INTRODUCTION
"I touch the future, I teach."
-- Christa McAuliffe
Christa McAuliffe, the schoolteacher who died aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger when it exploded in 1986, touched the future by being the first teacher to fly in space. McAuliffe saw teaching, through technology, as a way to influence and shape the future, for herself and for her students. For years after the explosion, I had a bumper sticker on my car with McAuliffe's quote. I was proud to be a teacher, and proud to know that so much of what I taught had the potential to touch the future. What I did not realize then was that so much of my teaching touched—or connected to—the past, rather than the future. My teaching was a product of who I was/am as a person, and who I was/am as a person was a result of my race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability. I was the teacher I was because I had experienced life in a certain manner. The teacher I was could not be separated from the person I was. Additionally, what I believed about education and teaching could not be separated from who I was. My perspective as a teacher, my beliefs about teaching, the methodologies and styles I chose, had been built on my prior knowledge, experience, and environment. I was not touching the future as much as I was sustaining the past. I was a combination of a middle-class, white, mid-Western American, gay, female teacher. What I knew and how I taught could not be separated from the basis of where I had come from in society. I was, and am, a socially-constructed person and teacher. Conti (1990) when speaking of teaching styles states this eloquently:
As a teacher, you do not randomly select your teaching style, and you do not constantly change your style. Instead, your style is linked to your educational philosophy, which in turn is a subset of your overall life philosophy. Therefore, your ethical, spiritual, and political beliefs will provide clues to possible elements of your educational philosophy. (p. 89)
As he explains, teaching styles are not created in a vacuum—they are formed and shaped by life experience and linked to who one is. Who you are and what you believe outside the classroom will be reflected in who you are and what you believe inside the classroom.
This notion that who I am outside the classroom reflects who I am inside the classroom has been made even clearer to me in my current position. I now work and occasionally teach at an American institution of higher education, and I see the past and the future connecting again, and, like McAuliffe, I believe that the agent of that connection is technology.
For a variety of reasons, since the 1990s, the use of technology in education has created both controversy and excitement. Many believe that technology can change the face of formal education; many others believe that technology is the latest educational fad. To reach the potential that technology offers, one cannot have a na•ve view of it. Technology has not been the "magic bullet" that has revamped modern tertiary education. It will not be in the future either, unless the focus on technology changes. The view in higher education about technology has primarily been that it will reduce cost, and make education more accessible and more effective (Van Dusen, 1998) . Effective, until recently, meant more efficient in administrative terms. However, the focus is shifting back to the teaching and learning process and away from being used for purely administrative procedures, and the word effective is becoming tied to student learning outcomes (Center for Academic Transformation, 2004). Educators and administrators are beginning to realize that technology should not be used as a tool for efficiency, but as a tool for learning. Additionally, the ability and potential that technology has to address issues of educational inequity in terms of among other things, learning styles, are becoming more and more apparent.
In the United States, higher education is struggling to meet the future because of the instructional needs of the new technologically savvy and demanding student (Oblinger, 2004) . This student believes in technology, and higher education has been challenged to change in sync with this student. However, the haste with which higher education has attempted to accommodate this student has created a myriad of obstacles, not the least of which is the need to teach faculty. These faculty, unlike their students, may not have a belief about the use of technology. Additionally, they may not know how to use and incorporate various new technologies into their instruction (Watkins, 1990). This incorporation of technology on the part of the faculty has proven difficult. Much research has been done to determine why faculty choose not to readily incorporate technology into their teaching (Chizmar & Williams, 2001; Donovan, 1999). Among the issues preventing incorporation are barriers such as a lack of institutional and financial support, a lack of time, a lack of technical knowledge, and a lack of technology support (Betts, 1999; Butler & Sellbom, 2002; Chizmar & Williams, 2001; Groves & Zemel, 2000; Parker, 1997; Rutherford & Grana, 1995; Skeele & Daly, 1997; Wetzel, 1993).
Faculty technology and development centers nationwide have developed training to try to address these barriers. Even after adjusting and changing the shape and scope of the training to address these barriers, it seems as if little more concrete learning and instructional implementation is taking place. We need, therefore, to question the assumption, and the research, that these barriers are primarily based on extrinsic resources. Could it be that these barriers are much less tangible? Perhaps the barriers to technology incorporation are the result of who an individual is as a teacher and the choices that individual makes; the barriers are a result of a teacher's intrinsic identity and beliefs, which are ultimately manifest through teaching style.
In summary, using technology in education may necessitate a rethinking and (re) examination of not just teaching methodology, but beliefs about teaching. Since knowledge is socially constructed, and since beliefs about teaching are socially constructed, it makes sense that the level and ease of faculty technology incorporation in education is directly related to teaching beliefs.
The Problem
Faculty technology and development centers countrywide have developed training aimed at helping faculty incorporate instructional technology. Charged with supporting and training faculty in the use of instructional technology, many resource centers are finding the traditional workshop model of one-time offerings unsuccessful; even when faculty physically do attend, they leave the workshops to find that they quickly forget the technology learned (Donovan & Macklin, 1998). Additionally, faculty members at The University of Alabama, where this study took place, have reported through evaluations conducted after various forms of workshops, that they are getting too much information too quickly, have no time for practice during the workshop, have little or no time to practice the newly learned technology skill once they leave the workshop, have no institutional support, and are prevented by their other duties from being able to devote the necessary time to reinforcing what they have learned. However, these issues themselves may not be the heart of the problem. Focusing on these external barriers may mask the real issue of resistance to incorporation, which could be a more intrinsic issue, meaning beliefs about teaching and learning. To better serve the faculty, and teaching and learning, teacher beliefs toward instructional technology must be more fully explored.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study was to explore how intrinsic fundamental beliefs about teaching, the notion of who a person is as a teacher, not extrinsic resource-based barriers, may influence faculty instructional technology incorporation.
Research Question
How does the way faculty members perceive themselves, meaning their beliefs about themselves as teachers, influence incorporation of instructional technology?
Importance of the Study
Unless and until faculty technology resource centers at institutions of higher education connect technology very closely with pedagogic concerns, efforts toward bringing about technological implementation will remain incomplete. Such centers have attempted to improve instruction, have compensated faculty for course development, have given time, and have given support. Unfortunately, these external resources may merely be masking the real issue. If technology incorporation is indeed dependent on teaching beliefs, then perhaps faculty trainers and other administrators can devote resources to address these beliefs. There is no concrete evidence, contrary to what the literature implies, that simply providing resources to a faculty member for the development of instructional technological advances, improves, or encourages faculty technology development. If evidence exists that points to teaching beliefs being at the heart of the instructional technology incorporation, then not only may valuable resources such as time, money, and technology be saved, but the entire process of understanding instructional technology and its role in education may be clarified.