Teachers' Technology Integration Decision Making in Co-Taught Classrooms: Two Cases

• In Event: Roundtable Session 55
  In Roundtable Session: Perceptions on Technology Integration and Decision Making

Abstract

We investigated how teachers make decisions about using technologies in two public middle school classrooms. Specifically, we focused on the context of collaboratively-taught classrooms, where two teachers—one general educator and one special educator—work together to make decisions. Our study was supported by a framework developed by Doyle and Ponder (1977) called the “practicality ethic” (p. 7). Although we found that instrumentality, congruence, and cost (Doyle & Ponder, 1977) played a part in teachers’ technology integration decision-making, our findings went beyond the scope of the practicality ethic. Contextual elements, both those typical of any classroom setting and those specific to the co-teaching setting, played a larger role in teacher decision making related to technology integration.

Authors

• Diana Theisinger, College of William and Mary

• Debbie Grosser, The College of William & Mary