Article Review #1

An Examination of the Elementary School Teachers’ Preferred Teaching 
Methods and Instructional Technologies in Terms of Various Variables in 
Life Study Lesson by Mustafa Bektas

This particular article was very interesting to read because it is definitely something myself and others can relate to and find interesting. This particular topic has been brought up many times in Elementary Schools before and is something that will continue to go on as long as we have new technologies developing. 

The purpose of this study was to examine the preferred teaching methods of elementary school teachers during a life studies lesson. Teachers were asked what types of methods they preferred to use when it came to instructional technology methods. 176 elementary school teachers were surveyed in this particular study. Researchers used many variables to determine the preferred method by the elementary teachers when teaching the life study lesson. The questions include:

1. Are there instructional technologies in the classes/schools of elementary school teachers? 

2. How often and which methods do elementary school teachers use in their life study lesson? 

3. Which teaching methods and instructional technologies do elementary school teachers use in their 

life study lesson? 

4. Do the elementary school teachers’ gender affects instructional technology preferences in life study 

lesson? 

5. Do the seniority of elementary school teachers affect the instructional technology preferences in life 

study lesson? 

6. Do the classroom sizes of elementary school teachers affect the instructional technology preferences in the life study lesson? 

After reading these questions I began to think about my previous experiences on my campus. The majority of teachers on my campus use various technologies to teach content. The biggest problems that we faced were with veteran teachers refusing to use the new technologies. There were many variables that affected this problem. Most of the teachers preferred teacher-centered methods that they were comfortable with. You could walk into their classroom and the promethean board would be off and they would be teaching from a book or using an overhead projector. There's nothing wrong with an overhead projector mind you. As long it's being used while your promethean is being serviced. :-) Other teachers felt uncomfortable taking professional development to learn how to use the new technologies.Therefore they tend to stick with what they know. 

The findings in this study are similar to my previous experiences.  When it comes to this particular life study lessons, it was found that the majority of the elementary school teachers preferred teacher-centered methods.They also felt as though they hadn't received enough professional development using technology. Instructional technologies were used but when it came to discussion,observation, drama, and problem-based learning, teachers preferred not to use the particular technologies.In my opinion, discussion would be a perfect time to include technology. You could use the promethean board to generate your discussion questions and have them up for students to read as well as writing on the board to respond.

Bektas,M. (2013). An Examination of the Elementary School Teachers' Preferred Teaching Methods and Instructional Technologies in Terms of Various Variables in Life Study Lesson. International Online Journal of Educational Sciences, 5(3), 551-561