May 1996 — Features

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Teacher Training: Helping to Construct the Information Highway

DR. O. W. KOPP, University of Nebraska, and DR. KAY E. FERGUSON, Space TREK Inst

  • They were afraid to try the new technologies in their schools;
  • They forgot how to use the technologies;
  • They feared rebuttal from other teachers for trying something new and different.

GROUP A/GROUP B
Enhance 3.74/3.73
Use 2.83/3.48
Confidence 2.68/3.57*
* indicates significance (p.0025)
Figure 1: Overall Comparison Effects of TREK Experience

Assessment

Assessment of the two pilot TREK institutes indicated that the one-week format was not preparing teachers to use their new knowledge and skills in their classrooms. Thus the TTTM model was redesigned to expand and refine the shortcomings as indicated through the data analysis.

At this point, in the third year of the pilot project, a powerful component was added -- children. Out of the group of 49 teachers, 14 were randomly selected and designated as "Group B." They worked directly with 100 children for one week after their initial training week.

This combination of trained teachers and children resulted in significant levels of change in the way teachers taught their students throughout the school year (see Figure 1).

It was hypothesized that through active participation in manipulative materials, teachers would gain the skills and confidence to replicate the activities in their classrooms. Also hypothesized were that the Group B teachers would: 1) develop more positive attitudes toward technologies; and 2) Initiate more technology-related activities in their classrooms because of the greater in-depth experiences gained in the additional week of training and working with the 100 children. Thus, it was hypothesized that the mean score of Groups A and B would be significantly different.

The following data gathering included a survey with responses based on a five-point Likert scale, daily journals, and pre- and post assessments. Twenty different t-tests were completed to compare Groups A and B on 20 different dependent variables. The alpha level of .05 was therefore adjusted using the Bonferroni correction; an alpha level of .01/20 = .0025 was used with each t-test to evaluate the difference between Group A and Group B on each dependent variable.[3]