Technology Transforms Science Education for Teachers and Students

Eighteen graduate students, the spring and summer pioneer classes of "Integrating Science and Technology," EDU 486, enjoyed their first foray into using technology to teach science. They learned — with due respect to 1960's media guru Marshall McLuhan — that "the medium is not the message."

"What I liked about the course," says Ann Burakowski, who plans to graduate in October 2002 with a master's degree in secondary science, "is that it taught me how to use the technology as a tool for the learning of scientific concepts rather than allowing the technology to overpower the science."

While the students who took the course engaged in traditional science activities, they also experimented with "Webquests" on the internet, checked their blood pressure, heart rate and temperature using probe technology, and found out how to capture and manipulate digital images — a technique used, for example, by weather broadcasters when they describe weather patterns on their digitized maps. As a capstone experience, they each developed an individualized web site.

The new curriculum, consistent with new state and national curriculum standards, was designed and taught by visiting Assistant Professor Michael DuPre with the collaboration of Warner doctoral students Paula Morris and Brian Bailey. DuPre joined the Warner School faculty in 2000 as a visiting assistant professor in science with 30 years of experience as a K-12 science teacher and a background teaching science instructional methods courses at Nazareth College of Rochester and St. John Fisher College. The primary goal of the new course was to introduce teachers with varying amounts of technical experience to an array of technology tools that can make teaching science more interesting and more precise, and can provide opportunities for a more collaborative learning experience among participants. The course is also designed to help teachers to become astute consumers and users of technology, and to reduce their fear of technology by providing a "safe and nurturing [classroom] environment where they can share their experiences with others like themselves," DuPre said.

Not only did students experience technology as a scientific tool, they also learned to use technology to manage the mechanics of learning. Software applications allow students to access course readings easily, any time, via the internet and can encourage them to share perceptions through online discussion groups. Electronic "homework drop boxes" allow students to submit assignments from the comfort of home or their offices.

Does technology change students' educational experience? DuPre is convinced that it does. "I actually saw their reflective habits change dramatically," he says. "They began by reflecting on their own experiences, then learned to reflect on them with their instructor, and eventually learned to share collectively with the whole group." He noted that teachers with an experiential classroom base learned to use technology in ways that affected their students very quickly. And what did the course instructor learn? "To appreciate all the things I don't know," DuPre said. He's glad that it made him recall what it was like to be a first-year teacher himself. All effective teacher educators need to remember that.