Working with children in college: an evaluation of an exploratory it module with undergraduate primary student teachers

Abstract

Since 1991 all undergraduate primary student teachers at Chester have followed a Technology course. The distinctive pattern of our approach to Design & Technology has been acknowledged to be successful, but classroom use of Information Technology (IT) has not been as evident. This paper describes a small scale project which set out to replicate the essential elements of our approaches to Design & Technology and to apply them to Information Technology elements of the course. The outcome of the qualitative and quantitative research methods to monitor the effectiveness of the approaches are evaluated and discussed. Our tentative findings highlight the importance of students working with children using computers. Until the students had gained first hand experience of working with children in the classroom with IT, their concerns were more equipment-related than pedagogical. It would appear that students perceive issues of teaching and learning to be more important than concerns with their own IT capability after working with children. The integration of IT into students' professional coursework is identified as being influential in the development of their appreciation of the contribution IT can make to children's learning.