Teachers make daily pedagogical choices that affect productive classroom interaction. One of those choices is how and when to integrate technology into curriculum. The purpose of this study was to describe, interpret, and analyze the journey of three teachers and their pedagogical changes over two years of participation with a university/public school technology integration project called Nuestra Tierra/Our Land. This research project took place in a southwest border community where sixty percent of the student population in the school district is Latino/a. The Nuestra Tierra Project was designed to develop the skills of the teachers in implementing technology in their curriculum while focusing on history, geography, and science in multimedia applications. The Nuestra Tierra Project was designed additionally to transform classroom learning through one-on-one support of teachers as they integrated technology into their individual classroom curricula. 

The research study necessitated inquiry in to literature on professional development specific to technology use and integration and on pedagogical change. Data were gathered through filed notes and interviews. The study offers description, interpretation, and analysis of the Nuestra Tierra Project as reflected in the experience of three participating teachers. Conclusions of the study indicated that the participating teachers changed in several key areas during the implementation of the project. These areas of change included: a transformation from anxiety and embarrassment to relief and comfort; from feeling overwhelmed to feeling supported; from traditional teacher to facilitator; from technology user to technology promoter; and from isolation to active participant in a teacher-teaching-teacher model. The study contributes knowledge about pedagogical change. The study also provides information about the effect of the Nuestra Tierra Project on participating teachers for others who may wish to develop or pursue a similar approach to professional development.

Teachers make daily pedagogical choices that can encourage productive classroom interaction and engagement in tasks that are challenging and meaningful to students (Kleifgen, 1989). Today, more and more teachers use computers and appropriately chosen software as tools for learning in order to engage their students in challenging and meaningful tasks within collaborative learning environments. 

Yet, research shows that most teachers feel ill prepared and resistant to the integration of computers and other technologies into their classrooms (Pina & Harris, 1993). They go through a variety of emotional and pedagogical challenges as they adapt the new technologies to their curriculum (Okinaka, 1992, Rutherford & Grana, 1995 & Standish, 1995). Adults who are normally knowledgeable and informed about their jobs find it uncomfortable to be in the position of an awkward beginner. They frequently react negatively to finding themselves back in a "student role" (Baskin, 1985). 

Computers, computer applications, and computer peripherals such as Internet, e-mail, CD-ROM's, laser disc players, teleconferencing, and interactive video are increasingly available in schools. Parents, community, and business are demanding that students become computer literate and able to function skillfully and meaningfully on the information highway (Hart Research Associates, Inc., 1997). Therefore, teachers and administrators are pressured to take a critical look at how technology can be integrated into the curriculum to support learning and how teachers can be encouraged to learn the new and often intimidating technology themselves (Morton, 1996).

The researcher observed teachers in their struggles to grasp and learn new technologies so that they could use them in their classrooms. These teachers expressed fear of failure, fear of not knowing, and fear of looking incompetent as they pushed themselves to learn. The researcher further observed teachers as they traveled through the various stages of learning, growth, and adaptation that computer use and integration demands. 

Because teacher technology use and integration into curriculum is still in its infancy, determining and implementing effective methods of supporting teachers as they work through the pressures required of change is important. The researcher was able to observe how these three teachers adapted the technologies that they were learning to their own classroom environments.

The purpose of the was to describe, interpret, and analyze the journey of three teachers and their pedagogical changes over two years within the context of a project called Nuestra Tierra. The study is significant in that it provides a documented perspective of a technology integration project for others who may wish to develop or pursue a similar avenue of professional growth related to technology integration. The study is also significant because it contributes information about the effects of technology use on classroom pedagogy.

Nuestra Tierra

Nuestra Tierra/Our Land was a $300,000 project funded by the US WEST Foundation. The project was implemented through collaboration between New Mexico State University and Las Cruces Public Schools. Three entities at New Mexico State University were involved in the grant: the Department of Curriculum and Instruction’s Learning Technologies program, the College of Education’s Learning Resource Center, and the College of Agriculture and Home Economics’ Agricultural Communications Department. Nuestra Tierra began in August of 1995 and continued through June of 1997.

