Instructional Materials for Teacher Educators: A Review of SCRTEC’s
Active Learning with Technology
Abstract
In this paper, we will review and critique a package of instructional materials developed by a southern education consortium. The materials package is called Active Learning with Technology, and it is one of only a few instructional packages designed specifically for teacher educators.
There is an old rock and roll song from the sixties that is a dialog between a teenager and her boyfriend. We never hear what he says but from her responses we know basically what he is saying. At one point in the song she asks him how he liked the wallet she gave him for his birthday. Then, after a pause, she says “I’ll put some money in it!!” which gives us the distinct impression that the boyfriend was the ungrateful recipient of a nice wallet.
We don’t want to feel like that ungrateful boyfriend because we are going to review a package of materials designed specifically for use in teacher education. Other than standard college textbooks there are so few instructional packages available today, particularly for technology-related teacher education, that we feel guilty making any criticisms at all about this package.
For more than 20 years, educators have been interested in constructivist theory because of its potential for supporting student learning. The number of books, web documents, and papers published about constructivism in the last ten years is voluminous, but the number of instructional packages designed to help teachers explore this way of thinking about teaching and learning is quite small.