3.5 Beliefs about Technology in Teaching and Learning

Honey and Moeller (1990) conducted an exploratory study of teachers' thinking related to how and why they use or do not use technology in their teaching. The authors of the study conducted interviews with twenty teachers to determine whether or not there were discernible patterns in teacher' pedagogical beliefs and practices which facilitate or detract from technology integration. They found that, while the high-tech teachers represented a fairly homogenous group in terms of their pedagogical beliefs, low-tech teachers tended to be more heterogenous as a group. Among the low-tech teachers, those teachers with student-centered beliefs were hesitant about using technology because of their personal fears and inhibitions. The teachers in this group who held more traditional classroom practices feared that technology might "alter their relationship of control and authority with their students" and they also believed they did not have the time for any additional activities (p.3). There was a further group of teachers whose practices were student-centered and who would have liked to use computers in their teaching but who did not because of either lack of equipment or scheduling problems in the computer lab.

The high-tech teachers in their study engaged in activities such as collaboration, project-oriented work and hands-on activities, inquiry-based and discovery-based learning. These teachers perceived themselves as learners and expressed a belief in the need for different learning styles and learning requirements for students. These teachers perceived technology as a facilitating tool and one that enhanced the curriculum. Honey and Moller noted that there was a widespread belief among this group of high-tech teachers that technology could expand students' horizons, make learning more fun and more meaningful, allow them more time to help individual students, and allow them to take a more process-oriented approach to teaching that involved small-group work and project-oriented activities. In general, this group of teachers used their student-centered pedagogical beliefs to facilitate the effective integration of technology into their curricula and made a conscious and deliberate effort to find applications that support the kinds of student-centered practices that prevail in their classrooms.

Of the twenty teachers in the study, there were three whose pedagogical beliefs appeared almost identical to those of the high-tech teachers but who expressed fears and "deep-seated personal ambivalence about the technology itself" (p.8). One of these three teachers described the experience of using computers as being like "a whole new language" and "new culture" and that many aspects seemed "strange and foreign". One of the other teachers in this group was reluctant to use computer technology because he felt he lacked the technological know-how and because his first experiences had been negative. Honey and Moeller described the beliefs of these teachers as "conservative". These teachers saw technology as a means to reinforce basic skills, as a motivator and an "add-on" to the curriculum. The authors made some recommendations about how teachers might be encouraged to effectively integrate technology. These recommendations suggest that changes may be required, not only in teachers’ beliefs but, as well, in the educational system itself:

For teachers whose educational beliefs and practices are traditional, there exist different and much more complicated barriers for technology integration. In order to integrate technology into their curricula as the high-tech teachers have done, the very nature of their practices would have to change. In order to bring about such change, however, different layers of the educational system would have to be effected, ranging from changing how assessment is done to helping teachers rethink how students learn and develop. (p. 16)

The Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT) research project ran from 1986-89 and included 32 teachers and 650 students in four elementary and one high school classroom. The ACOT classrooms offered teachers and students constant access to interactive state-of-the art hardware and software in "true multi-media environments". The research focused on understanding the dynamics of teacher beliefs and practices in high-access-to-technology classrooms. The research demonstrated the need to take into account and recognize teachers’ belief systems in order to implement significant change. At the same time, the research concluded that changing one's inner-most beliefs about teaching and learning involves entering into a process ridden with self-doubt, subject to external influence, exhausting, and never unidirectional (Dwyer et al., 1992).

The authors of the study summarized the five developmental phases through which their research subjects passed. The phases characterize the process of evolution of teachers’ beliefs and practices from a traditional, text-based curriculum to more constructivist approach. In this model, teachers’ "lecture-recitation-seatwork mode" is at first strengthened by use of technology and then gradually replaced by more dynamic learning experiences as teachers move through the phases. These phases are:

1. Entry:

   This is the initial stage which involves rewiring and rearrangement of classrooms. The stage is characterized by problems related to discipline, resource management and personal frustration.

2. Adoption:

   In this second stage, concerns shift from connecting computers to using them. Teachers begin to adopt technology to support traditional text-based drill and practice instruction, whole-group lectures and individualized seatwork.

3. Adaption:

   This stage is characterized by thorough integration of the technology.

4. Appropriation:

   In the appropriation stage, there is a shift in roles and new instructional patterns emerge. There is an increasing tendency of teachers to reflect on practice and to question old patterns.