The original grant proposal submitted to the US WEST Foundation was guided by a three-part question. What would happen if:

• teachers were fully supported in integrating technology in the classroom? 
• the curriculum was culturally-relevant and meaningful to the students? 
• the computer was used as a constructivist tool rather than an electronic workbook? (Wiburg, 1997).

The professional development component of the Nuestra Tierra project was designed to provide the participating teachers and their principals with monthly all-day hands-on professional development sessions at the New Mexico State University Learning Resource Center’s computer classrooms. In addition to the monthly sessions at the university, the Project Director and two graduate assistants gave weekly support at their designated school sites; and during the summer, school teams joined their designated university mentors for one week of intensive curriculum planning. The result of this professional development design for Nuestra Tierra was a unique project because of the quality and depth of one-on-one mentoring and team curriculum planning sessions that were the focus of day-to-day contact in each of the schools. 

Twelve teachers, representing four person teams, from each of the three schools in the Las Cruces Public Schools participated in Nuestra Tierra during the first year of the project. The schools were Coronado High School, Rio Grande Middle School, and Arroyo Elementary School. The second year twelve teachers, also organized into school teams, were added from three additional schools. This resulted in a total involvement of twenty-four teachers from six schools within the district. Three teachers, who participated during both years of the project, completed in-depth interviews with the researcher and provided the data for the study. The researcher, who was one of the graduate assistants involved in the Nuestra Tierra grant during both years of its implementation, also provided data through documented field observation.

The following is an overview of how the study is reported. Section 2 situates the study within relevant research. Section 3 describes the research design and procedures used to collect and analyze data. Section 4 explains, presents, interprets, and analyzes the data. Section 5 provides summaries of the study and proposes recommendations for further professional development programs that school districts interested in integrating technology with teaching might use effectively.

The study of teacher pedagogical change as they learned to use and integrate technology into their classrooms took place within the context of a professional development project, Nuestra Tierra, and within the setting described in Section 1. The research study demanded inquiry into existing literature on professional development for technology use and integration on pedagogical change. The literature reviewed on teacher professional development is important because Nuestra Tierra was a professional development project specific to improving teacher technology use and integration into teaching. The results of the literature review are presented in Section 2: first, through a synthesis of relevant literature; second, through a presentation of questions that guided the methodology.

During his remarks at the 1997 Milken Family Foundation Education Conference, Lowell Milken reported findings of two recent studies of school reform, one at John Hopkins and the other at the Rand Corporation. Both studies established that when approaches to curriculum and staff development are specific, e.g. professional development use and integration, teachers are happier and results are better (Milken, 1997). According to (Zehr, 1997), professional development is also "most successful when it offers hands-on learning, opportunities to experiment, easy access to equipment, and people who can explain how to use technology well in the classroom." There is further indication that teachers need to know at the outset exactly how they and their students will benefit from new technologies.

Teacher Concerns and Technology

One of the challenges in professional development is that adults are no longer tolerant of being taught as they were when they were children. A careful assessment of the concerns of the adult learner is crucial to successful staff development such as that which prepares teachers to use and integrate technology (Knowles, 1990).

University of Minnesota in Duluth researchers Rutherford and Grana (1995) compiled a list of issues that concern faculty prior to their using computers personally or in the classroom. While not exhaustive, the following list does illustrate what often prevents teachers from learning and using the new technologies: fear of change, fear of time commitment, fear of appearing incompetent, fear of techno lingo, fear of technology equipment failure, fear of not knowing where to start, fear of being married to bad choices, fear of having to move backward to go forward, and fear of rejection or reprisals.

In a research study done by Dwyer, Ringstaff, Sandholtz, & Apple Computer in the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT) noted in its Report Number 8 that teachers beginning their tenure with the project, though experienced in the classroom, faced the challenges of teaching with computer technology with various stages of trepidation and excitement. Once instruction began within technology enriched classrooms the teachers found themselves facing first-year teacher problems such as - discipline, resource management, and personal frustration (ACOT, 1994).

