Search results for: Instructional technology

The goal of this study is to describe an intervention intended to improve preservice teachers’ understanding of phonological awareness. The participants were teacher candidates, who randomly assigned to watch a Content Acquisition Podcast on phonological awareness significantly outperformed matched peers who read a practitioner-friendly article on the same topic.

The current paper presents findings from an evaluation of an instructional-technology professional development (PD) program. In this multiphase evaluation, the authors examined program's fidelity and its relationship to the program's impact on teachers and students. The authors collected three levels of data: PD level, teacher level, and student level. The authors found connections between student outcomes and the program and teacher outcomes. This finding suggests that high-quality PD leads to improved teacher knowledge, which can then lead to higher student achievement.

This study investigated social studies achievement as a result of utilizing a multimedia-based American history software program (Ignite Early American History, 2003) to augment textbook and lecture materials for seventh-grade middle school history students. The instructional software used was an interactive multimedia program designed to teach middle school students through video, song, animation, text, and other media to develop critical thinking skills while acquiring knowledge of required content strands (Ignite Learning, 2003).

In her book, On Teaching and Learning: Putting the Principles and Practices of Dialogue Education into Action, Jane Vella describes some of the things she learned that were important to teaching: “how to organize a lesson, how to structure a lesson plan and build a curriculum” (p. xviii). This approach is reflected in Paulo Freire’s words: “We teach the way we were taught” (p. xxi). But we are in the twenty-first century, and, with modern technology in which students click or zap and get wherever they want at high speed, this kind of teaching is not appealing anymore.