Gauging Teacher Readiness for Digital

Just how well prepared is the next crop of new K-12 teachers to deploy digital learning materials and online resources in the classroom? Project Tomorrow aims to find out by asking education majors and their professors.

Project Tomorrow, a nonprofit education advocacy group, conducts the annual Speak Up survey of K-12 students, teachers, and parents to track how new technologies and new media are being used in schools and at home. Again this year, the Speak Up research will include a separate survey for students and faculty in undergraduate and graduate teacher preparation programs.

Through the survey, Project Tomorrow hopes to discover how student-teachers are being trained to use tech tools and how they anticipate such tools will help their productivity and improve student achievement. As this is the fifth year for the Speak Up for Higher Education survey, it should yield some comparative data to show if and how teacher preparation is evolving. The survey is now open until May 16.

Results from the survey will be released in a report to Congress next fall. Colleges and universities that promote the survey to their School of Education will receive a separate report with findings about their own students and faculty.

Five Tech Factors Changing Education

“We have reached a ‘perfect storm’ with the alignment of five key factors that are driving new excitement and enthusiasm for leveraging technology to transform teaching and learning,” proclaims the latest Speak Up survey report, released in April by Project Tomorrow.

The annual survey, in its ninth year, measures usage and opinions of technology in the classroom and at home from thousands of K-12 teachers, students, and parents in the U.S. While the survey doesn’t address technology in higher education, Project Tomorrow sees signs that the growing use of tech tools at K-12 levels does influence higher ed, especially as more students arrive on campus with expectations about technology and coursework.

The five transformative factors cited in the report are:

• Greater understanding of the potential for technology to help schools meet curriculum standards.
• More parents, teachers, and administrators using mobile technologies for personal and professional purposes.
• Funding cutbacks forcing schools to seek technological solutions to save money or raise revenues.
• Technology creating a bridge between home and school, allowing parents to take a more active role in education.
• Employers pressing schools to turn out tech-capable graduates.

The report notes all five factors have existed for some time now, but only recently have they approached a tipping point. “Like puzzle pieces, these five factors support one another, but also display unique characteristics that affect the readiness of some schools and districts to move forward with their plans for digital conversions,” says the report, while asking whether schools are prepared for conversion.