In ACOT Report Number 9, Dwyer, Ringstaff, Sandholtz, & Apple Computer noted that the process teachers go through to learn how to use technology in their classrooms is riddled with self-doubt, subject to external influence, exhausting, and never unidirectional. Teachers going into the ACOT program anticipated that technology would make their jobs easier and more efficient. Most of them had not foreseen that technology would broaden their perspectives about teaching and learning. Nor did they dream that they would subsequently alter their instructional approaches (ACOT, 1994).

Professional Development Strategies

A study done with ninety pre-service teachers at California Polytechnic State University indicated that teachers' attitudes toward computers are favorably affected when they understand how computers can be used realistically and effectively in the classroom (Okinaka, 1992). Another research study done in Florida investigated teacher readiness to use computers in the classroom. A survey of four sixth grade teachers at the target school and three other nearby schools revealed high levels of computer anxiety and low levels of computer integration in the schools' curricula. After the four targeted teachers went through a twelve-week computer professional development program, the study noted an increase in skills using the computer and a marked decrease in computer anxiety because the in-service program focused specifically on effective classroom computer use (Shick, 1996).

In Lake Forest School District in Delaware, a program was initiated that focused on increasing teacher use of technology, in particular computers, through staff development (Standish, 1995). Pre- and post-tests were used to measure the skill development and attitudes of the teachers toward the use of technology. The study suggested that the staff development program successfully increased the teachers' confidence in the use of computers and other technologies because of its clear and specific goals.

During a study in Urbana, Illinois that taught educators how to use computers, the trainer's enthusiasm was shown to contribute to effective learning about computers. Using examples drawn from daily life helped illustrate the computer’s potential, as did realistic examples of how computers are helpful in a classroom. Humor liberally sprinkled into professional development sessions also inspired the adult learners to push past the early frustrations of learning to use and integrate the computer (Baskin 1985).

The professional development summary of literature reveals attention to careful assessment of teacher concerns through surveys, and professional development strategies which focus on demonstrating to teachers on how to use technology in the teachers’ classrooms are all important to successful professional development. An accounting of this literature has implications for this study since a professional development project specific to technology use and integration is at its core.

Strand Two: Pedagogical Change

Theory, as applied to the instruction of children and adults, is commonly termed pedagogy, a word most educators know well. Pedagogy means, literally, "the art and science of teaching" (Bolander, 1986). Introducing technology into the art and science of teaching challenges the traditional relationship between students and teachers because technologies can enable learners to gain control of their own learning (Mehlinger, 1996). In developing this strand of literature, two general bodies of research concerning pedagogical change emerged: climate for change specific to the adult learner and support for change of the adult learner.

Climate for Change

One basic need of the adult learner is a climate of trust. Trust is "giving up control of outcomes. Trust provides a climate that nourishes and encourages personal growth, open communication, and a sensitivity to the environment" (Gang, Lynn, & Maver, 1992, p. 8). "We know that the best way to build ownership is to give over the creation process to those who will be charged with its implementation," says Wheatley (1992) "…it is the participation process that generates the reality to which they then make their commitment"(pp. 66-67).

As an "integrated way of encouraging thinking and acting which focuses on learning and behavioral change, reflective practice is considered a powerful approach to professional development" (Osterman & Kottkamp, 1993, p. 1). Working with others may encourage more successful realization of habits which need to be broken and changed (Colton & Sparks-Langer, 1993). 

When teachers become students themselves, the opportunity for bringing instructional practices out for discussion can be stimulating (Wasley, 1991). By emphasizing and clarifying previous beliefs and practices and comparing them with present models for teaching and learning, pedagogical change can occur (Darling-Hammond & Goodwin, 1993).

