Date Approved

5-31-2002

Embargo Period

5-19-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.A. in Elementary School Teaching

Department

Interdisciplinary and Inclusive Education

College

College of Education

Advisor

Molinari, Louis

Subject(s)

Computer-assisted instruction; Educational technology; Teaching

Disciplines

Elementary Education and Teaching

Abstract

The utilization of the computer in the classroom as a tool to provide instruction and aid learning has had a profound impact on how educators deliver instruction. Computers have become such an important instructional tool that many educators have had to rethink and reevaluate their beliefs and ideas about the ways in which they instruct students and how students learn.

Most educators have encouraged and promoted the use of computers in the classroom to assist them in providing students with an efficient and up-to-date means of acquiring the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in learning. Because of its diversity in delivering as well as supporting instructional concepts, many teachers have embraced its use. However there are those educators who feel insecure in its application in the classroom as a tool of instruction and question its usefulness to adequately provide instruction to their students.

This paper will attempt to determine how the belief systems and opinions of classroom teachers impact their utilization of computers in their teaching practices. Questionnaires were developed to determine the belief systems and opinions of elementary educators who would be defined as utilizing the directed teaching method or constructivist method in their approach to teaching and learning and how these belief systems impacted their utilization of computers in their classroom practices.

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