Abstract:

Training of pre-service teachers to use new advanced technology in their teaching is an important current issue in Mathematics education. Technology education and training of pre-service teachers affect how they teach later (Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010; Mwalongo, 2012). Hence, novice teachers who have graduated technology-supported learning view themselves as technologically literate: they are able to work with technology in different school settings.

Novice teachers are interested to use modern digital technologies in order to attain a better professional profile, and take advantage of its learning benefits (Demetriadis et al., 2003).

In the current research, we traced changes in attitude toward the usage of technology by novice teachers at two stages of their professional development. We tested their choices of technological tools as well as their attitudes towards benefits of technology integration.

The two-stage research was conducted over a period of 4 years, on 15 participants. In the first stage the participants were third-year students in the teacher education program for secondary-school teachers. In the second stage the same participants were already working in schools. During both stages they were asked to explain their reasoning for choosing tools and what they saw as its added value. The collected data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively.

We compared both the technological tools chosen by the novice teachers and their beliefs in the benefits of the chosen tools - to those made by them as students-teachers. It was observed that the novice teachers more frequently use dynamic mathematics software, while as students they preferred to use digital presentations as the main tool. We also found that the novice teachers used two additional tools: the school platform and the WhatsApp application as an outside classroom working environment.

We found that the novice teachers estimated significantly higher the benefits of using technology in teaching in terms of improvement in learning, enhancement of pupils’ motivation to learn and increasing the effectiveness of the lesson - as compared to their own estimations as students. These results indicated that the novice teachers have acquired the skill of integrating technological tools in their teaching. Moreover, they became open to adopt ICT (Information and Communication Technology) tools, which enabled them to extend their teaching to outside the classroom. We believe that the experience presented might allow educators to help student teachers overcome psychological, didactic and technical barriers, as well as develop their beliefs in the power of technology in teaching.

References:
[1] Demetriadis, S., Barbas, A., Molohides, A., Palaigeorgiou, G., Psillos, D., Vlahavas, I., & Pombortsis, A. (2003). Cultures in negotiation: teachers’ acceptance/resistance attitudes considering the infusion of technology into schools. Computers & Education, 41(1), 19-37.‏
[2] Ertmer, P. A., & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, A. T. (2010). Teacher technology change: How knowledge, confidence, beliefs, and culture intersect. Journal of research on Technology in Education, 42(3), 255-284.‏
[3] Mwalongo, A. (2012). Teachers’ perceptions about ICTs for teaching, professional development, administration and personal use. International Journal of Education and Development using ICT, 7(3), 36-49.‏

Keywords:

Mathematical education, integrating technological tools, professional development of pre-service students-teacher, ICT.