,
1975) is no easy task. We were eager to explore the possibilities of digital technology to move
the program further along this path. By adding technology as a potential new form of support for
our program, we wanted to determine to what degree subjects would identify explicitly the
“value added” component of technology in reflecting on their shaping subject matter and method
in line with the articulation of their aims.
For several reasons, we decided to make a significant share of this inquiry-oriented
project-based course activity collaborative. Successful practice in group work, we believed,
would increase the chances our students would use the approach in schools with very diverse
populations where the environment is often discouraging toward it (Bliss, 1989). The
significance of collaboration was underscored by John Dewey (1902): Long ago, he
recommended that children be encouraged to work in small groups because he believed
intelligence is developed socially (Noddings, 1989, p. 608). Collaborative groups are also able
to deal with a broader range of subject matter than individual students can manage alone. Some
researchers (e.g., Cohen, 2001; Deutsch, 1992) argue that groups hold important benefits for
achievement and equity, especially in diverse student environments. Likewise, collaboration is at
the heart of the democratic process and is closely related to important social studies aims
(Thornton, 2005; Barton & Levstik, 2004; Hess 1994). As Traci Bliss (1989) put it, if school
students are to learn the necessary skills for effective citizenship, they need well-structured
opportunities to participate and interact with their peers (p. 304).
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The context for the study was a graduate school of education in a large urban area. The
award of PT3 and Catalyst grants in 2000 facilitated greater infusion of technology throughout
pre-services courses in the Program in Social Studies .1 By contrast with the relative abundance
of technology in their teacher preparation program, pre-service teachers did their field
placements in urban schools characterized by the digital divide. Documenting the extent of the
digital divide in any precise fashion is not done readily for either the state or city in which this
research was conducted.2 This clash of realities, we discovered, would play a critical role in how
our subjects thought about the utility of technology for teaching social studies.
Within a school system serving a very large number of students, the technology picture is
highly uneven. Access to computers in this city’s social studies classrooms is very much a hit or
miss situation, highly dependent on district, school, and building administrators’ priorities. Due
to the realities our students would encounter in their field placements and, and the schools in
which many would find their first jobs, we decided it made sense to emphasize approaches
compatible with the realities of the digital divide.
We began the study assuming technology infusion would change the subject matter
teachers taught. In other words, we assumed without a great deal of reflection that learning
activities would be more stimulating, collaboration would be promoted, and the range of
materials used to teach standard subject matter broadened.
1 PT 3 stands for “Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology.” Like “Catalyst,” these were funding programs
underwritten by the US Department of Education around this time in an effort to infuse technology into teacher education
programs across the country. 2 Based on official data, two statements can be made about the presence of computers in XXX State’s public schools: First, the
number of microcomputers in public schools more than tripled between 1993 and 2004. Second, “Students in XXX and the Large
City Districts had the least access to microcomputers” (XXX State School Report Card Database for Public Schools, 2006).
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Conceptions of method are often intertwined with what teachers understand the subject
matter to be (Stodolsky, 1988; Stodolsky & Grossman, 1995). What we had not anticipated was
that teachers would be moved toward wholesale reconsideration of subject matter, the goals they
brought to subject matter and its methods. In other words, we found that technology was not
restricted to enhancing existing approaches to social studies. Technology gave teachers in this
study innovative ways (e.g., access to digital primary sources) of providing curriculum and
instruction in standard courses (Friedman, 2006); it also helped broaden their conceptions of
what constituted worthy subject matter. They moved toward embracing open-ended,
heterogeneous, and ambitious conceptions of goals, subject matter, and method. In this process,
they developed an enhanced appreciation that who students are and how students learn should
weigh heavily in decisions about what they should learn. As curricular-instructional gatekeepers
(Thornton, 1991), both cohorts of pre-service students began to reflect upon the inherent
possibilities of technology to transform their teaching.
