Investigating Cyber-Enabled Learning Usage, Access, Achievement, and Beliefs

• In Event: Roundtable Session 34
  In Roundtable Session: Considerations in the Design of Technology-Enhanced Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Teacher beliefs are essential to the decisions that happen classrooms, and critical to efforts of teaching science as inquiry. Aspects of how teachers believe technology might improve their instruction and their students’ motivations are important to consider when offering professional development that integrates social networking and computer gaming activities into their curriculum. This paper reports on a qualitative investigation into a purposeful selection of middle school science teachers’ professional development. Findings indicated that technology, while perceived as a “leveler” in their classrooms, was still problematic for uses of inquiry in a variety of ways. Perceptions of barriers to successful adoption persist, including administrative and classroom-based contextual factors, even while motivational aspects remained high.

Authors

• Jeffrey Olsen, Utah State University

• Brett E. Shelton, Utah State University

• Todd Campbell, University of Connecticut