Constructing teaching practices around novel technologies: A case study of three universities.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This dissertation presents three cases of professors implementing a new technology—the CyclePad articulate virtual laboratory—in their classrooms. The professors' teaching practice is examined based on a model of change derived from Cuban's (1999) study of departmental change at Stanford. The analysis compares the depth of pedagogical change with the breadth of curricular change. Pedagogical change runs from minor changes to major or radical transformations of teaching in a domain. Breadth of change is the degree to which the changes and modifications are made to the curriculum—from narrow (alterations to one curricular unit) to broad (restructuring an entire course or sequence of courses). Additionally, this study examines contextual effects across three different types of institutions: a private research university, a military academy and a public state university. To situate the cases in the larger context of engineering education, a survey of 107 engineering professors was conducted.
The curriculum that professors developed for CyclePad arose from their pedagogical content knowledge—knowledge of the subject area, knowledge of curricular and instructional practices and an understanding of their students. Drawing on this, professors created problems and activities that were tailored to the specific needs of their classrooms. Yet, this was often shaped by departmental demands to standardize curricula in multiple-section courses. The degree to which technology becomes a part of curriculum depends on several factors such as the time and effort required to make significant pedagogical improvement and the degree to which the other community members support radical curricula or pedagogical reform. As found in the surveys, schools and departments are more likely to encourage the use of technology than to offer release time from teaching to develop new curriculum.
In examining instructors' teaching practices, it seems that the role of context has been under-emphasized in models of pedagogical content knowledge and in studies of engineering education. This dissertation posits a model for engineering education context that includes: subject matter, students, colleges, university, employers, professional contexts, and institutional environment These nested environments are the spaces which professors negotiate in defining classroom practices.