Exploring the effectiveness of ICT in teacher preparation

Winnie Y W Lai, Henry H K Lau and Nicol F C Pan
University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong SAR, China

Professional development is a major focus of the teacher education programme in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Aside from coursework, students are required to undertake a prolonged period of Teaching Practice (TP) of up to 19 weeks within the four-year teacher education curriculum. The TP involves direct field experience where student teachers work, often in pairs, with school partners, mentors and the community of teacher practitioners. Teaching experience, knowledge-sharing, reflection and mentoring are the central activities in TP. Therefore, there has been a growing need and concern to adopt new forms of teaching and learning that provide the student teachers with more flexible, dynamic and, especially, collaborative learning experiences, as well giving them a better means to support each other's practice by forming a community of practitioners among themselves.

This paper reports on a successful attempt at cross-disciplinary collaboration in making use of a web-based, multimedia and interactive eLearning system based on a problem-based learning design. The web-based platform was built upon the model of an earlier virtual learning platform known as IMELS, which was developed by the Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering Department of HKU for industrial engineering and was introduced effectively to the teaching of a number of course modules in that area. An exploratory study was conducted in an effort to extend the system to the education discipline to train student teachers in: (1) developing pedagogical skills; (2) dealing with disciplinary problems; and, most important, (3) gaining understanding of the work of a teacher, as well as extended classroom experience. The findings from a pilot study indicate that students found the program useful for broadening their knowledge of various aspects of the teaching world. It also allowed them to learn about the expectations of teachers held by the different actors in the education system as well as providing an easily accessible web environment where student teachers collaborate, reflect and share their experience about their teaching practices.