5. Invention:

   The authors describe this final stage as "a placeholder for further development by ACOT’s teachers and for the new learning environments that they will create". (Dwyer et al., 1991, p.50)

All of these stages build what the authors refer to as a "readiness for purposeful change" (Dwyer et al., 1992, p.8). Whereas in the earliest stage, teachers were more inclined to use technology to replicate traditional learning practices, they gradually moved towards the realization that technology could change their students' learning experiences. As the authors observed, during the appropriation stage:

When they reached this phase, teacher quotes communicated a working comfort with beliefs about teaching and learning that were not common among the staff at the project's outset. For the most part, ACOT teachers have become more disposed to view learning as an active, creative, and socially interactive process than they were when they entered the program. Knowledge tends to be viewed more as something children must construct and less like something that can be transferred. The nature of these teachers' classrooms, the permissions they have granted their students, and their own instructional behaviours demonstrate that shift in action. (Ibid., p.8)

In the initial stage, teachers were more preoccupied with the technology itself. As teachers progress in their use of technology, they begin to focus more on issues related to instruction and learning. It is at this stage that they begin to critically examine their beliefs. However, the study revealed that teachers frequently experienced intense inner conflict, vacillation in and struggles with these beliefs as they explore alternate approaches about classroom management, curriculum and collaborative learning:

The direction of change was towards child-centered rather than curriculum-centered instruction; towards collaborative rather than individual tasks; towards active rather than passive learning. Each of these dimensions brought deeply held beliefs about traditional schooling into conflict with what teachers witnessed in their classrooms. The conflict never transformed those beliefs outright; the process seemed more gradual: an erosion of the old, an accretion of the new. (Ibid., p.3)

The authors of another ACOT report focused more specifically on the role that the physical environment plays in bringing about change in teachers’ practices. They noted that the traditional model of school organization emphasizes student control, teacher-centered didactic approaches to teaching and learning. They argue that the environment itself, which is based on an "eggcrate" model, actually perpetuates a traditional approach to learning. Furthermore, they found that teacher beliefs about the physical environment actually limit the number of possible options for change. Teacher beliefs appear to control the process of change and limit the number of possible options for change. Two of these beliefs in particular were that (1) all students need an assigned desk; and (2) primary grade teachers need to be able to see all the computer screens at the same time. They found that teacher beliefs of this nature tended to be contrary to a highly interactive and creative learning environment (Stuebing, Celsi Cousineau, 1994).

Niederhauser and Stoddart (1994) conducted a large-scale study involving a survey of the perspectives on computer-assisted instruction of 2,170 teachers. They divided their findings into two categories of beliefs: 1. Computers are tools for students to collect, analyze and present information. 2. Computers are machines for teachers to use in presenting information, giving immediate feedback and tracking student progress. They also concluded that teachers' beliefs about effective uses of computers are closely linked with their use of computers in the classroom. Teachers who used more open-ended, constructivist-type software with their students believed that computers can be used more effectively as a tool for student construction of knowledge while teachers who used more traditional, behaviourist types of software believed that computers were effective as teaching machines. The findings revealed that, while elementary school teachers tend to favour a more transmission-oriented view of how computers can be effectively used in the education of their students, secondary teachers tend to favour a more constructivist view.

Hannafin and Freeman (1995) conducted an exploratory study of teachers' views of knowledge acquisition. Their aim was to understand how their views might influence their decisions of whether or not to use computers in the classroom. The authors worked from the premise that teachers' conceptions of knowledge acquisition range on a continuum from objectivism to constructivism and that the computer may be more suited to teachers who hold constructivist beliefs. They hypothesized that teachers who hold objectivist views will use the computer only for lower-order skills. Likewise, those with constructivist views would be expected to use computer programs that facilitate more open-ended and problem-solving approaches to curriculum. The study’s findings revealed that experienced teachers held more objectivist perspectives on learning than did preservice teacher candidates and that the greater number of years of teaching, the more likely the teacher would hold an objectivist view of knowledge acquisition. The authors did not find any relationship between teachers' views of knowledge acquisition and the likelihood they would use computers in instruction. However, they questioned committing resources to develop constructivist-based software applications if teachers' views of knowledge acquisition are generally objectivist.

