Choy, Doris

The purpose of this study is to investigate the development of student teachers' intentions and practices in integrating Information and Communication Technology (ICT) into teaching. Data was collected before and after the ICT course on their intentions to use ICT in future teaching, and after the two practicum school attachments to find out their practices in integrating ICT during their student teaching. The results showed that student teachers' intentions to integrate ICT were positive before and after the ICT course. There was a significant decrease in their practices to integrate ICT as an administrative tool and a student learning tool during the first practicum attachment. However, there were significant increases in their ICT practices during their second practicum attachment. The student teachers also reported positive overall attitude towards the use of ICT in teaching throughout their two-year teacher education programme.

This paper reports a part of a longitudinal study of 170 student teachers who were enrolled in the 2004 intake of the Postgraduate Diploma in Education – Primary (PGDE – Primary) initial teacher preparation (ITP) programme at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Singapore. It examined the changes, if any, in the student teachers' perceptions of their pedagogical knowledge and skills at the beginning and the end of their teacher preparation using a survey which was administered at these two data points. The survey instrument was found to be reliable for assessing these perceptions of knowledge and skills. The findings also indicated that the student teachers' perception of their pedagogical knowledge and skills in facilitating student learning, planning and preparing lessons, assessing students and accommodating student diversity increased significantly by the end of their teacher preparation programme. However, the level of their perceived knowledge in the area of non-teaching responsibilities remained unchanged while their perceived skills in this factor decreased significantly at the end of the programme. Implications of these findings on the PGDE (Primary) ITP programme will be discussed in this paper.

This study followed a cohort of student teachers from the beginning of their teacher education program to the end of the third year of teaching, looking at their perceived changes in pedagogical knowledge and skills in teaching in Singapore. The PKST survey comprising 37 items with six factors were used to collect data. In the cohort of over 1300 student teachers, 353 participated in all five survey data collections. The results showed that the participants’ overall pedagogical knowledge and skills in teaching increased significantly. The largest increases were found in knowledge in lesson planning and skills in classroom management. The skills in showing care and concern did not show significant increases until the end of third year of teaching.

This paper reports the qualitative findings of a two-year study aimed at investigating the process and impact of video technology-aided and researcher-guided reflection on seven preservice teachers’ learning to teach with information technology (IT). Video technology and guided reflection could afford the participants to develop their embodied understanding about technology-enhanced pedagogy and positively impact their future actions. However, dialogic understanding from guided reflection was found most crucial for preservice teachers to unsettle previously held assumptions, reconstruct new understandings, and consequently could prepare them to be thoughtful for future actions. Implications for teacher education are discussed.

Premised on situated cognition, this study focused on developing preservice teachers’ understanding and performances in technology-based pedagogies during the formal coursework at NIE and during their field placements. A mixed-method research design was proposed. This study aimed to contribute to the field of technology-based pedagogy and preservice teachers’ education.
The first objective was to track if there were any changes in preservice teachers’ technology competency, perceptions and practice in the use of ICT for classroom teaching and learning. This was done by collecting quantitative survey data from a cohort of 300 preservice teachers in the Diploma in Education (Primary) programme at four different points throughout their initial teacher education programme. The research questions were:
 What are the changes of the preservice teachers’ intentions to integrate Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in their future teaching?  What are the changes of the preservice teachers’ practices to integrate Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in their 5-week Teaching Assistantship and 10-week Teaching Practice?
The second objective was to investigate a small group of 14 preservice teachers’ process of constructing their understanding of technology-based pedagogy throughout their initial teacher education programme.

The purpose of this study was to investigate if there were differences in the levels of pedagogical knowledge and skills as perceived by the student teachers who were enrolled in the Primary and the Secondary Post Graduate Diploma in Education programme at the National Institute of Education in Singapore. 170 Primary and 426 Secondary student teachers participated in the study. The results showed that there were no significant differences at the beginning of the programme between the two cohorts. However, there were significant differences between the two groups at the end of programme, with the Primary student teachers tending to perceive themselves as gaining more pedagogical knowledge and skills by the end of their initial teacher preparation programme than the Secondary student teachers.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions that student teachers hold of the level of their knowledge and skills in the areas of pedagogy and classroom management. A sample of 596 student teachers completed the survey on their perceptions at the beginning and at the end of their initial teacher preparation programme. The results of the study indicated that student teachers' perceptions of their knowledge and skills in the areas of facilitation, lesson preparation, classroom management, feedback and evaluation increased significantly upon completion of their teacher preparation programme. However, their perceived skill level in the area of care and concern remained unchanged by the end of the programme. The findings also showed that although the student teachers perceived their knowledge and skills at about the same level at the beginning of the programme, they perceived their knowledge level to be significantly higher than their skills level by the end of the programme.

The purpose of the study is to investigate preservice teachers' perspectives in technology integration in Singapore. The preservice teachers participated in three surveys: 1) before taking the technology course, 2) after completing the course, and 3) after completing the ten-week teaching practicum. The first two questionnaires collected data related to their thoughts of using technology in their future teaching. The third questionnaire asked about their actual integration of technology during their ten-week teaching practicum. Qualitative data was also collected from ten purposefully selected participants to gather more in-depth information about how they planned to integrate technology and how they actually used technology in their teaching practicum. The findings from the quantitative survey data and the qualitative information were consistent and complemented each other. The results of the study provided a better understanding of preservice teachers' thoughts and actual practices in integrating technology into their teaching.