{"id":6824,"date":"2016-06-17T13:58:46","date_gmt":"2016-06-17T13:58:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/citejournal.org\/\/\/"},"modified":"2016-12-19T14:39:40","modified_gmt":"2016-12-19T14:39:40","slug":"future-teachers-dispositions-toward-teaching-with-geospatial-technologies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citejournal.org\/volume-16\/issue-3-16\/social-studies\/future-teachers-dispositions-toward-teaching-with-geospatial-technologies","title":{"rendered":"Future Teachers\u2019 Dispositions Toward Teaching With Geospatial Technologies"},"content":{"rendered":"
Professional development for teachers to teach with geospatial technologies (GST) is crucial to successful implementation of GST into classrooms (Baker et al., 2015), and its importance has been emphasized since the implementation of the National Geography Standards<\/em> (Geography Education Standards Project, 1994). The role of GST in geography education has become more explicit in the revision of Geography Standard 1, \u201cHow to use maps and other geographic representations, geospatial technologies, and spatial thinking to understand and communicate information\u201d (Heffron & Downs, 2012, p. 21), reflecting the development of GST and increased recognition of spatial thinking as a key practice in geography (Bednarz, 2015).<\/p>\n
Learning to teach with GST is crucial for preservice teachers to be able to fully implement the knowledge, skills, and practices of geography featured in the standards (Bednarz & Audet, 1999). However, the implementation of GST in teacher preparation and relevant research to facilitate this process are still insufficient.<\/p>\n
Much of the literature on teacher preparation for successful integration of technology into classrooms has focused on enhancing technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (Clark, Zhang, & Strudler, 2015; Mishra & Koehler, 2006), and slow and ineffective technology implementation has often been attributed to a lack thereof. However, studies also have identified a positive relationship between teachers\u2019 personal beliefs and dispositions and their classroom integration of technology (Becker, 2000; Conderman & Walker, 2015; Ertmer, 2005; MacArthur & Malouf, 1991; Saye, 1998; Smith, Moyer, & Schugar, 2011; Vannatta & Fordham, 2004).<\/p>\n
Heo (2011), for example, recognized dispositions toward changes in new technologies for teaching as one of the \u201cinternal barriers\u201d that preservice teachers should overcome to incorporate the technology successfully in their classrooms. Therefore, effective implementation of innovative technologies, like GST, \u00a0in education will require preparing teachers to develop not only the necessary knowledge and skills for but also positive dispositions toward using GST as a tool for teaching.<\/p>\n
Few studies have examined how to prepare teachers as instructional gatekeepers to implement GST in the classroom (Jo & Bednarz, 2014). Little is known about characteristics of learning experiences that can promote preservice teachers\u2019 dispositions toward teaching with GST. Thus, the purpose of this study was to address the research gap by examining the effect of Web-based GIS experiences within a semester-long methods course on enhancing dispositions toward GST for teaching.<\/p>\n
Background<\/h2>\n
Role of Dispositions in Teachers\u2019 Technology Integration<\/h3>\n
Successful integration of technology for teaching and learning requires much more than simply putting technology into a classroom. Studies suggest common implementation problems, including limited access to hardware and software, insufficient resources, lack of appropriate training, and constraints on time for planning (MacArthur & Malouf, 1991; Saye, 1998). According to Heo (2011), teachers must overcome not only those external barriers but also the \u201cinternal barriers dealing with organizational culture and pedagogy such as teachers\u2019 attitudes, beliefs, practices, and resistance toward educational technology\u201d (p. 62). When teachers lack adequate knowledge and information, beliefs and attitudes play an even more significant role in their decision making (Saye, 1998).<\/p>\n
In addition, technology itself is not a pedagogical strategy but rather a versatile tool that can be used in many different ways to meet various goals in education. Therefore, the ways teachers use technology may greatly differ from one another. MacArthur (1991) argued that teachers\u2019 technology use depends largely on their overall educational goals, their classroom routines, and their specific knowledge and beliefs about the benefit of technology. Smith et al. (2011) also pointed out that teachers\u2019 effective integration of technology reflects and correlates with their personal beliefs and dispositions about whether the integration of technology would support both student learning and their professional goals.<\/p>\n
