Teachers' pedagogical strategies for integrating multimedia tools in science teaching

Abstract

Since the widespread introduction of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in education the use of multimedia environments has increased substantially. This qualitative study analyse how teachers integrate multimedia tools into teaching and learning sequences (TLS) in science education. Four in-service teachers' groups have been investigated across a 40 h teachers' training course to analyse their pedagogical strategies and difficulties for introducing multimedia tools in science teaching. During the training program to discuss multimedia environments teachers (n=14) were invited to build teaching learning sequences (TLS) about some science content using multimedia tools. The results obtained through a content analysis suggest that these teachers are integrating multimedia tools mostly to enhance particular concepts and skills (integrated approach) than to innovate presentations (enhancement approach). In all cases teachers adopted structured tasks and in two of these they were not aware of the necessity to make explicit links between the multimedia tools and the other activities. Some difficulties related to pedagogical approaches and teachers' knowledge are discussed.