INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES OF TEACHERS ENROLLED IN EDUCATIONAL-TECHNOLOGY AND GENERAL-EDUCATION PROGRAMS

This study investigated classroom practices of 38 teachers enrolled in university masters' degree programs in educational technology and in other areas of education. The classroom practices related to five key concepts associated with educational technology: (a) learner-centered instruction, (b) instructional design, (c) media and technology, (d) a ssessment, and (e) instructional alignment. Teachers rated their frequ ency of use of desirable practices in these five areas on a 30-item Li kert type survey. In addition, one class of students per teacher rated its own teacher's frequency of use of the practices on 20 items paral lel to items on the teacher survey. The mean overall rating across all teachers for the classroom practice items was very close to Often, or 4.0, on the 5-point scale. There were few reported differences betwee n the teachers enrolled in educational technology programs and those e nrolled in other education programs. Student ratings indicated less fr equent teacher use of the desirable practices on 16 of the the 20 comm on items, with significantly lower student ratings on 8 of these items . However, there was strong teacher-student agreement on several other comparisons.