Although many college instructors use ICTs, there are no studies on the perspectives of teachers identified as exemplary users of technology. This is why we interviewed 114 teachers deemed by their students to be excellent in their use of technology in their teaching.
It is preferable to employ simpler and fewer ICTs well than to use many, complicated ones without a pedagogical purpose.
We obtained our interviewees by first surveying 337 students, 95 of whom were immigrants, about their ICT likes, dislikes, suggestions and teacher nominations. Highlights of the student survey indicate that there were no significant differences between genders, the English and French colleges, and those born in and outside of Canada.
An overwhelming majority of students liked it when their teachers used ICTs in their teaching and were able to detail their views (e.g., wanting access to PowerPoints online). After coding what the students truly appreciated, we realized our takehome message is that it is preferable for teachers to employ simpler and fewer ICTs well than to use many, complicated ones without a pedagogical purpose.
Finally, in comparing the two perspectives, our results show that many students wanted to use their own technology in the classroom but that a majority of their teachers did not allow them to do this, except for the exemplary teachers where most of them did allow this.
Main researcher
Catherine Fichten, Dawson College
Deposit of the research report: March 2017