Research Questions
We decided to take a multi-pronged approach to technology infusion customized for
differing levels of student technology skills: modeling the use of technology in our teaching,
requiring students to take two technology workshops of their own choosing offered at our
institution prior to graduation, and demanding that students use a set of simple technological
tools for assigned work in their courses. This seemed to be the most sensible approach to
encouraging technology use in our students’ field placements, despite the increasingly
sophisticated nature of their own technological understanding.
Even the most skilled “digital native” (McHale, 2005; Prensky, 2005) may not
understand to what use technology should be put in schooling. Unimaginative uses may involve
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skill and drill, possibly failing to transcend rote memorization and recall. It is a basic premise of
the authors that not all forms of technology use are created equal. In the social studies literature,
several authors (e.g., Doolittle & Hicks, 2002; Bolick, 2004) have called for yoking technology
to aims associated with constructivist learning theories. From such a perspective digital
technology may leverage change by moving social studies instruction away from transmission-
and recitation-oriented teaching methods towards student-centered, collaborative approaches
(Crocco, 2001). Such approaches are also associated with promoting higher-order thinking skills
in social studies (Stodolsky, 1988, p. 134). It is a fundamental premise of this research that
technology use in classrooms should further important social studies aims. In particular,
collaborative approaches can strengthen cooperative or group process skills, which are critical to
enhancing citizenship in a diverse democracy (Dewey, 1966, p.87; Cohen, 2001, pp. 92-95;
Hess, 1994). It is this possibility, too, that motivated our study into technology use in pre-service
social studies education.
The main concern with which we began the study centered on whether technology use
would change the outlook of beginning teachers on how to teach social studies. Specifically, we
asked: Can extensive modeling of the use of digital technology throughout a program of social
studies teacher education alter students’ understanding of how to teach social studies, and if so,
how?
Eventually a somewhat different set of questions arose: Might technology shape beliefs
beyond how to deliver the conventional or mandated subject matters? Might it not result in
questioning what is conventionally taught and how to teach it? Moreover, might an emphasis on
technology in learning to teach underscore process or skills more than particular content? For
example, traditionally concern with subject-matter coverage lent importance to deciding whether,
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say, Virginia or Massachusetts is treated in an instructional unit on the American colonies (e.g.,
see Van Sledright, 2002, pp.54-55). But a process emphasis might downplay the choice of
colony to study and instead emphasize the objective of using maps effectively where the
particular colony studied may be relatively unimportant (see Noddings, 2003, p. 253).
Conceptual Framework
We should state at the outset that we reject the notion that “the knowledge of subject
matter that is central to teaching is also knowledge that is central to ‘knowing’ a discipline”
(Grossman, Wilson, & Shulman, 1989, p. 24). This is a proposition which we reject. Material
that does not emanate from the disciplines such as current events can also be valuable social
studies content. Moreover, teachers may, for sound pedagogical reasons, emphasize building
competence in inquiry skills and authentic forms of assessment in ways that the strictures of
particular disciplines find relatively unimportant. Thus, while we certainly agree that
researchers’ renewed emphasis on how teachers conceive the nature of the subjects they teach is
welcome (Gudmundsdottir & Shulman, 1987; Stodolsky, 1988; Thornton & Wenger, 1990), we
argue here for considering subject matter in teacher education in light of the aims of citizenship
education extending beyond those dictated by the academic disciplines. In the study’s initial
form, we saw potential for technology bolstering how new teachers psychologized subject
matter, as the term is used by Dewey (1902). For example, technology can pull one away from
strong reliance on narrative text toward more learner-friendly graphic organization in forms such
as those made available by the software program Inspiration. Similarly, such technologies can
also provide more powerful ways of manipulating data than is possible with traditional forms
such as chalkboard. But, as noted, technology can also support and make practicable more
fundamental alterations in instructional goals and arrangements such as collaborative learning
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and inquiry teaching. Furthermore, technology bolsters both the case for and opportunities to
pursue individualization of instruction.