Empirical evidence has been presented to support the importance of dispositions in teacher technology use. For example, Marcinkiewicz (1993) examined the degree to which various personal characteristics of teachers predict the level of their computer uses in the classroom. Among the variables, including age, gender, years of computer experience, perceived relevance of computers to teaching, locus of control, perceived competence, and innovativeness, two variables\u2014self competence in the use of computers and willingness to change to adopt innovations\u2014were most closely related to teachers’ levels of computer use.<\/p>\n
Vannatta and Fordham (2004) conducted a similar study and examined the relationship between a variety of teacher variables\u2014amount of professional development, amount of technology training, years of teaching, self-efficacy, and philosophy\u2014and their technology use for teaching. A regression analysis revealed two dispositional characteristics\u2014openness to change and willingness to commit time\u2014as the best predictors of classroom use of technology.<\/p>\n
A study by Baylor and Ritchie (2002) also showed that teachers\u2019 openness to change is highly correlated to not only their technology integration level but also to their competency using technology and student practice of higher order thinking through technology-integrated lessons:<\/p>\n
Teachers who are open to change, whether this change is imposed by administrators or as a result of self-exploration, appear to easily adopt technologies to help students learn content and increase their higher-level thinking skills. It also appears that as these teachers incorporate these technologies, their own level of technical competence increases, as does their morale. (p. 412)<\/p>\n
Empirical evidence is lacking about the effect of teacher dispositions on the uses of GST in the classroom, although researchers have emphasized willingness among teachers to learn more about and undertake an intellectual endeavor for teaching with GST as one of the key factors to achieve successful integration of GST in education (Coulter, 2014). According to Coulter several specific teacher characteristics determine their ability to teach with GST, including in-depth knowledge about the topics, confidence in data-informed, model-based reasoning, ability to guide student inquiry, and curiosity and passion for further learning.<\/p>\n
The first three characteristics correspond to the already well-known technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge framework (Mishra & Koehler, 2006. The last attribute\u2014curiosity and passion to learn more\u2014is related more to teacher disposition than knowledge or skills. Coulter (2014) stressed that all these teacher characteristics are equally important as teacher geospatial \u201ccapacity factors\u201d (p. 289). Teacher preparation programs must consider disposition as one of the key elements for teachers to build their competence in teaching with GST.<\/p>\n
Strategies to Enhance Dispositions Toward Teaching With Technology<\/h3>\n
The state of the literature leaves the question of how to enhance teacher dispositions related to teaching with GST largely unanswered. At a minimum, teacher education programs can prepare preservice teachers to integrate GST through the educational technology component of the curriculum (Baker et al, 2015). Regarding the development of positive dispositions, teacher education research suggests several key strategies, including exposure, technology-integrated methods courses, and teacher educator modeling and reflection.<\/p>\n
In an extensive review of literature focusing on introducing technology to preservice teachers, Kay (2006) found that a number of studies emphasized the importance of the teacher education faculty members themselves using technology to expose preservice teachers to the power of technology as a learning tool (Alexander, Knezek, Christensen, Tyler-Wood, & Bull, 2014; Vannatta & Fordham 2004).<\/p>\n
If teacher education faculties adopt technology in their teaching practices, preservice teachers are\u00a0more likely to\u00a0be motivated in this endeavor (Kay, 2006). Exposing preservice teachers to technology-integrated learning environments is an effective strategy to introduce technology and model technology use in education. It is also a necessary first step to enhance preservice teachers\u2019 dispositions toward technology use in classrooms (Clark et al., 2015).<\/p>\n
