Pre-service Teacher Education
Pre-service teacher preparation programs are crucial for shaping future teachers' beliefs, practices, and commitment, acting as their gateway into the teaching community. These programs confirm, extend, challenge, and reform their ideas about teaching. Each aspiring teacher brings unique experiences with technology integration, influenced by their teachers' efficacy and their own use of technology. This shapes their role in preparing students for navigating a technology-driven society, fostering both ICT skills and awareness of technology's societal impacts on learning. For this to happen they must themselves harness education technology effectively for professional growth while comprehending its broader societal implications. Central to this is their own attitudes and proficiency in utilizing technology, which significantly influence its integration within educational settings. For future teachers, exposure to and experience with technology during their training is pivotal. By understanding its educational value and design principles, they can cultivate a positive stance towards technology integration, thereby ensuring its meaningful application in their careers.
IT for Change is collaborating with Teacher education institutes such as Vijaya Teachers College (VTC), Sri Sarvajna College of Education (SSCE) and NMKRV College for Women to conduct the "ICT Integrated Learning Program" course as part of the B. Ed program offered by the aforementioned colleges.
The course objectives are:
- To introduce Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) to student-teachers.
- To support student teachers in creating context-specific resources (Open Educational Resources) for their classrooms.
- To assist student teachers in creating lessons and resources using subject-specific applications for different subjects including Mathematics, Science and Languages.
- To establish a community of teachers experienced in integrating ICT into teaching and learning.
Develop a critical perspective on technology in society, and appreciate the need for such a critical perspective.
This ICT course has been designed based on the National ICT curriculum for teachers. The curriculum focuses on building the skills of connecting, creating and collaborating through safe, ethical, legal means of using ICT. Ability to handle an ICT environment, creating original content, sharing and learning and focusing on educational and learning processes rather than on specific applications are the key principles of this curriculum.
ICT are not mere tools to represent content; rather they can provide powerful methods of re-imagining content and changing pedagogy. The course demonstrates these ideas through focusing on resource creation, evaluation and integration in teaching learning. The course also introduces students to larger trends in ICT in Education and ICT and Society.
ICT Integrated Learning Course for 2 year B.Ed program- Vijaya Teachers College and Sri Sarvagna College of Education
ITfC design and transact the 'ICT Integrated Learning' course as part of the two year B.Ed. Program. ITfC conducts sessions for students in the first, second, third and fourth semesters to enhance their competence in integrating technology meaningfully into their teaching-learning processes. The course is transacted through integration into the regular class schedule/time-table or in workshop mode.
ICT Integrated Learning Course for new 4 year Integrated B.Ed program- NMKRV College for Women
Anchor IT for Change is collaborating with NMKRV College for Women to deliver the "ICT Integrated Learning" Course as part of the college's four-year "Integrated Teacher Education program." The college is one of few pioneers to offer the 4-year Integrated B.A B.Ed and B.Sc B.Ed programs. The course is delivered through weekly sessions.
During the course, student teachers have access to the Moodle Learning Management System to integrate peer learning and collaboration through online methods as an integral part of the transaction. Sharing doubts, questions, responses, comments on discussion forums encourages peer learning and peer support. A phone group is being used for quick communication and to develop a community of learning/practice for the participant student-teachers.
The course has seen highly active and passionate engagement from all participants in different modes of transaction.
The course contains a graded evaluation in which students' progress is tracked based on their involvement in activities such as discussion forums, assignment completion, and presentations. The formative assessment includes an evaluation of students' personal digital libraries and subject-specific resources developed using digital tools that they submit or present.
Feedback from student Teachers:
- “It is like an eye opener for me.. I was not aware of such alternative methods which can be used both as a student and as a teacher with free of cost. I am very grateful for such an experience. Moreover, all that this workshop could create curiosity among myself to know and learn more about ICT.(Honestly, I was not giving such a priority to ICT before, even in my practice teaching. )But,will try to develop and improve more. This shift of thoughts are because of this workshop.”
- “This course will help us in enhancing our teaching method/strategy, It helps us in making the content simple and to retain the information for a longer period of time. It will also help us to grip the attention of the student. And make them active participants.”
- “To leverage the insights gained from the IT for change workshop for future internship and learning programs can apply the practical skills learned, collaborate with peers, innovate teaching methods using IT tools. What made the workshop truly valuable was it's emphasis on the broader implications of technology on society.”
- “ICT ಕ್ಲಾಸ್ ಗೆ ಸೇರಿದ್ದರಿಂದ ಬೋಧನೆಯನ್ನು ಆಸಕ್ತಿ ಮತ್ತು ಕೌತುಕದಾಯಕವಾಗುವಂತೆ ಮಾಡಲು ಸಹಕಾರಿಯಾಯಿತು. ಭವಿಷ್ಯದಲ್ಲಿ ನಾವು ಇದನ್ನು ನಮ್ಮ ತರಗತಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಬಳಸಲು ಇಚ್ಚಿಸಿರುವೆ. ಇದು ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಆಧುನಿಕತೆಯ ಅರಿವನ್ನು ಮೂಡಿಸುತ್ತದೆ. ಮನರಂಜಕವಾಗಿ ಪಾಠವನ್ನು ಆಸ್ವಾದಿಸಲು ಸಹಕಾರಿಯಾಗಿದೆ.”
- "ನನಗೆ ಈ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದಿಂದ ತುಂಬಾ ಸಹಾಯಕವಾಯಿತು. ಒಬ್ಬ ಶಿಕ್ಷಕ ತನ್ನ ವೃತ್ತಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಈಗಿನ ಕಾಲದ ಶಿಕ್ಷಣಕ್ಕೆ ಹೇಗೆ ತನ್ನನ್ನು ತಾನು ಗಣಕಯಂತ್ರ ಯುಗಕ್ಕೆ ಹೇಗೆ ತನ್ನ ವೃತ್ತಿ ಯಲ್ಲಿ ಅಭಿವೃದ್ಧಿ ಯನ್ನು ಹೊಂದಬೇಕು ಎಂದು ಈ ಒಂದು ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದಿಂದ ನಾನು ತಿಳಿದಿದ್ದೇನೆ ನನಗೆ ತುಂಬಾ ಖುಷಿ ಆಯಿತು ನನ್ನ ಭೋದನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ನಾನು ಏನೆಲ್ಲ ಸುಧಾರಣೆ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಳ್ಳಬೇಕು ಎಂದು ತಿಳಿದುಕೊಂಡಿದ್ದೇನೆ.ಪರಶಿಕ್ಷಣಾರ್ಥಿಗಳಿಗೆ ಈ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮವು ತುಂಬಾ ಸಹಹಕವಾಗಿದೆ. ನಾನು ನನ್ನ ಕಡೆಯಿಂದ ಎಲ್ಲ "IT FOR CHANGE" ಕುಟುಂಬಕ್ಕೆ ಹೃದಯಪೂರ್ವಕ ಧನ್ಯವಾದಗಳು"
