When Curriculum and Technology Meet: Technology Integration in Methods Courses

Source: Journal of Computing in Teacher Education, Volume 25, No. 1. Fall 2008.

This article reports on the results of an action research study. It provides examples of strategies used to integrate technology into a content methods course. The study used reflective teaching of a social studies methods course at a major Southwestern university in 10 course sections over a four-semester period. In alignment with the research question, the original course design used technology-rich instructional approaches. Throughout the study period, elements of those strategies altered to better meet the needs of preservice teachers and take advantage of technological innovations. The result is a description of technology productivity and instructional strategies applicable in a variety of content-specific preservice teacher education courses.