Computers make possible individualized instruction with students all charged with
mastering the same material, even in cases with only one computer which might be described as
“whole-class inquiry” (Van Hover, 2005). Computers also allow the teacher to guide different
students in studying different colonies or skills in a unit on the American colonies, for example.
Practically, computers make possible instruction geared to the interests and needs of individual
students: For those students who might want to or benefit from map work, they can do that; for
those students who might profit from an emphasis on information about a particular region, they
can do that.
By the same token, technology—at least in rooms with a sufficient number of computer
workstations or only one computer creatively employed—can foster cooperative learning. In
social studies, group work can be regarded as both an instructional method and an intrinsically
worthwhile activity since cooperative living is a strongly recommended approach within the
literature on powerful, multiculturally attuned social studies (Deutsch, 1992; Ehrlich, 1999;
Hess, 1994; Leinhardt, Stainton & Bausmith, 1998; Slavin, 1992; Stahl & Van Sickle, 1992).
The award of the PT3 and Catalyst grants to our institution in 2000 allowed for testing these
ideas about technology and social studies aims. As we moved beyond our initial efforts towards
changing our program, we found that our evolution resembled other institutions also engaged in
trying to bring technology into pre-service teacher education in the most effective fashion
(Hofer, 2005).
In searching for digital tools that would provide a “value added” dimension to teaching
social studies, we looked for software that was attractive, easy to learn, inexpensive and
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generally accessible, and adaptable to a wide variety of topics and settings. When we say “value
added,” we mean utilization of a set of tools consonant with our aim of enhancing the
collaborative student-centered and inquiry-oriented pedagogy we wish to foster in our teacher
education program.
In their teacher preparation classes, students made abundant use of the Internet as a
research tool for finding primary source documents and visual materials suitable for lesson
preparation for secondary social studies classes. Besides an introduction to reliable web-based
materials, students were also introduced to Timeliner, Inspiration, PowerPoint, and WebQuests.
Students gained an introduction to the ways in which these tools can be applied to secondary
social studies, to inquiry-oriented lessons designed as WebQuests, and to excellent online
websites. Considerable attention was also given to how this shift in thinking about the teaching
of social studies could be facilitated and reinforced by emphasis on cooperative learning, an
approach which has been found to be particularly effective with diverse learners (Stahl & Van
Sickle, 1992). Briefly, we now offer one example of how technology was integrated into teacher
preparation courses within the Social Studies Program.
In the Women of the World course, students explored various WebQuests and developed
criteria for gauging their effectiveness in representing the world’s women in all their complexity.
Later, students engaged in a WebQuest the instructor created about the novel, Shabanu. She used
Inspiration to brainstorm student understanding of African women in order to help dislodge
misconceptions students may hold. In class, students explored the United Nation’s
CyberSchoolBus and US State Department websites for background about the status of women in
specific countries. Class assignments were geared to students’ application of knowledge to
lesson and unit preparation. Students developed elaborately articulated timelines based on Julia
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Alvarez’s novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, in order to contrast events in the novel with
historical events during the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic. Students used Inspiration
and Excel to compare the situation of women in various countries according to a pre-selected set
of standard of living criteria. Students also created their own WebQuests dealing with
controversial issues in teaching about contemporary women worldwide such as one entitled “Can
we count past two?” about ways of conceptualizing sexual identity worldwide.
Conducting the Research
Research methods included a variety of survey and interview techniques. At the
beginning of the 2003 and 2004 academic years, all incoming students in the pre-service
master’s degree program were asked to fill out an online questionnaire aimed at eliciting their
attitudes concerning the use of technology in teaching social studies (Fall, 2003, N=30; Fall,
2004, N=20). Student involvement was entirely voluntary. Students were first asked attitudinal
questions regarding their level of proficiency with various technologies, such as PowerPoint,
Inspiration, and Timeliner (see Appendix 1 for survey questions). Participants were then asked to
answer three open-ended questions regarding what they perceived to be the benefits and
difficulties of using technology in the classroom.
