A presentation given at iCTLT in Singapore, March 2012.

1. Supporting Them To Do It:
Insights into the Beliefs and Experiences of Beginning Teachers
Professor Mark Brown and Dr Anne Elliot
Massey University, New Zealand
International Conference on Teaching and Learning with Technology
30th March, 2012

2. About Massey…
Auckland Palmerston North Wellington
Distance
International

3. About Mark…
• Director, National Centre for Teaching and Learning
• Director, Distance Education and Learning Futures Alliance
• Previous Coordinator of the Doctor of Education (EdD)
•Current Horizon Report Board Member - Australasia
• On several executive committees (ACiLiTE, DEANZ, DEHub)
• On several journal editorial boards (Research in Learning
Technology, Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher
Education, etc.)
m.e.brown@massey.ac.nz
Twitter @mbrownz • Recipient of National Award for Sustained Excellence in Tertiary
Teaching
• Share some of my musings in “Pass the SoLT”

4. My Blog…
Why I blog…
• Walk the talk
• Digital scholarship
• Scratch pad for critical
thinking and reflection
• Knowledge harvesting and
brokering
• Wider impact with a
worldwide audience
http://tinyurl.com/solt-mbrown

5. My Philosophy…
The light comes through the cracks…
“The unexamined life is not worth living” (Socrates)

6. Supporting Them To Do It - Insights into the Beliefs and Experiences of Beginning Teachers

7. Supporting Them To Do It - Insights into the Beliefs and Experiences of Beginning Teachers
What does the literature say?

8. Supporting Them To Do It - Insights into the Beliefs and Experiences of Beginning Teachers
What does the literature say?
• Numerous studies of ICT-related initiatives in pre-service
teacher education
• Interest in ICT in pre-service teacher education has not
carried over to the continuing phase of teacher
development for beginning teachers
• Challenges beginning teachers face are well
documented

9. Supporting Them To Do It - Insights into the Beliefs and Experiences of Beginning Teachers
TPACK has become the „gold standard‟…

10. Supporting Them To Do It - Insights into the Beliefs and Experiences of Beginning Teachers
1. Underpinning drivers
2. Two basic questions
3. Implications for teachers

11. Supporting Them To Do It - Insights into the Beliefs and Experiences of Beginning Teachers
A quick survey…

12. 1. Underpinning Drivers

13. 1. Underpinning Drivers
The literature is not one-sided…

14. 1. Underpinning Drivers
• Social rationale - All students should have the skills to cope
with increased access to ICT.
• Vocational rationale - All jobs in the market place will require
some skill in computer use in the future.
• Pedagogical rationale – ICT can support student learning
across the curriculum.
• Catalytic rationale - ICT can help change education and thus
improve schools. Reform agenda.
Hawkridge, D. (1990). Who needs computers in schools in schools, and why?
Computers in Education, 15(1-3), 1-6.

15. 1. Underpinning Drivers
• Vocational rationale - Can ICT skills be transferred from a
school context to the workplace?
• Social rationale -How is formal, school use of ICT related to ICT
use in society?
• Pedagogical rationale - What is the added value of ICT and
howwe can measure its impact on learning?
Wellington, J. (2005). Has ICT come of age? Recurring debates on the role of ICT in education.
Research in Science & Technological Education, 23(1), 25–39.

16. 1. Underpinning Drivers
The Competing Mindsets…
• Boosters
• Deschoolers
(Bigum, 1995)
• Doomsters
• Critics
• Toolster - Brown (2004)

17. 1. Underpinning Drivers
The Toolster
“It’s just another tool for teachers to use in the
classroom. Computers are only as good as the teacher
using them.”
“It’s how you use the tool that adds the real value to the
educative process.”

18. 1. Underpinning Drivers
(Brown, 2004)

19. 2. Two basic questions

20. 2. Two basic questions
1. What are beginning teachers‟ views of ICT?
2. How do beginning teachers understand ICT policy
for schools?

