August 1, 2004

IntelUSEoSY04.pdf

This report presents results from an End of School Year survey administered to Master and Participant Teachers in the Classic and Expansion versions of Intel Teach to the Future. This report compares survey data from Classic and Expansion program participants on the following topics:

• Teaching backgrounds and professional roles




• Program impact on teachers' use of technology




• Program impact on participants' teaching practice




• Factors associated with rates of implementation

The teaching background and professional role data in this report show the following:

• A smaller percentage of Expansion Master Teachers (52%) are classroom teachers than Classic Master Teachers (72.7%). A comparatively large percentage of Expansion Master Teachers (27.9%) report being school or district technology coordinators.




• The largest groups of both Classic and Expansion Participant Teachers work in the early elementary grades.




• Expansion Master Teachers tend to be more experienced educators than Classic Master Teachers; 35.6 percent of Expansion Master Teachers have more than 20 years of teaching experience, while the largest concentration of Classic Master Teachers (34.8%) has 3-9 years of teaching experience.




• A slightly higher percentage of Expansion Master and Participant Teachers work in more affluent schools than Classic Master and Participant Teachers.

This report also presents survey results that explore the impact the program is having on classroom teachers' use of technology in their teaching practice, and compares responses between Expansion and Classic classroom teachers.

The data show the following impact on teachers' use of technology:

• Both Classic and Expansion teachers implement their unit plans and other technology-integrated lessons in their classrooms. Majorities of Classic (63%) and Expansion (63.2%) teachers reported using their unit plans more than once. A majority of Expansion teachers (55.5%) report using other technology-integrated lessons more than once a month, while 46.4 percent of Classic teachers report doing so.




• Majorities of Classic and Expansion teachers report positive student responses to the technologyintegrated lessons. Large majorities of respondents agreed that students were motivated and actively engaged with the technology-based lessons, students worked together more often, different learning styles were addressed well by the technology-based lessons, and student work was more creative than in previous assignments.




• Teachers report increases in their use of various software applications. Majorities of Classic and Expansion teachers report using the Intel Teach to the Future website and Publisher software for desktop publishing more since the training. Overall, Expansion teachers reported 10 percent higher rates of usage of various types of software than Classic teachers.




• Problems with technology access were the most frequently cited obstacles and challenges to technology integration. Over half of the Classic teachers and Expansion teachers who did not implement a technology lesson (60.1% and 52%, respectively) reported that the necessary computers were not available. Among those teachers who did implement technology lessons, over half of Classic teachers (55.1%) and nearly half of the Expansion teachers (48.4%) reported this as well.




• Teachers in the Classic and Expansion subsets had similar access to technology in their schools and classrooms. More than 90 percent of teachers in each group had access to computer labs or media centers in their schools, and the largest group of teachers in the Classic and Expansion subsets reported having two to four classroom computers.

The survey results presented in this report also suggest that the program is having an impact on participants' teaching practices. Specifically, the data show the following:

• Classic and Expansion teachers felt the teaching strategies discussed in the training were relevant and useful. More than 90 percent of teachers in the Classic and Expansion programs felt that the teaching strategies presented in the training were relevant to their teaching goals and would help them integrate technology into their teaching.




• Teachers use technology and other techniques presented in the training to support their practice. A majority of teachers from each of the two subsets reported an increase since their training in their use of a range of specific practices emphasized in the training, such as "using essential questions to structure lessons," "using a computer to conduct [their] own research," and "using rubrics to evaluate student work."




• Classic and Expansion teachers report similar increases in their use of project-based teaching strategies with their students after the training. From one-third to two-thirds of teachers in each subset report using a variety of teaching strategies more often since the training, such as having students engage in independent Internet research (62.4% for Classic, 64.4% for Expansion), and having students present their work to the class (53.7% for Classic, 58.5% for Expansion).

This report also presents survey findings that examine how a variety of factors may influence teachers' rates of technology implementation. The findings include the following:

• Teachers' perceptions of the relevance of the teaching strategies presented in the training influenced whether they implemented technology-rich lessons. Classic and Expansion teachers reported implementing technology more often when they felt that the teaching strategies of the Intel Teach to the Future program were very relevant to their teaching goals.




• Teachers with greater access to classroom computers implemented more often. Within each of the Classic and Expansion subsets, more than 60 percent of teachers with five or more computers in their classroom implemented technology-integrated lessons more than once a month, compared to 33.3 percent or fewer who had one or no computers in their classrooms.




• The socioeconomic status of students in the schools in which teachers worked was not a factor in implementation rates. The rates of implementation for Classic teachers in schools with a range of socioeconomic levels were the same, and there was a slightly higher rate of implementation among Expansion teachers who worked in the least affluent schools.




• More experienced teachers had higher rates of implementation. Ten percent fewer novice teachers (those teaching for only one to two years) reported implementing technology-integrated lessons more than once a month, compared to teachers with three or more years of teaching experience. Rates of implementation for all other teachers were similar.




• The longer the time between the training and the survey administration, the higher the rates of implementation. Within the Classic and Expansion subsets, teachers who had completed the training earlier were more likely to use technology-integrated lessons, and to implement them more often, than those trained more recently.