Support for Change

The synergy and support provided by collaboration has been touted as a valued pedagogical strategy in the classroom and deemed necessary for life in the real world (Gang, Lynn, & Maver, 1992). However, teachers rarely experience collaboration in their own schooling or in subsequent in-service or other professional development opportunities (Greene, 1984). Pedagogical change that can result by embracing teaching strategies experienced during effective professional development projects needs sustained support (Edwards, 1995). 

Professional development that actually meets the needs of the profession and translates into improved learning for students is difficult to realize (Hord, Rutherford, Huling-Austin, & Hall, 1987). When teachers engage in change, it takes a lot of courage to begin implementation of pedagogical change in the classroom (Lortie, 1975). A variety of stresses arise which oppose sustained pedagogical change: interpersonal anxieties; jealous colleagues; threat; competition; and distrust (Wasley, 1991). In addition, lack of time for implementation, administrator pressures, and insecurities which emerge upon a return to teacher isolation add to the barriers that make change difficult to sustain (Maeroff, 1993).

However, a variety of supports exist which can encourage and help sustained implementation of pedagogical change. These include linkages with outside professional development faculties (Arends, 1990) and collegial environments in schools (Walling, 1994). In fact, research has found that "the most effective teachers had hooked up with a network of professionals who addressed problems and found solutions together, gaining in their sense of professional identity, motivation, and willingness to undertake challenges (Talbert & McLaughlin, 1993).

Pedagogical change as a result of effective professional development experiences can and does occur. More difficult, however, is finding sustained support for those changes. Such is the culture and organization of education that implementing and sustaining pedagogical change is challenging and stressful. 

Based on the literature review two questions emerged that guided the study:

#1. How are teachers effectively encouraged to use technology?

#2. How do teachers change their teaching as they begin to integrate technology?

Section 2 situated the study within relevant literature on professional development and on pedagogical change. The conclusions of the literature review were presented through synthesis of relevant literature and through presentation of a conceptual framework for the study. Two questions emerged that guided the methodology. Section 3 describes the methodology used to explore the two questions.

The study of three teachers and their pedagogical change over two years within the context of the professional development project Nuestra Tierra was based on qualitative research. The researcher used a methodology based on the Seidman (1991) in-depth interviewing techniques as well as her observational field notes. Section 3 describes the design of the research, the researcher’s role, teacher selection, procedures for data collection and recording, and procedures for interpretation and analysis of the data. 

The researcher adapted the Seidman in-depth interview method to capture data in addressing the research questions because she is interested in other people’s stories as a way of knowing and understanding experiences (Bruner, 1996). According to Seidman, telling stories is essentially a meaning-making process. In order to tell a story, people must reflect on their experiences and collect their thoughts into a beginning, middle, and end. 

The researcher modified Seidman’s in-depth interviewing methodology and techniques during the interviews. Seidman’s approach guides interviewers to use, primarily, open-ended questions. The purpose is to have the participants reconstruct their experience within the topic under investigation. The most distinctive characteristic of this in-depth model is that it involves conducting a series of three separate interviews with each participant. The first interview establishes the context of the participants’ experience; the second interview allows participants to reconstruct the details of their experience within the context in which it occurred; and the third interview encourages the participants to reflect on the meaning their experience holds for them.

Eighteen years of the researcher’s life have been spent within the classroom as a teacher; twenty-three years have been spent within the classroom as a student; one year has been spent implementing a statewide administrative professional development program. The researcher has often been complimented as being a great teacher. The teachers in the project enjoyed interacting with the researcher’s learning style and love of learning. Much of the contribution to the process of this study was the empathy that the researcher as a teacher-learner showed to the teachers involved in the Nuestra Tierra project. 

The researcher was introduced to the icon environment of Macintosh computers in the fall of 1994 during graduate studies in Curriculum and Instruction at New Mexico State University. When the participants learned that the researcher had only one year of computer experience prior to her selection as a graduate assistant (GA) for the Nuestra Tierra project, it put their anxiety at ease. They realized that they, too, could learn how to use technology and integrate it into their curriculum. 