However, mere exposure will not be adequate in moving preservice teachers to decide to use technology or enabling them to integrate it into their future classrooms effectively. They need training \u201cnot just about technology but through technology, in courses that focused on other contexts (not in technology courses)\u201d (Smith et al., 2011, p. 2). According to Stetson and Begwell (1999), effective integration of technology into teacher preparation relies largely on integration of it into methods courses. Pope et al.\u2019s (2002,\u00a02005) and other studies (Wang & Holthaus, 1999) showed that completion of standalone technology courses have little to do with preservice teachers\u2019 ability to apply the technology in real classroom settings.<\/p>\n
In order to develop dispositions and confidence in using technology in classrooms, preservice teachers need to learn how to integrate technology by exposure to numerous demonstrations of effective technology-enhanced lessons (Groth, Dunlap, & Kidd, 2007; Vannatta & Fordham, 2004). Methods courses must also provide preservice teachers with opportunities to reflect on their beliefs and dispositions toward technology use and its effect on student learning (Vannata & Fordham, 2004). Researchers have found that dispositions are influenced by teacher educators who model technology integration and risk-taking behaviors needed to adopt innovations (Kay, 2006; Vannatta & Fordham, 2004).<\/p>\n
Web-Based GIS Activities in a Method Course<\/h3>\n
Informed by the strategies proven in the literature to be helpful, a set of Web-based GIS activities were developed and infused into a semester-long methods course for social studies preservice teachers. The specific objectives were to (a) expose preservice teachers to a GST-integrated learning environment, (b) help them learn through GST in a methods course, and (c) provide a model of reflective and critical adoption of technology to the classroom. Table 1 summarizes the topics, types, and objectives of the Web-based GIS activities implemented in the course.<\/p>\n
Table 1<\/strong> \nSummary of Web-based GIS in Geography Education Activities<\/p>\n
\u00b7\u00a0 Exposure \n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0 Learning through GST<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
7<\/td>\n
Teaching social studies with AGO<\/td>\n
\u00b7\u00a0 Reading \n\u00b7 \u00a0Developing a lesson outline<\/td>\n
\u00b7\u00a0 Learning through GST<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
<\/p>\n
The primary focus of the exposure activities (Activities 1 and 2) was to enhance preservice teachers\u2019 awareness and understanding of the potential of GIS as a tool for teaching and learning. Research suggests that GIS offers teachers opportunities to engage students in spatial thinking and sophisticated geographic inquiry (Kerski, 2008; Liu & Zhu 2008; National Research Council, 2006), which are two important goals in geography education. Students read articles and watched video clips exemplifying the close relationship that uses of GIS have with spatial thinking and geographic inquiry and participated in a guided discussion.<\/p>\n
Directions: Read each statement carefully and indicate your opinion based on the following scale: \n1 = strongly disagree<\/em>; 2 = disagree<\/em>; 3 = neutral or don\u2019t know<\/em>; 4 = agree<\/em>; 5 = strongly agree<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
1.<\/td>\n
I believe that geospatial technologies, such as geographic information systems (GIS) and global positioning systems (GPS), are powerful tools for spatial thinking.<\/td>\n
1<\/td>\n
2<\/td>\n
3<\/td>\n
4<\/td>\n
5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
2.<\/td>\n
I believe that geospatial technologies are a powerful tool for learning geography.<\/td>\n
1<\/td>\n
2<\/td>\n
3<\/td>\n
4<\/td>\n
5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
3.<\/td>\n
I am familiar with the educational uses of geospatial technologies.<\/td>\n
1<\/td>\n
2<\/td>\n
3<\/td>\n
4<\/td>\n
5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
4.<\/td>\n
I will demonstrate to students how geospatial technologies can be used to solve problems and make decisions.<\/td>\n
1<\/td>\n
2<\/td>\n
3<\/td>\n
4<\/td>\n
5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
5.<\/td>\n
I know what spatial thinking is.<\/td>\n
1<\/td>\n
2<\/td>\n
3<\/td>\n
4<\/td>\n
5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
6.<\/td>\n
I believe that spatial thinking is powerful.<\/td>\n
1<\/td>\n
2<\/td>\n
3<\/td>\n
4<\/td>\n
5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
7.<\/td>\n
I believe that spatial thinking is integral to everyday life and the workplace.<\/td>\n
1<\/td>\n
2<\/td>\n
3<\/td>\n
4<\/td>\n
5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
8.<\/td>\n
I believe that spatial thinking should be taught in schools.<\/td>\n