Investigating the Benefits of Incorporating Technology in Instructional Curriculum: Pre-Service Teachers’ Perspectives from Ghana

Abstract

The use of technology has gained worldwide recognition in all professions. Teachers have resorted to several technology tools to enhance the work they do in the classroom and to facilitate the understanding of what they teach their students to enhance easy recall and for students to remember what they learn in class. The use of technology tools in the classroom in Ghana has not received much attention from teachers because of challenges with respect to technological infrastructural development. However, with the inclusion of technology in the teacher colleges of education curriculum, new teachers are being trained to incorporate technology into classroom instruction to change the face of teaching and make learners more eager to learn by bringing the understanding of concepts much more clearly to students. The study adopted a mixed method approach to bring to light, the perspectives of teacher trainees and tutors in colleges on the benefits both the teacher and the learner stand to gain in using technologies to deliver instruction in the classroom. It came to light that although there are challenges pre-service teachers tend to face in terms of access to such technologies, they still do their best to include technologies in their lessons whenever possible. This is because of the fact that learners tend to do well on instruction received on lessons delivered using technology as compared to lessons delivered without using technology based on their experience in using both approaches in the classroom.