The researcher spent approximately ten to fifteen hours a week at Arroyo Elementary School during the first year of the Nuestra Tierra Project. She was able to observe the teachers and students interacting with the computers in their classroom and in the computer labs. These field observations allowed the researcher to record descriptions, reflections, and antidotal information as they occurred.

The researcher interviewed three teachers who had been participants in the Nuestra Tierra project since its beginning in August of 1995. These teachers were career teachers who had little or no technology background prior to participating in the project. Two of the three teachers did not own a computer before the project started. Only one teacher had a computer in her classroom; although she did not use her computer for instructional purposes when the project began.

Data gathered and recorded included (a) field notes taken by the researcher as part of a journal that was shared quarterly and annually with the US WEST Foundation and its Project Director, and (b) in-depth interviews of the three teachers.

Field Notes

The researcher kept a journal of her observations and personal experiences as both a participant and an observer of the Nuestra Tierra project. The journal entries were summarized monthly for submission to Dr. Wiburg, the Project Director. These notes, as well as notes from a classroom teacher and the other graduate assistant, were then summarized quarterly and annually for the US WEST Foundation report.

Interviews

The in-depth interviews were conducted during the Spring Semester of 1997, which was the second year of the project. The researcher met with each teacher three times and conducted 90-minute interviews over a three-week period. The two teachers from Coronado High School were on a 90-minute block schedule and the interviews were conducted during their conference period. The teacher from Arroyo Elementary School was able to combine her lunch period along with a library period to allow time for one 90-minute interview. The other two interviews with this teacher were conducted after school hours. The interviews were recorded on audiotapes and transcribed. The transcribed interviews yielded some 80 to 90 pages of documentation per teacher. 

In following Seidman’s interviewing techniques the first interview focused on events that lead each of the interviewees to become a teacher. The second interview concentrated on describing what it was like to be a teacher. The third interview included how each teacher envisioned teaching after the project’s funding ended and the US WEST Nuestra Tierra team was no longer visiting their schools to offer support.

The interviews allowed the teachers a structured opportunity to reflect and make meaning out of their experiences during the past two years Nuestra Tierra Project participants. As the interviews progressed the teachers realized how much they had grown professionally during the Nuestra Tierra project.

The interviews were conducted during the Spring Semester 1997, the second school year of involvement in the Nuestra Tierra project. At this time all three of the teachers were successfully integrating technology into their curriculum and classroom environments.

The researcher conducted ongoing review of the literature while simultaneously reducing, interpreting, analyzing, and presenting the data collected during the interviews. During and after data gathering, the collection of teacher comments was placed into categories as these themes emerged from the data. This was accomplished by looking for patterns among the data and then copying and pasting sections of the interviews into separate documents that were organized by these patterns and themes. 

As the text was read, appropriate passages were marked with brackets and copied into the appropriate theme document. This process was repeated and repeated until the text was fully sorted. Predominate themes emerged and the researcher compared the responses of the three teachers. Individual vignettes were then written and these were organized by emergent themes.

Another distinctive characteristic of Seidman’s (1991) in-depth interviewing method is that it uses the participants’ owns voices in the analysis of the transcripts. By crafting a profile or vignette of a participant’s experience the researcher provides a method for sharing interview data. A profile or vignette in the words of the participant is most consistent with the interviewing process itself.

Following Seidman’s interview method, the researcher in her role as a Nuestra Tierra Project graduate assistant, collected data from three teacher participants. Interview data and observations from the researcher’s field notes provided rich descriptions for analysis. The analysis gave voice to the experiences of three teachers as they journeyed towards proficiency in integrating technology into their curriculums and classrooms.

Section 4 presents the data in narrative form through the use of quotes and conversation with the teachers entwined with the researcher’s interpretations. The two research questions, which guided the gathering and presentation of data, are addressed.

