Reaching a concensus: A pre-service Technology Teacher Education Resource for New Zealand

Abstract

The Pre-service Technology Teacher Education Resource (PTTER) was developed as a crossinstitutional resource to support the development of pre-service technology teacher education programmes in New Zealand. PTTER was developed by one representative pre-service teacher educator from each of the six New Zealand university teacher education providers: Massey University, University of Auckland, University of Canterbury, University of Otago, Victoria University and University of Waikato, working with the National Technology Professional Development Manager. An initial framework for PTTER was established using four key elements considered to be essential to the education of technology teachers. The four elements are: philosophy of technology, rationale for technology education, technology in the New Zealand curriculum, and teaching technology. PTTER is a web-based resource technology teacher educators use when developing teacher education programmes. The framework is a statement of shared philosophy, purpose and approach to technology teacher education and is located on the Techlink website (www.techlink.org.nz), it contains a range of teaching resources and strategies identified as foundational for teacher education, along with links to pertinent readings. This paper describes the rationale for the PTTER framework, the elements of the framework and goes on to explain in more detail each of the frameworkʼs elements. The paper concludes with a section on implementation and future development of the framework.