Mari Kemis

Path to the Future: Generative Evaluation for Simultaneous Renewal of ICT in Teacher Education and K-12 Schools

Educational organizations, teachers and teacher educators are challenged to renew their practice and to respond to changing community and national demands, including changing technologies. This requires ‘simultaneous renewal’ of teacher preparation and collaborating K-12 schools. The ongoing development of effective models of ICT-enriched learning and teaching environments in both universities and schools will remain a challenge. There is also the need to develop appropriate methodologies and approaches for researching simultaneous renewal of education across interconnected educational organizations. Two universities and partner elementary schools in the USA have been working on simultaneous renewal of teacher education to develop exemplary practice technology under the initiative to Prepare Tomorrow’s Teachers to use Technology (PT3). Iowa State University started first with their project called ‘Technology Collaboratives’, followed two years later by the University of Florida Technology Initiative project, which draws upon TechCo’s approach, strategies and evaluation. The innovative ‘generative evaluation’ is a key overarching strategy within each project to support their simultaneous renewal and also the inter-project collaboration. This paper proposes that generative evaluation may also inform regional and international collaborations to renew ICT in teacher education thus develop organizations and programs better suited to the teachers and the learners in our future.