Section 4 explains, presents, interprets, and analyzes the data collected from each of three teachers who participated in the Nuestra Tierra Project. The presentation of data emphasizes the teachers’ voices, recorded during three in-depth interviews. It also relies on interpretations of the experiences of the teachers as documented by the researcher’s field notes. The interpretive-narrative reporting of the three teachers’ journeys begins with an introduction of each teacher. The two research questions, which guided the gathering and presentation of data, are then addressed. The teachers’ responses are reported or related to the two research questions.

Sharon C. Stevens, who teaches English at Coronado High School, has been a teacher for twenty-three years. She heads the school’s technology team and meets regularly with other school technology leaders throughout the district and with central administration staff to plan and assess how to best network and connect the school’s infrastructure. Ms. Stevens had not been using technology instructionally in her classes prior to her involvement in Nuestra Tierra. Her students’ only contact with technology in the classroom was when she allowed them to go to the lab to word process English assignments. She personally owned an older model Macintosh computer.

Daniel Nogales has been teaching for seven years in the Social Studies Department at Coronado High School. He owned, at the time the grant started, an electric typewriter that he used to type handouts and tests for his students. His only prior experience with computers had been in college when he had learned some simple programming techniques in a computer science class.

Connie Lopez-Price has been a teacher for eighteen years and is now at Arroyo Elementary School teaching in a multi-age third through fifth grade class. In the past few years she has moved from a whole-class learning environment to a centers-approach in order to accommodate the various levels of learning in a multi-age classroom. The year prior to joining Nuestra Tierra, Mrs. Lopez-Price and all teachers in her school received an Apple Classic. They attended a half-day workshop where they were shown how to operate their computers. Ms. Lopez-Price only used this computer three times that year to word process letters home to parents about up-coming class events.

The teachers introduced in the three previous paragraphs were interviewed during their second year of involvement in the Nuestra Tierra project. By this time all three of the teachers had been effectively encouraged to use technology through the Nuestra Tierra Project and all three teachers were successfully integrating technology into their curriculum and classroom environments. Interest in how the Nuestra Project effectively encouraged teachers to use technology led to the first research question.

In August of 1995, twelve teachers and the principals from the three participating schools were invited to New Mexico State University for an all-day orientation and workshop. During the morning they were each given a project timeline and overview of the next two years that they would be working together. They were also introduced to each other, to the various teams, and to the partners through a series of icebreakers and presentations. In the afternoon, the school teams were introduced to the software applications HyperStudio (1995) and World Wide Web. These two applications served as the main multimedia applications that Nuestra Tierra project provided to assist participants to integrate technology into the curriculum. 

Three themes capture the experience of the Nuestra Tierra participants, and address research question number 1. The following paragraphs summarize the researcher’s observations and highlight the teachers’ words as each theme is explored.

Anxiety and Embarrassment to Comfort and Relief 

Throughout the first meeting, the researcher observed excitement and anticipation among Nuestra Tierra participants. One teacher, Daniel Nogales, reflected back on that first meeting.

Feeling Overwhelmed To One-On-One Support

One of the purposes of the Nuestra Tierra Project was to support the teachers as they developed strategies that incorporated the use of HyperStudio and World Wide Web into their curriculum. Each teacher was expected to teach his or her own students these applications. In order to successfully support the teachers as they negotiated this task, the three members of the NMSU support team provided one-on-one instruction. The NMSU team for in school support was comprised of Dr. Wiburg, the Principle Investigator of the project, and two graduate students -- John Sandin and the researcher. Two additional co-principle investigators also supported the project and the work of the teachers. Dr. Jeanne Gleason headed a multi-media studio in the Agricultural Communication that developed the web site and provided multi-media training. Nolan Gray and the Learning Resource Center built and maintained a file server for the project. Each team member adopted a school involved in the project and following the first workshop each school was visited for follow-up support. The three NMSU team members spent time with individual teachers for one to two hours a week in private tutorials and met weekly with school teams to discuss content areas, instructional strategies, and integration techniques that would be implemented by all school team members.

