Project Description

Teaching teams in three of four subject areas taught in Semester 4 of an 8-semester B.Ed. (Primary) will participate in this project. Our intention is to study students' views of teaching and their end-of-semester perceptions of the effects of study on the stability of these views. We have theorised that students' views of teaching provide an integrating device to help orient their studies in all three subjects, and that there will be reciprocal effect on these views as an outcome of the students' experiences in the subjects. In relation to this project, students' uses of the website will be appraised in relation to the theorized integration outlined in the previous paragraph. Their uses will be assessed also in terms of the perceived instrumentality of the website for a range of learning goals.

Specifically, as outcomes of participation in the website-based technology, students in the subject are expected to gain skills in:

1. Relating learning objectives in the subject (ours as specified in the Subject Outline and theirs as expressed in a "voluntary statement" box included in the Outline) and their views on teaching to content and process features of the medium;
2. Constructing understandings of key elements of subject-area content;
3. Working interactively with peers and staff through the forum;
4. Appraising the medium and their performances in relation to associated presentation media (lectures/tutorials) from the viewpoint of their teaching statements and learning outcomes; and,
5. Describing behaviours such as those outlined in #1-4 here that are associated with their use of the website.