While 92 percent of the participants from both years expressed a high level of expertise
in conducting basic tasks (e.g., using email), only three students from 2003 and four students
from 2004 indicated that they possessed an advanced understanding of the more complex
programs and procedures (e.g., editing digital video or manipulating a geographic information
system (GIS) computer program). In order to hold constant the role of technical expertise,
participants from both years within this data pool were then rated as beginners, intermediates, or
experts. Beginners were categorized as having little technical experience beyond email.
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Intermediates were categorized as having experience with more software programs, but generally
envisioned using them for classroom management procedures. Experts already had experience
with more complex technologies, and had a strong desire to incorporate these tools into their
classroom instruction.
From these three categories, six participants (two beginners, two intermediates, two
experts) were selected from the class of 2004 for interviews, concerning how they conceived of
technology’s potential use for teaching social studies at the secondary level. The same procedure
was conducted again with six new participants from the class of 2005. All participants selected
for the interviews were undergraduate history majors; none had done previous coursework in
education. This suggests that students’ understandings of how to teach history were based either
in their “apprenticeship of observation” from their own K-12 schooling or their understanding of
teaching history from their college-level coursework. Clearly, this was a sample of convenience,
with all the limitations this entails. However, it should be noted that participants were
interviewed by the research assistant working on this project, not by their professors; the goal of
the research was not shared with participants. Likewise, it was made entirely clear that
participants’ responses would remain anonymous. We thus made every effort to eliminate any
hint of inducement to participants to answer questions in a fashion designed to tell their
professors what they might want to hear.
Near the completion of their master’s degree programs, participants were interviewed
once again (see Appendix 2 and 3 for fall and spring “think aloud protocol” and accompanying
questions) using the same protocol to assess whether their views about using technology in
teaching social studies had changed over their course of study, typically one year in duration.
Fall Semester Interviews
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What we report here from the interviews is representative of the direction in which the
thinking of subjects developed. In the first interviews early in their graduate program,
participants were engaged in a “think aloud” protocol asking them to consider how they might
use technology to teach the American Revolution. The data coding for this endeavor was
accomplished through the iterative process of identifying themes in the text-based data for the
open-ended interview questions. The research assistant followed standard techniques of data
analysis (Bogdan & Biklen, 1982, p. 145). Axial coding, used within the context of Grounded
Theory, further assisted in building connections between the categories and sub-categories, and
subsequently helped to identify more specific relationships (Glaser & Strauss, 1967).
Taken as a whole, five categories were then designated as expressions of the participants’
beliefs for technology’s role in social studies instruction. They are listed as follows:
Using technology can: Motivator Enable students to become more interested in the material Recall Help students to better visualize and remember the material. Crutch Encourage students to become too dependent on digital tools, without
gaining an awareness of traditional forms of learning. Student Collaboration
Help students exchange ideas about democratic citizenship in a group-oriented environment.
Training Help pre-service social studies teachers gain more exposure to the most appropriate pedagogical approaches that incorporate technology.
Precautions were taken to eliminate the possibility that some students were simply more
articulate in their responses to the interviewer's questions. For instance, if a student described the
same theme using different expressions, such as "being able to
work together" and "cooperating in a group setting" only one “student collaboration” theme
would be coded for that particular statement.
When considering the ways in which technology might add value to their teaching,
participants from both cohorts consistently highlighted issues pertaining to training and
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motivation during the initial interview (Appendix 4 reports figures that show these trends). The
latter pattern centered on the participants’ belief that technology usage could enable their
students to become more interested in what they were learning. Furthermore, several individuals
suggested that their students viewed digital content as being more credible than the printed words
and images found in a textbook. For example, when asked how technology could add value to a
lesson about the American Revolution, one participant from the 2003-4 class stated that:
I think you could do a lot with pictures of important people from the Revolutionary War period: examining artwork and propaganda from that time; downloading photos, to be put into PowerPoint presentations; making maps related to that period; visualizing timelines. It definitely keeps the kids’ attention if you incorporate the technology.