21. 2. Two basic questions
• Methodology: a phenomenological approach
• The participants: eight self-selected New Zealand
primary beginning teachers
• All from one pre-service teacher education
institution
• Maximum variation sampling - employed in schools
spread over both North and South Islands, large
and small, rural and urban, high and low socio-
economic

22. 2. Two basic questions
Data Collection…
– background questionnaire to gain demographic
and biographical information
– semi-structured interview
– photo interview based on photographs taken by
the participants illustrating ICT use in their
classroom

23. 2. Two basic questions
Pedagogical rationale Practice
„Future‟ Social Vocational
rationale rationale rationale ICT contributing Enhancing ICT as add-
to learning learning on
Arnold a a
Lucy a a a
Annabel a a
Kay a a a
Pam a a a a
John a a a a
Susan a a a a a
Mary a a a a a

24. 2. Two basic questions
Future omnipresence…
“ICT is a huge part of everything already” (Susan)
“The way the world is going” (Annabel)
“Computers are the future” (Lucy)
“We are becoming an ICT world” (John)
“The reason that so much money is now available for
ICT is the future!” (Mary)

25. 2. Two basic questions
ICT as preparation for work…
“There are more and more computers in the workplace, and they
definitely need them in schools…The workforce is just computer
orientated and it‟s just getting more and more towards that way,
so I think they need the skills there for that.” (Arnold, Interview
1).

26. 2. Two basic questions
ICT as preparation for work…
“There are more and more computers in the workplace, and they
definitely need them in schools…The workforce is just computer
orientated and it‟s just getting more and more towards that way,
so I think they need the skills there for that.” (Arnold, Interview
1).
“If you look at education as making successful people to be in
the workplace for one, it‟s very unlikely that you are not going to
have to have some kind of ICT knowledge, to exist in the
workplace, even purely manual” (Mary, Interview 1).

27. Findings: Summary
2. Two basic questions
Summary…
• In their emergent practice with ICT, most used a mix of
rationales
• Suggests views about the role of ICT in schools are fragile and
still not fully developed
• Predominant conception related to pervasiveness of ICT in
society
• Were unable to „decode‟ the rhetoric about ICT and see it in
relation to the „bigger picture‟ of education

28. 3. Implications for teachers

29. 3. Implications for teachers
The way ICT is perceived by beginning teachers is
important because of the influence such beliefs exert
on the way technology implemented and used in the
classroom.

30. 3. Implications for teachers
Important gap in TPACK…

31. 3. Implications for teachers
Important gap in TPACK…
• Overlooks strategic
knowledge of bigger
picture
• Teachers need to
problematise their work
• Understand the wider
policy context
• Adopt the role as public
intellectuals

32. 3. Implications for teachers
“Given all that we know about the social complexities of
technology use in education, a pessimistic stance is the
most sensible, and possibly the most productive,
perspective to take” (Selwyn, 2011, 714).

33. Conclusion

34. Conclusion
What trajectory might their further development
as ICT-using teachers take if they remain in their
current teaching contexts?

35. Conclusion
What trajectory might their further development
as ICT-using teachers take if they remain in their
current teaching contexts?
Importance of induction…

36. Conclusion
“Most of the studies reviewed provide empirical support
for the claim that support and assistance for beginning
teachers have a positive impact on three sets of
outcomes: teacher commitment and retention, teacher
classroom instructional practices, and student
achievement” (p. 201).
Ingersoll, R., & Strong, M. (2011). The Impact of Induction and Mentoring
Programs for Beginning Teachers: A Critical Review of the Research.
Review of Educational Research, 81 (2), pp. 201–233.

37. Conclusion
How should we be supporting beginning
teachers „to do it‟ (and not do it) effectively in the
classroom?

38. Questions
“A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.”
Francis Bacon
http://www.slideshare.net/mbrownz/
m.e.brown@massey.ac.nz

39. What happened in the past is no longer a reliable guide
to the future
• Learning for the future
• Teachers as future makers
• Leading in a climate of change