Impact of Model Curriculum on Teacher Candidates’ Technology Integration Strategies and Integrated Lessons/Activities
Abstract: There continues to be a focus on preparing classroom teachers to be proficient in integration of technology for EC-12 classrooms. Increasing STEM/STEAM efforts, places more emphasis on the need to expose teacher candidates to best practices in technology integration and integrated lessons/activities. The College of Education teacher education program in this study requires teacher candidates to enroll in an educational technology course, prior to pedagogical or field-based course work. The course provides candidates with knowledge and skills in innovative tools supporting classroom instruction and student learning experiences. Candidates are exposed to integration strategies that are easily incorporated into future classrooms. Environmental Educational (EE) instructional materials, provide candidates with exemplar cross-content lesson plans/activities for technology integration exercises. The purpose of this study was to examine teacher candidates' perceptions of EE curriculum as a model for obtaining mastery and improving self-efficacy in technology integration strategies and creation of integrated content in lesson activity development.