In relation to the need for further guidance regarding the ways in which social studies
instruction can incorporate technology, another participant added that:
What I’m familiar with so far for a lesson on the Revolutionary War has primarily been PowerPoint. I guess I’m not really sure yet if it is really worth it or necessary to take the technology to a higher level than that for a social studies class. The main thing is that social studies topics, rather than only technology topics, are the focus of the class.
Although participants described various ways in which digital technologies could keep
their students engaged in the learning process, there was little emphasis placed on associating
such technologies with the aims of student-centered or collaborative forms of learning. The lack
of attention paid to this issue was most evident during discussions about PowerPoint, which was
the most commonly invoked technology in the first round of interviews. Rather than focusing on
the ways in which their students could work in groups to design and conduct slide presentations,
the participants generally envisioned this software as a means for improving their own didactic
forms of teaching. When describing the reasons for using PowerPoint, one participant stated:
In the end, it makes me feel better, because it makes the class run better, but it is a lot more work! It also gives me a sense of security because I think, “I’m not just going to
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sit there, and I don’t know what to say.” It’s not going to be another boring lecture. Because there will always be another PowerPoint slide if their attention goes. So, it makes me feel more secure, but it is a lot of work.
During the first interview, the majority of participants also had difficulty articulating how
the technologies being discussed could be linked to the fundamental aims of social studies
education such as the intended emphasis on citizenship and community, which is promoted by
experience in group problem solving. In the earliest interviews, participants saw technology in
terms of efficiency of information delivery aimed at competency goals in disciplinary knowledge
acquisition.
Spring Semester Interviews:
Towards the end of each year’s pre-service program, over ten months later, participants
were interviewed again and asked a parallel set of questions to those asked in the first interview.
Responses from the first interview pertaining to the Revolutionary War were also read back in an
effort to help them recall their previous statements. Participants’ responses during the second
interview revealed more imaginative and collaborative approaches for teaching social studies
with technology than earlier. While collaborative learning issues were rarely cited as a primary
concern during the fall interviews, it was emphasized greatly during the second round of
interviews in both years, especially by those with only a basic knowledge of technology.
Tools such as PowerPoint were now mentioned as helpful in facilitating group-based
work. Many students mentioned new types of software and hardware. The most frequently
named were Inspiration, WebQuests, and Timeliner, all tools that were explicitly modeled by
faculty throughout the year. Some of the expert participants also experimented with webpage
development, geographical information systems as well collaborative online tools, such as wikis.
When asked follow-up questions regarding their previous comments about the Revolutionary
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War lesson, the majority once again offered examples of technology tools for collaborative
purposes. For instance, one expert participant stated that:
Well, I guess, what strikes me the most about the Revolution is that there are a lot of images, like when you think of the “Sons of Liberty,” there is the Liberty Tree, [and] when you think of the engravings, the paintings of George Washington. So I guess if I was going to use technology, I would think of ways to try to incorporate these images. With PowerPoint and the Internet, my students and I can get these things fairly quickly. And then in terms of thinking about how to visualize changes over time, I could use Timeliner. So image related things I think would be my focus in terms of technology. But then again, in terms of, like, using Inspiration, for semantic maps, I could get the kids collaborating together to map out their own explanations of what really happened, and then relate this to current events.
Later in the interview, the same participant said:
I know I always come back to PowerPoint…I think it can be used for the students to work in groups, where they have to put a project together and then do a presentation. Sometimes the groups really get into it, and one will try to outdo the other. It can really bring the class together more as a community, too. With PowerPoint, it is always interesting to listen to the students talk about what they have developed. Students could also make web pages, submit assignments via email, and visualize lots of topics a bit better, too.
