A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Planning and Evaluation Service
Report Highlights

The 1999-2000 Annual Performance Reports for Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology

This report presents an analysis of the activities and reforms conducted by the 1999 grantees in the program Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3). The analysis uses baseline data submitted to the U.S. Department of Education through the program's 1999-2000 Annual Performance Reports, providing quantitative and qualitative information on the grantees' accomplishments, challenges, and how effectively they addressed the program's goal of preparing future teachers to effectively use technology in instructional settings.

Overview of the Program, Objectives, and Indicators

Program Description

The goal of the PT3 program is to support high-quality reforms in teacher preparation programs for the purpose of increasing the knowledge, skills, and abilities of prospective teachers to use technology efficiently in their future teaching practices. Grants are awarded to consortia that may include institutions of higher education, state educational agencies, local educational agencies, private K-12 schools, nonprofit organizations, and others.

In 1999, its first year of funding, PT3 awarded three types of grants: Capacity-building grants to lay the initial groundwork for a teacher preparation reform strategy, Implementation grants to encourage systemic reform of teacher preparation programs, and Catalyst grants to stimulate large-scale, innovative improvements for preparing technology-proficient teachers.

Objectives and Indicators

The Annual Performance Report was created to capture the activities and reforms of 1999 program grantees, and in particular how effectively the 225 grantees were meeting the stated objectives of the PT3 program. These objectives include:

• Strengthening teacher preparation programs so that they provide high-quality training in the use of technology for instructional purposes.
• Increasing the technology skills and proficiency of new teachers to improve classroom instruction.
• Creating institutional change in the preparation of future teachers to use technology.
• Creating statewide change in the preparation of future teachers to use technology.

Description of Data and Response Rates

All of the 1999 PT3 grantees were asked to submit an annual performance report to the Department of Education on their 1999-2000 program activities via a web site. Data were collected and analyzed on five levels: 1) consortium-level data; 2) consortium-level data, disaggregated by grant; 3) teacher preparation program data for all programs that were partners in a consortium; 4) teacher preparation program data, disaggregated by grant type; and 5) data from lead organizations in a consortium.

Ninety-one percent (204 of 225) of all consortia had at least one partner in the consortia respond to the report.  Eighty-two percent (335 of 409) of teacher preparation programs reported data to the Department, and 88 percent (198 of 225) of lead organizations reported data.

Key Findings

Technology Proficiency in Preservice Students

Forty-two percent of PT3 consortia used grant money to assess the level of technology proficiency among preservice students, and another 32 percent of consortia reported doing so, but not as a grant activity.

• Of the 65 percent of preparation programs that provided data on the technology proficiency of their students, 16 percent of preservice students demonstrated proficiency. The low percentage of proficient students may be partly explained by some teacher preparation programs only testing a portion of their students, such as graduates or members of a certain class.

• Students were assessed most frequently by in-class demonstrations and observations (97 percent of programs that assessed students), followed by performance assessments (84 percent), self-assessment (76 percent) and portfolio assessment (60 percent).

Professional Development and Technology Proficiency for Education Faculty

According to research, one of the major barriers to the integration of technology in teacher education is the low level of faculty comfort and proficiency with its use. To overcome this barrier, nearly all grantees (92 percent) provided professional development opportunities to faculty members.

• Professional development ranged from drop-in technical support available to faculty members to technology training workshops, and also included discussion boards, a database of on-line resources, and a directory of "master" trainers.

Overall, 52 percent of teacher preparation programs that provided faculty with professional development activities assessed the technology proficiency of those faculty members, and 56 percent of those faculty were rated by their program as proficient.

Curriculum Redesign

PT3 funds enabled a large percentage of teacher preparation programs to redesign their curriculum to better integrate best practices in the use of technology into teacher education. Overall, 69 percent of programs undertook this task.

• One example of curriculum redesign included teacher preparation programs using a Web site, developed by Catalyst grantees, to provide online video vignettes featuring faculty and K-12 teachers modeling the integration of technology into the classroom.

• To overcome the barriers among faculty members for integrating technology into their curriculum, 67 percent of teacher preparation programs offered incentives to faculty members. The most common incentive was increased professional development opportunities for faculty (94 percent).

Among the education programs that partnered with a college of arts and sciences as part of a consortium, 72 percent had arts and science faculty that redesigned their own curriculum to integrate technology.

Preservice Field Experience

Field experiences enable students to observe and practice using technology in the K-12 classroom. Forty-two percent of teacher preparation programs used PT3 funding to add, expand, or modify their field experiences to place preservice students in K-12 classrooms where educational technology tools and technical support were available and used by K-12 teachers.

• For example, preservice students in some programs used technology tools to create lesson plans and design Web-based activities for K-12 students.

• Other students viewed video clips of K-12 teachers using technology in instruction and evaluated the teachers' use of that technology.

Modifying Graduation Requirements for Preservice Students

Overall, 14 percent of teacher preparation programs added or expanded a requirement for preservice students to demonstrate proficiency in the use of technology as a precondition for their graduation.  Among the consortia that did not add or expand graduation requirements, 58 percent plan to do so in the next two years.

• The graduation requirement added most frequently by consortia and teacher preparation programs (78 percent of both) was to require students to "plan and deliver instructional units that integrate a variety of software applications and learning tools."

• To assess whether preservice students met this requirement, 98 percent of programs assessed students using an in-class demonstration, 85 percent used a performance assessment, 83 percent used a portfolio assessment, and 78 percent used a self-assessment.

Institutional Change

One of the goals of the PT3 program is to sustain reform efforts among grantees following the termination of federal funding. Seventy-one percent of consortia began this process by developing a written plan to continue reforms after their grant ends.

• Grantees also created institutional change through partnerships with colleges of arts and sciences. Fifty-seven percent of all grantees included a college of arts and sciences to facilitate institution-wide change in training for preservice students.

• PT3 grantees also frequently (92 percent) partnered with at least one K-12 school or district. The most common role of partner schools was providing field opportunities for preservice students (92 percent).

Addressing High-Need Populations

The PT3 program encouraged its 1999 grantees to respond to the shortage of technology-proficient teachers in high-need areas.

• Forty-nine percent of teacher preparation programs partnered with districts in high-need rural and urban areas, and with districts with low-income or minority students.

• Fifteen percent of teacher preparation programs provided technology-training activities targeted to students with disabilities. For example, preservice students developing software applications and materials designed for students with learning disabilities to use in mainstream classrooms.

Further Information

Copies of this report are available from the U.S. Department of Education via the Internet at: http://www.ed.gov/offices/OUS/PES/higher.html#pt3.

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