Rationale and Goals

The UF College of Education continues to be ranked among public graduate schools of education according to the U.S. News & World Report rankings. Much of our College’s success can be attributed to our ProTeach (Professional Teacher) teacher education program. The elementary education and secondary education ProTeach programs were ranked 13th and 18th respectively among teacher education programs at public institutions in 2001 and continues to rise in the rankings. Our College of Education’s mission includes preparation of “exemplary professional practitioners”. In addition to having strong content and pedagogical knowledge, an exemplary practitioners needs “the knowledge and ability…to use technology in improved teaching practices and student learning opportunities” (USDOE, 2001). We are dedicated to increasing the role of technology in every aspect of our students’ teacher education experience and have taken initial steps in the direction. However, we still have many improvements to make. Hence, we designed the University of Florida Teaching and Technology Initiative which was active from 2001-2005.

The goals of the Teaching and Technology Initiative were:

1. to develop a comprehensive institutional vision for technology integration that will consider new state and national technology standards, involve a variety of major stakeholders and enable effective technology integration in our traditional and nontraditional teacher education programs. (GPRA 3.1)
2. to design and implement innovative faculty development efforts that will enable College of Education and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences professors in our traditional and nontraditional programs to effectively implement content-specific, technology-based instructional strategies in their courses and model uses of instructional technology in their teaching. (GPRA 1.1, 1.2, 1.4, 3.2)
3. to create opportunities for technology-based field experiences that will enable students in the Unified Elementary ProTeach and Project SITE to observe and implement curriculum-focused, technology-based instructional strategies. (GRPA 2.1, 3.3)
4. to facilitate and support college-wide implementation of electronic portfolios designed to promote student-centered assessment and reflection. (GRPA 1.1, 1.4, 2.1)
5. to effectively disseminate project results and resources to our faculty and other teacher education institutions.