During the second round of interviews, the participants’ coursework clearly had an effect
on their changing viewpoints. It was often noted that their graduate-school methods courses
emphasized collaborative skills, while also helping them to use digital tools as a means for
considering the subject matter from multiple perspectives. One beginner noted:
I think that I would still try to implement that idea for an activity. But I think that it has expanded, in the sense that I think there are songs from that period of time, or again, artwork that could be done in kind of like a slide show, maybe show some portraits of important figures from the American Revolution, just as a way to - as a way to supplement, you know, the traditional learning with visual learning, and appeal to different learners. I have also attempted to do more group work with PowerPoint, along with some WebQuests. I’ve had the students do searches for photos that they can then put into presentations about the Revolutionary War. We’ve then had a few classes where students can show their work. This is an aspect of the technology that has been valuable, since it helps to give them a sense of ownership and the ability to work on projects that can generate new realizations about the usage of symbols, past and present. For example, the students can examine artwork and propaganda from the Revolutionary War and then compare it
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to symbols regularly seen in the media today.
Another beginner stated:
A lot of my previously stated views about my internal reasons or motivating factors for incorporating technology into the classroom really kind of started with my studies here at [this institution]. Prior to that, I was a history major who pretty much did the standard research and writing, from books, and so, you know, my classes at [this institution], my methods courses really opened my eyes to just this whole new way to teach social studies. Now, I would guide my students toward national archive websites, to look up primary documents. I would have the students collaborate together, by using the technology, such as Internet message boards to exchange ideas. Students already use things like AOL instant messenger all the time, to collaborate with each other. So this is something I would certainly encourage.
Some participants even indicated that they had become advocates for a more collaborative
approach at their own schools, which was sometimes met with resistance. One participant stated:
Give me the opportunity to use different kinds of sources, going beyond the textbook, be able to use primary sources, other secondary sources, visual sources. Maybe there are oral histories or auditory stuff relating to the students’ community [and] there [are] maps--to be able to use all sorts of different things in a collaborative way. That’s what a lot of the teachers I am working with don’t seem to understand.
Furthermore, participants who worked in the poorest urban schools, where access to technology
was much more limited, also indicated a new belief that their students needed more access to
utilize technology for collaborative purposes. For example, one student stated:
The obvious obstacle is that a lot of it just doesn’t exist in schools. At my student teaching placement, the standard technology in the school is an overhead projector and nothing else. I think it’s just the availability. It would be great if there were computer clusters where the kids could work on projects together, instead of just presenting them with the resources and primary sources.
It is also important to note that this study involved an examination of a moving target.
Although the participants’ coursework clearly had an effect on their beliefs about technology, the
changing nature of technology itself also played a role. After all, during the time period in which
this study was conducted, blogs, wikis and social networking websites had become popular
mechanisms in which communities of people began to share interests and activities. Likewise,
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those that saw technology as fostering collaboration increased in both cohorts and those that said
they needed exposure to the appropriate pedagogical approaches decreased in both cohorts (See
appendix 5). This could be related to the increasingly facilitative nature of newer technologies,
which have made it easier for those with limited technical experience to develop their own
websites, movies, digital maps, and various other curricular materials.
Conclusion and Recommendations for Further Research
Based on the description offered here of two years’ worth of students’ views on the use of
technology in their teacher preparation program, we believe that students shifted their thinking
about how to teach and what to teach (in relation to who they were teaching) in ways we had not
seen with previous cohorts of students. We believe that technology played a critical role in
facilitating this change because of the way technology was positioned in the program’s
curriculum.
Over the last ten years, views on the proper approach to infusing technology into teacher
education have evolved significantly towards greater emphasis on subject-specific issues and on
the opportunities and obstacles found within subject cultures that are posed by the rapid pace of
change in this area (e.g., Handler & Marshall 1992; Byrum & Cashman 1993; Keiper, Harwood
& Larson 2000; Jones, Cunningham, & Stewart 2005). One of the fundamental lessons we take
from this research is the importance of considering the role of technology in light of social
studies’ avowed citizenship aims. The research suggests that extensive modeling of technology
use by teacher educators committed to these aims can be effective in developing student
understanding of the unique contribution technology can make to social studies teaching and
learning in K-12 settings. Moreover, the emphasis on student-centered, inquiry-oriented and
collaborative project-based learning seems to have received a boost from the infusion of
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technology into our teacher preparation program. This is significant in that such approaches are
critical in meeting the need to promote higher order thinking skills, especially in diverse, urban
schools.
