Using technology to promote student learning? An analysis of pre- and in-service teachers’ lesson plans

Abstract

Technology may promote student engagement in high-level learning processes in the classroom. Yet, whether teachers really exploit technology’s potential to support student learning depends on their expertise. The authors compared pre-service and technology-experienced in-service teachers’ reasoning about technology-enhanced lessons by means of lesson plans. The authors assumed that technology-experienced teachers’ lesson plans would target more high-level learning activities than those of pre-service teachers. They asked N = 134 pre-service and technology-experienced in-service teachers to plan an ideal technology-enhanced classroom lesson. The teachers were requested to report the types of learning activities they would have students engage in, both during technology-enhanced and non-technology-enhanced lesson activities. As assumed, in-service teachers were more likely to include higher-level technology-enhanced learning activities than pre-service teachers. However, the authors found no differences for non-technology-enhanced learning activities. Based on these findings and further qualitative analyses, implications for curriculum design are drawn.