The Principle Investigator and her two graduate assistants also met weekly on New Mexico State University’s campus to discuss what was happening in each of the three schools. They brainstormed ideas for troubleshooting technical problems and discussed strategies for integrating technology into the various curriculums particular to each school. 

Since each school also exhibited its own unique environments, the three worked closely with one another to design approaches that might be effective at each school. During their weekly meetings, Dr. Wiburg and her two Graduate assistants discussed what strategies were working, what strategies were not appropriate, and what direction to take. For example, the researcher’s field notes describe strategies used at one point with the Arroyo team:

Several additional types of support were provided to the school sites. These included: team teaching with teachers in their classrooms; working with school and district staff to create an Acceptable Use Policy for student and staff use of the Internet; providing professional development to the teachers on the software that their school sites owned and that was installed in their computer labs; helping organize after-school technology professional development sessions; creating a network of teacher experts in each wing of the school building; and designing lab trouble-shooting plans that assisted teachers when they were in the computer lab. 

Teachers Creativity Increases

As the year progressed the teachers became proficient in the various multimedia software applications that had been introduced by the project. With the proficiency came confidence in their abilities to transform from student/learner to a curriculum designer. 

Connie Lopez-Price describes her transformation:

Summary

As responses to the first research question of Section 4 illustrated, the Nuestra Tierra Project approach to professional development effectively encouraged each teacher interviewed to use technology. As each teacher shifted from anxiety and embarrassment to comfort and relief; from feeling overwhelmed to trusting in one-on-one support; and from tentative innovation to confident teacher creativity, changes in teaching strategies emerged. These changes led to the second research question.

As the three teachers began to integrate technology into their classrooms, their teaching strategies changed. The following paragraphs describe how each of the teachers became facilitators of classroom activities rather than disseminators of information; how each of the teachers took on the role of teacher teaching teacher; and how each of the three teachers became enthusiastic users and promoters of technology.

Teacher Becomes Facilitator

As the Nuestra Tierra project unfolded, the teachers moved away from the front of the classroom and became facilitators and guides to their students. John Sandin (1996), a graduate student on the Nuestra Tierra project, presented a paper at the VI Simposim Interamericano de Investigacion Ethnografic en Educacion in Cuidad Juares in Mexico. In that paper he noted "that teachers in my group were using mostly teacher-centered approaches to education in their classrooms at the beginning of the year. For example, the history teacher conducted most of his classes in the lecture-note-taking method (p. 3)".

Sandin goes on to share how he worked with this teacher to design a collaborative project that took the students on a research field trip to a small historical community near the school. Not only did the students tour the village, they also videotaped and digitally recorded the buildings that surrounded the historical plaza. Back at their school they further researched the village, even going to NMSU’s historical archives to pour over documents. The project culminated in the students creating a virtual tour of the village that was turned into a web page in both Spanish and English.

Having been students of technology and learning something new themselves the past year, the teachers developed new empathy for the students in their own classrooms. They also become vitally aware of how exciting learning can be. Daniel Nogales explains it this way:

Teacher-Teaching-Teacher Model

The Nuestra Tierra Project was designed to spread expertise through its model of one-on-one support. As teachers learned from the Nuestra Tierra staff, they in turn taught fellow teachers. Following large group professional development sessions, these more intimate and personally tailored sessions gave teachers the skills to model this technique with teachers in their buildings and teachers throughout the district. Daniel Nogales explains his ideas of how he will share what he has learned with other teachers in the following passage:

Enthusiastic Users and Promoters of Technology

As the two years of the Nuestra Tierra Project came to a close, all three teachers expressed renewed love and enthusiasm for teaching. Their excitement about learning and their desire to share their experience with their students and teachers in their buildings and in the district validated the Nuestra Tierra Project. 

At Arroyo Elementary the teachers began sharing their knowledge with fellow teachers during the spring 1996 semester. This passage from the researcher’s field notes explains how the process started:

The enthusiasm that these teachers have towards sharing how to use technology in designing learning environments was contagious. None of them could imagine teaching now without technology available in their classrooms or schools.