Olech's (1997) examination of the relationship between teachers' pedagogical beliefs and the level of instructional computer use bears some resemblance to that of Hannafin and Freeman in terms of the aim and the findings. Olech found that teachers demonstrated an eclectic pedagogical orientation. The researcher sampled 101 elementary teachers using a 57-item questionnaire. One of the scales used in Olech’s study assessed teachers' pedagogical orientation and categorized them as having behaviorist, information processing or constructivist beliefs. Using a second scale, she measured their level of computer use along a continuum from utilization to integration. In general, she concluded that the more behaviorist the teachers were in pedagogical orientation, the less likely they were to use the computer instructionally. The negative correlations suggested that teachers with stronger behaviorist tendencies might benefit from inservice education that provides models for implementation in classroom situations closer to their own.

In the context of a study on Internet use in which approximately 2,250 teachers of 4^th through 12^th grade classes in U.S. public schools responded to a survey, Becker (1999) found that the third major predictor of teachers' Internet use is the teacher's pedagogical beliefs and practices. One of the important conclusions of the study is that "Teachers who regard education as primarily the distribution of facts and skills to students according to a fixed curriculum sequence are much less likely to exploit the Internet than more "constructivist" teachers." More specifically the author found that "the more constructivist the teacher the greater their average use and the more positively they viewed the Internet".

Becker (1991) has also explored issues related to the interaction between teachers' beliefs and systemic practices in an effort to heighten awareness of how "conventional beliefs" and "institutional constraints" can "impede even the best of intentions to improve schooling through technology" (p. 6). Becker argues that teaching practices are a result of teachers' "own schooling, training and experience as teachers". He also points out however that, teachers’ teaching styles are influenced by their beliefs, on one hand and "the regularities in the social structure in which most of them work" (p.8). He posits that "The circumstances of teaching also intervene to affect teachers’ proximate goals in ways that often distort their more conscious long-range goals" (p.8). An important circumstance of teaching to which he makes reference is that of time which he singles out as "the biggest impediment to better computer use". He explains:

For most teachers, the time required to plan even modest variations to the routine of direct instruction of specific facts and student practices is hardly present....The more complex the software and the more it offers student-centered discovery learning approaches, the more difficult teachers will find the task of getting some constructive benefits from its use-even if the potential for student accomplishment is that much greater. (p.9)

Like Olech (1997) and Becker (1999), Hannafin and Savenye (1993) explore the issue of how beliefs influence teachers' computer use. They summarize the literature on teacher's use of computers in order to determine reasons why teachers do not use computers and to examine the role of those teachers who do. From their review of the literature pertaining to why teachers resist micro-computers, the authors found the following:

• Frustration in learning how to use the computer causes some teachers to give up early;
• poorly-designed software;
• little faith in the computer’s ability to improve learning outcomes;
• concern that the computer can become a mental crutch for some students;
• resentment of the computer. The computer is seen as a competitor for students’ attention;
• computer use requires increased investment in time and effort;
• fear of losing control over students or of "looking stupid" in front of the class. (p.27)

The authors were interested in documenting not only teachers' resistance to use of microcomputers but, as well, their resistance to the "new roles" of micro-computer users. The authors explain that the teacher’s role changes "only to the extent to which a shift of responsibility to the learner occurs". The role can be represented on a continuum from the traditional lecturer and imparter of knowledge (objectivist-based) to that of a coach or facilitator (constructivist-based). A change in the role of the teacher from that of lecturer to facilitator represents a corresponding shift in learning theory. Resistance to the role of facilitator may be symptomatic therefore of a resistance to the underlying learning theory. "It may be that the teacher is receptive to technology but resists the accompanying change in learning theory" (p.28). On an epistemological level, resistance to technology can relate to the teacher’s view of knowledge:

Teaching with technology can help to bring about student responsibility for learning. Implicit in this shift is the subtle acknowledgment that knowledge does not exist in discrete chunks that can be transplanted from the teacher's head to the learner's. Resistance to using computers for high-level student-centered activities may not be a resistance to "technology" at all. It may be an uneasiness with the change in the way knowledge and learning are defined: there is no 'absolute' knowledge and there may be more than one correct answer. (p.29)

Hannafin and Savenye emphasize the intricate, covert and complex nature of teachers’ thinking and beliefs. As other authors and researchers in this review have shown, technology use is linked with issues of learner control, authority and with epistemological and theoretical issues. Hannafin and Savenye remind us that we cannot effectively consider teachers’ beliefs about, understanding or use of technology without considering the underlying theoretical issues. As was pointed out in Chapter 2's review of the evolution of language learning and technology use in language teaching, how teachers view knowledge, the nature of learning, and their role are not only important in understanding how teachers use technology, but in understanding the approach that teachers take to language instruction in general. The following section of this review considers the issue of teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning second and foreign languages.