July 1, 2006

Intel_EndofYR06-SurveySum.pdf

This document presents highlights from the U.S. Intel Teach to the Future Essentials 2006 End of School Year Survey, which was administered via the web in April of 2006 to Master and Participant Teachers identified in the database as having completed the training between October 2004 and September 2005. It is followed by an appendix, which presents frequencies for all survey questions. This survey included the International Impact Survey questions, which are asked of teachers all over the world who have participated in the Intel Teach to the Future Essentials Course. The purpose of the International Impact Survey is to help program staff understand whether teachers who have participated in the Essentials Course follow up on their training, and learn more about the kind of technology access and support that are available to program participants in their schools. The U.S. Intel Teach to the Future Essentials 2006 End of School Year Survey also contains demographic questions that do not appear in the International Impact Survey. In total 1,178 people responded to the survey, for a response rate of 24%.

Key findings from this survey include:

Demographics
The demographic data showed some small changes in the profiles of participants this year compared to previous years, and demonstrated that the Intel Teach Essentials Course is reaching teachers in schools that tend to be less affluent than the national average.

• More respondents this year (82%) identified themselves as either classroom or enrichment/resource teachers compared to last year (78%).

• Unlike in previous years, where the most common subject taught was General Curriculum, the largest group of teachers responding to this year's survey teaches English (33%); the second largest group teaches Math (28%); and the third largest group teaches Science (27%).

• The respondents in this year's survey teach in schools with less affluent socio-economic profiles than those who responded to the 2005 survey, and than the national average; 23% work in schools in which 0-25% are eligible for free/reduced price lunch (2005 survey: 28%, national average: 37.9%), 26% in schools where 26-50% are eligible (2005 survey: 27%, national average: 23%), 23% in schools where 51-75% are eligible (2005 survey: 24%, national average: 18.5%) and 24% in schools where 76-100% are eligible (2005 survey: 22%, national average: 20.7%)

Technology integration
2006 respondents' experiences integrating technology into classroom teaching are very similar to those of respondents to the 2005 End of School Year Survey.

• Eighty-one percent of teachers report implementing the unit plan they created in the training (54% "more than once," 27% "once"), which is consistent with the findings from the 2005 End of School Year Survey.

• A large majority of teachers (88%) report using technology with their students "in new ways" since the training, which is also consistent with the findings from last year.

• Teachers reported that the major challenges to technology integration were their lack of access to computers (24% "agreed" and another 24% "strongly agreed" that "not enough computers were available") and lack of time (34% "agreed" and 12% "strongly agreed" that "the class time or lab time available was too short")

• These same challenges were rated most highly by last year's respondents as well.

Pedagogy
While teachers responding to the 2006 survey were slightly less familiar with the teaching strategies presented in the training, they were just as likely to say that these teaching strategies were relevant to their teaching.

• A majority of teachers said that it was "somewhat true" (60%) or "very true" (12%) that the teaching strategies presented in the training were new to them. These percentages are slightly higher than responses from last year, suggesting that the program is reaching teachers who are somewhat less familiar with project-based pedagogy than previously.

• Sixty percent of the teachers felt that it was "very true" that the teaching strategies were "relevant to [their] teaching goals." This is consistent with findings from 2005.

• A majority of teachers reported using a number of specific project-based teaching strategies more often since the training, such as using "Essential Questions to structure lessons" (62% "do this more"), using "rubrics to evaluate student work" (56% "do this more"), having "students present their work to the class" (56% "do this more") and having "students engage in independent research using the Internet" (57% "do this more"). These findings are consistent with findings from 2005.

Technology access
Most teachers have some access to classroom computers, and almost all report having access to the Internet both in their classrooms and in their schools' computer labs. While almost all teachers have access to computer labs, over half reported that it was difficult to schedule time in them.

• Very few (4%) of the teachers responding to the survey reported having no computers in their classroom. A quarter (26%) have only one computer in their classroom, almost half (46%) have 2-4 computers, and 24% have five or more computers.

• Nearly all of the teachers (96%) have a computer lab or media center in their schools. Of the 4% who had no lab access, only one person reported having no classroom computers as well. Eleven percent of those with no lab access had one computer in their classroom, 56% have 2-4 and 30% had more than 5.

• Only 2% of those with classroom computers had no Internet access on those computers, and only 1% of those with school computer labs had no Internet access on the lab computers. These reports of Internet access are consistent with national data on Internet access in schools . Over half reported that it is either "difficult" (37%) or "very difficult" (17%) "to schedule time in the computer lab/media center." This is similar to findings from last year.