Teachers’ Classroom Digital Technology Integration Practices

Abstract

Classroom digital technology integration (CDTI) is increasingly common to facilitate technology-enhanced learning. However, in the Estonian context, there is a lack of understanding of the CDTI’s practices that is yet necessary to evaluate the effect of purposeful CDTI to provide research-based advocation for CDTI. Our study aims to contribute to the field by identifying Estonian basic education teachers’ practices regarding CDTI, considering the use of digital technology and its purposes. To that end, we conducted in-class observations of basic education teachers’ lessons to note the use of digital technology. We analyzed the observed uses based on the Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition (SAMR) model. Furthermore, we interviewed the teachers to understand their purposes for the DTI and categorized the given explanations by categories of technology-enhanced learning. We conducted cluster analyses to identify the types of practices that we then described and compared. We identified four types of teachers’ practices: introducing, facilitating, motivating, and deepening, which differed in the purpose and use of digital technology in instructional processes. These results make way for evaluating the effect of different practices on learning outcomes.