Research evidence suggests teacher educators who role model the use of information communication technology (ICT) in their practice help their students build confidence and competence as ICT users. This research finding is also supported by feedback from Louisiana Tech University students in teacher education. Research also indicates that a number of factors impact the adoption of ICT in the practice of teacher educators. This research has examined one of these factors, namely the benefits of one-on-one coaching for teacher educators by technology coaches as they worked together to learn to use technology. Participants included 33 teacher educators from Louisiana Tech University and 14 pre-service teachers. The pre-service teachers served as technology coaches and worked with the teacher educators in their offices and classrooms as they learned to use technology for their personal benefit and to integrate technology into their teaching. Interviews and observations indicated that coaches as well as teacher educators benefited from the relationship and both groups increased their technology competency.
There is a crisis across the United States as schools are seeing a shortage of mathematics teachers. While school districts are working on new ways to recruit teacher candidates, the heart of the problem lies in the decline in students entering secondary mathematics teacher preparation programs. This study evaluates the social and cognitive influences on a student's choice to pursue a degree in secondary mathematics education. An electronic survey was given to 63 students across the state of Missouri in the first three years of a math teacher preparation program. In the survey, students ranked the level of social influences (teacher encouragement, family support, and peer influences) and the level of cognitive influences (self-efficacy, growth mindset, and outcome expectations). Self-efficacy was the largest influence by a statistically significant difference. Teacher encouragement was significantly found to be the largest social influence. This is important because it implies that schools have the largest opportunity to increase the number of secondary math teachers.
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