We were able to document clear and consistent changes in student thinking about
technology use in teaching social studies (see Appendix 5 for overall frequencies and trends). As
the pre-service students progressed through their coursework, they reconceptualized their beliefs
about educational technologies much as they altered their beliefs in other areas. In this process,
their thinking about subject matter and method came to include both social studies and
technology as a single entity in line with the notion, with cooperative learning as a primary
vehicle for bringing the two together.
The pre-service students moved away from employing technology merely to motivate
students or increase the efficiency of instruction and learning. Although they did not always have
the vocabulary to describe their changed outlook, they clearly placed greater value on
independent thinking, discovery, and collaboration versus more initial attention to delivering the
standard content of the curriculum. Subject matter came to be conceived more from an
interactive perspective between students and content and between students and students working
collaboratively. In short, their emergent thinking found unique affordances in technology used in
pursuit of particular subject matter aims, especially for the students in urban schools. Although
we cannot attribute all the change in their thinking to technology infusion, we believe that
technology supported these changes in ways which we had not previously seen with other groups
of students.
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Appendix 1:
Social Studies: Technology Questionnaire
Please complete the following questionnaire. When finished, click on the "submit" button. Do not submit more than one survey. Your participation is greatly appreciated.
1. What is your name?
2. What is your email address?
3. What was your undergraduate major?
4. What is your gender? male female
5. Do you have regular access to a computer at home? yes no
6. If yes, is it a PC or a Mac? PC Mac
7. In a typical week, how many hours do you use a computer for word processing, email, and
web oriented research?
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree
Strongly Agree
Don't Know
A: I feel comfortable turning on and using a Macintosh computer
SD D A SA
DK
B: I feel comfortable turning on and using an IBM compatible computer
SD D A SA
DK
C: typing content in MS Word SD D A SA DK D: using Excel for data analysis SD D A SA DK E: creating PowerPoint slideshow presentations SD D A SA DK F: using email to communicate with colleagues SD D A SA DK G: sending attached files to colleagues via email SD D A SA DK H: posting opinions on online discussion boards SD D A SA DK I: conducting online research SD D A SA DK J: using software to input SD D A SA DK
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grades K: using software to keep track of daily attendance SD D A SA DK L: using software to make flowcharts SD D A SA DK M: developing web pages in a web editor such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage
SD D A SA
DK
N: saving Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents in HTML format
SD D A SA
DK
O: uploading HTML documents to a server for display on the World Wide Web
SD D A SA
DK
P: writing HTML code in Notepad or Simple text, without use of an editor
SD D A SA
DK
Q: designing and editing images in Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, or another graphics program
SD D A SA
DK
R: capturing photos with a digital camera SD D A SA DK S: filming with a video camera SD D A SA DK T: editing video SD D A SA DK U: using Geographical Information System (GIS) programs
SD D A SA
DK
9) Describe your experiences to date in using technology in your teaching.
10) Ideally, what do you think technology could contribute to the social studies classroom?
11) What institutional and / or personal obstacles do you see standing in the way of this ideal situation?
