TEACHING FUTURE TEACHERS: TC integrates new technology into education majors' courses By LES TRACEY/Of the Gazette Staff   Students at Texarkana College who take certain science and math classes may have noticed a larger amount of instruction time dedicated to teaching them the use of some of the latest technology. It's a calculated effort by four professors to integrate the use of this technology, such as graphing calculators and Global Positioning System receivers, into classes where they might not traditionally be used in order to get students who are going into the education field more familiar with the technology so they might use it in their classrooms. "We wanted to present a united philosophy," said Dr. David Allard, biology professor at both Texarkana College and Texas A&M University-Texarkana. "It's a way to integrate what we teach elementary education students into all our disciplines." Dr. Allard; Jamie Ashby, math professor; Delbert Dowdy, physics professor, and Mark Storey, biology and agricultural sciences professor, wrote a grant two years ago to get funding for this effort through the NOVA program--NASA Opportunities for Visionary Academics. It's a national effort, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and headed by the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, the University of Idaho in Moscow, and Fayetteville State University in Fayetteville, N.C., to improve math and science instruction in elementary and secondary schools. At Texarkana College, the four professors used the opportunity to integrate similar teaching techniques and the use of the equipment into the classes that elementary education majors have to take. What the professors hope for is that their students will become familiar and comfortable with the technology and the use of it in less-traditional settings--graphing calculators are fairly common in math classes, but they want the students to realize the calculators have applications in biology, botany and other science classes. And if the students are comfortable with using the technology, they might use it with their students when they are hired by local school districts after graduating. "Using the technology allows a more realistic opportunity to explore math and science concepts in a hands-on, interactive way," Ashby said. "It allows students to approach these concepts as mathematicians and scientists would approach them." In January 1999, Dr. Allard heard about the program, and he and the other professors attended a workshop on the program that spring. They then wrote a proposal and received at $23,000 grant to implement their idea, which was to integrate certain elements into what they were teaching the elementary education majors, many of whom wanted to be science and math teachers in public schools. Along with the graphing calculators and GPS receivers, students taking the professors' math and science classes also learn to use what they call a Calculator Based Laboratory device, which can collect a variety of scientific data depending on a probe that is attached. These CBL devices work in much the same way as a computer, except they're cheaper and portable, Dowdy said, and with teachers entering the schools knowing how to use them, more schools in the area are investing in the devices. The college also held a series of workshops last year, as part of the grant, at which area teachers could take classes to learn about these devices, and Texas Instruments, which makes the most popular of the graphing calculators, sent people to present some workshops on their calculators. Ashby said teachers from all over the Four States area attended the workshops, and many have been calling this year to find out if the college will be holding the workshops again this year, although that decision has not yet been made. Still, the teachers who are using the devices in creative ways in the schools are giving their students an advantage when it comes to learning thinking skills, Dowdy said. "Teachers will still teach how to collect this data by hand, which takes much longer," he said. "But after the students understand that, this technology can make a big difference. The students can spend more time thinking about the measurements and analyzing them rather than taking the measurements." Ashby said those types of skills might mean students will advance more quickly in the fields of math and science. "It's more important to have a math-and-science-literate audience that understands how to collect and analyze data, then come to conclusions about what they collect," she said. "It's the difference between applying the information rather than just collecting it."