Summary

Each of the three teachers interviewed, and in general, all the teacher participants, exhibited and shared changes in their teaching strategies over the course of the Nuestra Tierra Project with other teachers. They became teacher facilitators, teachers who teach teachers, and enthusiastic users and promoters of technology. As can be seen from the teachers’ comments all have developed as professionals.

Section 4 addressed the two research questions that guided the gathering and presentation of data. Response to the first research question described how teachers are effectively encouraged to use technology. Response to the second research question described how teachers change their teaching as they begin to integrate technology. Section 5 submits a conclusion, recommendations, and closing remarks. 

The interviews with the three Nuestra Tierra teachers in this research described their personal and professional growth during participation in the Nuestra Tierra grant project. Although the teachers began their experiences with fears and anxieties they found that this was not a typical "drop-in drop-out" staff development program. Through continuous weekly support from the graduate assistants, the co-principle investigator, and other Nuestra Tierra staff members including Nolan Gray’s team at the LRC and Dr. Gleason’s multimedia team at Agricultural Communications, these teachers learned how to integrate their classroom and lab computers with their teaching. They also learned how to re-design their classroom curriculum so that it would reflect and integrate the new technologies.

As reported in Section 4 the teachers made the following changes. They were able to move from feeling anxious and embarrassed to feeling more comfortable and confident in the computer environment in their schools. Their feelings of being overwhelmed were eased by the sustained one-on-one support that they received at their school sites each week of the project. Their creativity soared, as they became more adept at integrating these new technologies into their curriculum. 

Additionally, as their confidence and expertise grew, the three teachers began changing their role in the classroom. They became more of a facilitator to their students learning. Their classroom and curriculum design reflected a student-centered learning environment rather than the traditional teacher-centered classroom. 

Probably the most interesting and compelling finding gleaned from the interviews described in Section 4 is the emergence of the new role of teacher as promoters of technology. All three teachers want to do more than effectively use technology in their own classrooms. They want to share what they have learned. All three teachers in this study are presently involved in the Regional Educational Technology Assistance (RETA) program (Norton & Gonzales, 1997). 

RETA is a network of educators around the state of New Mexico who offer regional professional development peer workshops that focus on integrating technology to support curricular goals. The three teachers travel across New Mexico conducting Saturday workshops with teachers from other districts. In fact, eight of the fourteen 1997-1998 RETA trainers in Southern New Mexico have come from the Nuestra Tierra Project. Currently, all three participants reflected in this study and many others from Nuestra Tierra are involved in at least one professional development project or grant that allows them to share with other teachers what they have learned, and that they have personally assimilated into their curriculum. 

The findings of the study lead the researcher to submit the following recommendations. Other schools and districts could be encouraged to follow a staff development model similar to the Nuestra Tierra project. The model could be designed to include several components:

1. Minimum 2 year commitment per teacher in a professional development project or grant.
2. Stipend pay for teachers for curriculum development and participation in the project or grant.
3. "Just-in-time" professional development that models how to use computer applications and strategies in their curriculum.
4. One-on-one support in the classroom following larger whole group professional development workshops.
5. Collaborative curriculum projects that allow students and teachers from other subjects and grade levels to work together and share resources and expertise.
6. School district/university/business partnerships that encourage community involvement and input to the school and classroom learning environment.

In fact, the Nuestra Tierra project design of one-on-one mentoring was a vital aspect of Nuestra Tierra as it influenced sustained professional development. The Nuestra Tierra project team members all served as mentors. The team members included the principle investigator, the graduate students, several university professors, undergraduate work-study students, and university staff from the Agricultural Communications Department and well as the staff at the Learning Resource Center. Some school sites solicited additional mentors from the schools communities in order to address particular needs. For instance, some schools used parent volunteers for afternoon and evening technology workshops. Others engaged students in mentoring other students or in offering technical help to classrooms or computer labs. Collaborations encouraged changes in teaching strategies which are integral to technology use and to improved learning environments.

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