| Learning |
Lesson 3: Readings (2) |
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Preparing Prospective Teachers on the Web
Sean J. Smith, Kerri F. Martin, John Wills Lloyd.(1998)
Teaching Exceptional Children, 30(5), pp 60-64
Abstracted by Anne Daugherty
This article describes the integration of the Internet and the World Wide
Web (WWW) into preservice teacher education in the hopes of expanding the
instructional use of technology in special education classrooms.
The authors indicate that developing technological competencies and an
understanding of how technology can be integrated into classroom instruction
will assist teacher educators through focus on three areas:
- Teacher educators must model appropriate use of computers and related
software for instructional purposes.
- Teacher education programs need to incorporate the use of technology
across the curriculum.
- Preservice teacher instruction must focus on sophisticated tools that
support the development of higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills
in students.
One way to model the use of technology in teaching is through case-based
teaching,an emerging curricular innovation that enhances the skills of novice
teachers to analyze a situation, formulate action plans, and evaluate those
actions with respect to specific context variables. Use of cases can
provide opportunities for prospective teachers to grapple with the
ambiguities and dilemmas of teaching individuals with special needs, such as
behavior modification, appropriate instruction, and collaboration with the
general education classroom.
Cases created for the WWW can offer students video and audio clips to
illustrate the situation being considered. Video clips help students to
engage in the problem-solving task by providing a visual example to a given
situation. Audio clips can offer advice from experts, offering information
regarding educational theory or suggestions and additional information that
might help the students make decisions.
Web-based cases can also use photographs or graphic images to illustrate the
narrative, or picture the actual environment described. Links to additional
resources can further supplement case-based teaching and further
facilitating an easy bridge from research to practice.
The authors conclude that as preservice teacher education students learn to
use advanced technologies for personal and instructional use, college and
university faculty cannot leave technology instruction for the computer
class. Instead, technology should be integrated across the curriculum.