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Appendix 2: Interview Questions for Fall 2003 and 2004 Semesters: Hello. I’d like to welcome you and thank you for participating in this study about the teaching of social studies. This interview is being recorded. Please note that all of your responses during this interview will be used in ways where your name is not revealed, and will have no bearing on how you are being evaluated for any of your courses here within this program. Findings from this study will only be used to develop a richer understanding of appropriate pre-professional and professional development related to the use of technology in social studies K12 classrooms and teacher education. Your participation is entirely voluntary and you are not obligated to answer any specific questions if you do not wish to. Let me start by asking you a few general questions: 1) What was your undergraduate academic major? 2) How long has it been since you left college? 3) What types of social studies oriented teaching experiences have you had? 4) (If applicable) How long have you been teaching? 5) (If applicable) Where do you teach now? 6) OK, now I’d like you to imagine that you are teaching an 8th grade social studies course, and that you are just starting a unit plan focusing on the Revolutionary War. Off the top of your head, what do you think are the 3 or 4 big ideas that 8th grade students should come away with after learning about the Revolutionary War? 7) If you had the opportunity to use any type of technology for this endeavor, how would you use it to teach these ideas more effectively? 8) Probe: Can you tell me more specifically what you mean in terms of using the technology? 9) Probe: Are there any other types of technologies you would like to mention? 10) What makes you think this would make the lesson better than it would otherwise be? 11) What obstacles do you see standing in the way of using technology for this type of unit plan? 12) Probe: Could you tell me more specifically how these obstacles may prevent you from using the technologies you’ve mentioned?
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13) Do you think there is pressure from any source to use technology? Appendix 3: Interview Questions for Spring 2004 and 2005 Semesters: 1) Since we last spoke, you have had the opportunity to spend more time in the social studies classroom ...Please tell me more about the school in which you have been doing student teaching, in terms of the curriculum, the students, and the usage of technology at the school. 2) Could you elaborate on some of your own experiences relating to these issues? 3) What sorts of pressures, internal or external, motivate you to use technology in your teaching? 4) Has your course work here impacted your views toward teaching with technology? If so, how? 5) Now, let's go back to the hypothetical lesson plan pertaining to the Revolutionary War that we discussed in the first interview. Last time, you said that "____________________” Has your thinking about using technology for this type of lesson changed since then? 6) Imagine that you were teaching in a classroom environment with the best possible technology available, such as a brand new computer for each student in your classroom, an extremely fast network, any software you wanted, unlimited technical support....all the technology you could possibly need. How would you go about using it to teach this lesson about the Revolutionary War? How would this use of technology impact the lesson? What new skills would you need to develop?
27
Appendix 4
Number of comments made by each student, per coding category
Motivator Recall Crutch Collaboration Training Fall 2003 (Class of ‘04)
Beginner A 0 0 0 0 4 Beginner B 2 2 0 1 3 Intermediate A 1 1 2 0 1
Intermediate B 2 2 0 2 3
Expert A 2 0 2 2 1 Expert B 3 0 0 2 2 Spring 2004 (Class of ‘04)
Beginner A 3 1 0 3 1 Beginner B 1 2 0 2 3 Intermediate A 3 2 0 0 2
Intermediate B 1 0 0 5 1
Expert A 1 1 0 6 1 Expert B 1 0 0 2 0 Fall 2004 (Class of ‘05)
Beginner A 2 1 1 0 1 Beginner B 1 1 0 0 0 Intermediate A 2 1 0 1 2
Intermediate B 3 2 0 0 2
Expert A 3 1 0 2 3 Expert B 0 3 0 0 4 Spring 2005 (Class of ‘05)
Beginner A 1 3 1 2 1
28
Beginner B 2 1 0 2 1 Intermediate A 2 0 0 1 0
Intermediate B 3 0 0 3 1
Expert A 1 3 0 3 1 Expert B 0 1 3 1 1 Appendix 5:
Total number of student comments per coding category Fall 2003 – Spring 2004
10
5 47
14
10
6
0
18
8
0
5
10
15
20
Code Categories
Freq
uenc
y
Fall, 03 10 5 4 7 14
Spring, 04 10 6 0 18 8
Motivator Recall Crutch Collaboration Training
Total number of student comments per coding category Fall 2004 – Spring 2005
119
13
12
98
4
12
5
0
5
10
15
Code Categories
Freq
uenc
y
Fall, 04 11 9 1 3 12
Spring, 05 9 8 4 12 5
Motivator Recall Crutch Collaboration Training
29
