Findings: Integrating technology
Results on this standard are much more mixed than those for the state learning standards even though it would seem as if integration could use the same vehicle (a lesson-planning template): While close to 60 percent of undergraduate programs and about half of graduate programs that we evaluated met the standard for requiring that teacher candidates practice how to use technology in instruction, about 15 percent of undergraduate programs and one-fifth of graduate programs fail the standard completely. Five programs (three undergraduate elementary and two graduate elementary1)failed to meet the standard because they required teacher candidates to take a stand-alone technology course and presumably on that basis did not integrate technology elsewhere in professional coursework.
In contesting our findings on this standard, many programs pointed to requirements that teacher candidates use technology for their own studies rather than that they learn how to use technology in classroom instruction. (For example, North Central College was one of many programs that indicated that teacher candidates are required to use "LiveText"—an online tool that allows for both instructional and administrative oversight of the preparation program—to prepare and submit assignments.)
A few programs seemed to be distinguishing more clearly not only between use of technology in teacher preparation, as opposed to instructional use of technology in the classroom, but also among the ways technology can be used in the classroom. For example, a syllabus for a elementary science methods course at Western Illinois University had a relatively sophisticated assignment requiring teacher candidates to create five lesson plans in which technological tools are included as part of an "investigation manipulating tools and collecting data not just conducting research and writing a report."
How Illinois teacher preparation programs fare on this standard
