Teaching information technology in higher education through a task-focused approach: Initial reporting of a pilot teaching programme

Abstract

This paper presents details of a pedagogical model that was developed for teaching information technology (IT) to a cohort of thirty‐five students in the second year of a modular course of Initial Teacher Education (ITE). Teaching centred around a sequence of three design tasks that reflected the approach to technology education that is adopted within the National Curriculum framework in the United Kingdom. Within these tasks, students were presented with progressively more challenging strategies for using information technology. These strategies have been defined as: reflective implementation of information technology to support a task; concurrent implementation of information technology during active engagement in a task; and propositional implementation for a planned sequence of focused activity directly related to school practice. In particular, the paper presents details of the following aspects of this work: the features and relative success of the profiling and assessment scheme utilised for management of a high staff student ratio; how learners respond to working with IT in a self‐supported mode of learning; the reaction of students to the task focused approach when learning to use and apply IT; and, student and staff observations concerning the effectiveness of the pedagogical model developed. © 1995 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.