Creating technology-enhanced, learner-centered classrooms: K–12 teachers’ beliefs, perceptions, barriers, and support needs

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ANNOTATION: An, Y. J., & Reigeluth, C. (2011). Creating technology-enhanced, learner-centered classrooms: K–12 teachers’ beliefs, perceptions, barriers, and support needs. Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 28(2), 54-62.

Twenty-first century educational thinking moves beyond what Reigeluth (cited in paper, 1994, 1999b) referred to a factory-model “sorting” role, to achieve a higher-order learning role better designed to help students meet information-age imperatives, including flexibility, creativity, relevance, diversity, and critical thinking—values and skills critical to thriving (or at least surviving) the rapidly-changing needs of the information age.

The learner-centered model of education prioritizes the development of real-world skills, including collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving, with the underlying goal of motivating and deepening learning through factors such as personalized and customized learning, autonomy, a supportive social and emotional environment, collaborative and authentic experiences, and adequate technology integration that enables each of these elements.

Technology has been increasingly included as a motivational and engagement device in schools, but a major problem that was yet unsolved as of this writing (and perhaps still unsolved, more than twelve years later), is that teachers are not using technology as effectively as they could be to promote deep learning. They typically use technology for low-level activities like communication, word processing, and drill and practice activities. The challenge is in moving faculty beyond just knowing the technology, into knowing how to leverage it for student self-guided knowledge construction.

In order to help enable that goal, the researchers/authors of this paper sought to determine teachers’ perceptions, beliefs, barriers, and support needs regarding the use of technology in learner-centered classrooms. Data was gathered from online Likert-style surveys issued to 126 teachers representing a range of SES and grade levels. The survey queried teachers on demographics, technology beliefs, learner-centered instruction, current practices, perceived barriers, perceptions of current professional development, and other support needs. Some of the key findings among this population of teachers were:

• Teachers believe technology helps students learn and accomplish tasks more efficiently.
• Teachers have overall positive feelings about classroom technology (70% positive).
• Teachers believe they are providing positive emotional support to their students, and are teaching for diverse needs.
• Lack of time and money were primary barriers to technology adoption–even greater than lack of knowledge.
• PD sessions should emphasize depth not breadth, and offer ample hands-on training—“show not tell.”
• Less than half of teachers were satisfied with their districts’ professional development, and most wished for more specific training in how to apply technology in the classroom, rather than to simply “use” technology.
• Teachers are frustrated with school focus on standardized test scores.

Further research with a broader population of teachers beyond just teachers in the Tex/Arkana region of the US could help determine the level of generalizability of these results, though I do find that these attitudes are more or less aligned with what I know from my own experience as a public school teacher.

The biggest takeaway is that teachers crave hands-on techniques and practical ideas, not instruction-free tools and big-mind philosophies. This research suggests an air of openness to new approaches coupled with a hunger for concrete applications. They are willing to help students construct the kind of self-direction that will ensure their success in a rapidly changing world—but they want more specific guidance on how to do so.