Blog #6 (Final Blog)

For years teachers have been able to teach the same way, and still get the same results. In this day and age, however, times have changed and so have the students. Students are unable to react in the same manner to the teaching that our educators are providing. Students need their skills to be something to be used in the immediate future. They have learned this from using the computer and the internet. Most students go home and dive into the internet. The skills they learn about the computer and the internet are the skills that are most needed. So the question becomes whether or not teachers are prepared to teach in a 21st century classroom where students no longer respond to traditional teaching styles.

  I predict that the findings will find that most teachers do not feel prepared to teach in the 21st century classroom. I also think that even though the ongoing trend is for the current students to become their own “learner producers”, that teachers will have to become this as well, in order to, keep up with the students and their learning. However, this will have to be proved with further studies. With these findings, I believe many teacher preparation programs will change the curriculum for their program. As well. I believe that school systems will start enforcing the learning of technological skills with their teachers instead of students only. The implications of this study will make way for many new curriculums in learning to become a teacher in teacher preparation programs. It could also change the requirements that schools have for hiring teachers, perhaps specifically requiring teachers to know how to use technology in the classroom appropriately, in a way that students are able to both learn the subject of the course and how to use technology in the 21st century.

Blog # 5

#5 – Restate your research problem and questions, briefly summarize your design; that is, explain in some detail how you will answer your question. Then list what you see as the possible limitations to your method. Think about the idea of validity or credibility.  Essentially try to consider all of the factors that are going to weaken the strength of the inferences or claims that you hope to make based on this research. Current research problem-Are teacher preparation programs preparing students so that they can teach effectively with 21st century skills? I plan on handing out surveys with agree/disagree questions and open ended questions, to all the schools in a school district and asking that their first and second year teachers  fill them out and return them. I will answer my question by looking at the responses given from the teachers and comparing them to each other. Possible limitations include: Not enough surveys returned Varying degrees of confidence Different teacher prep programs may make teachers feel different than others Inability to compare open ended questions. Validity and Credibility: I think that this study is valid because it still gathers the information that the research question asks for. However, I am unsure for credibillity. What will I use to back up the data that I get. How will I be able to prove that it is credible is a very good question, that I myself am going to  have to do further research on. I think the most important things I need to work on is how to make it more credible and how to  find a way to get the surveys returned.

blog #4

Current Research problem: Are teacher preperation programs preparing students to teach in the classroom with the skills of the 21st century?

1) The first way that I would measure this would be through a survey. I would measure the degree to which 1st and 2nd year teachers felt confident in their ability to teach this way. I think that this is a valid and reliable way because it bring lots of number data in that can be reproduced again and again.

2) The second way I would measure would be through interviews from a particular school district of all the first and second year teachers. I think that this is valid because it still is on topic and gathers the right kind of data but I do not think it is reliable because it would be hard to repeat, in order to get the same responses over and over again.

3) The third way, I think I would use is a combination of both. I would still do the survey, but include open ended questions on it, and I would still give it to first and second year teachers but I would have to broaden my study size in order for it to be reliable and I think it is still valid because the data gathered would still be about my research question.