Technology and Teacher Education
Developing online, mobile, and blended learning technologies solutions for preservice and in-service teacher education contexts. Investigating teachers' knowledge for effective technology integration in classrooms.
Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK)
Dr. Baran's research on TPACK generated instruments to measure teachers' knowledge, pedagogical models to implement in teacher education programs, and novel methods to track TPACK within preservice and in-service teacher education contexts. Dr. Baran is the co-author of widely used TPACK survey. She has established several international collaborative projects to examine TPACK within different countries teacher education contexts, including the USA, Turkey, Belgium, Germany, and Canada.
Mobilizing Teacher Education Pedagogies
The TEACHEdMobile Project [2012-2017] funded by the European Commission aimed to provide, through research and development, methodological and curricular support to teacher educators so that they have research informed resources and curriculum for the integration of mobile applications into their teacher education programs.
Faculty Technology Mentoring
Dr. Baran examined different professional development models in higher education contexts to enhance faculty members' adoption of technology in their classrooms. She developed and implemented a faculty technology mentoring model as a university wide professional development approach.
Design Thinking and Entrepreneurship in Learning Technologies
Dr. Baran implemented design thinking modules in the learning technology courses offered to the preservice and in-service teachers at Iowa State University. The modules include a variety of hands-on design thinking exercises including empathy building, ideating, prototyping, and and prototyexemplary scenarios, and methods to develop such skill-set among preservice and in-service teachers. This collaborative effort converges the disciplines of Education, Design, and Enterprenorship. Her research examined the impact of these activities on preservice teachers' development of their understanding of "teachers as designers".
This project was funded by the College of Human Sciences' Innovative Teaching Initiave Grant [2019-2020]
SCHOOL OF EDUCATION IMPLEMENTS ‘DESIGN THINKING’ MODULES TO STIMULATE INNOVATION
"Learning technologies students in the School of Education are using “design thinking” to instill an entrepreneurial mindset into their teaching. New learning modules recently implemented in their classrooms — which involve a process of empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing — encourage future teachers to use innovative problem solving in classrooms using technology".
Read the CHS coverage
Video-Enhanced Observation in Teacher Education
Dr. Baran investigates learning technology solutions to enhance teachers' learning in preservice and in-service teacher education contexts. She implemented Video-enhanced Observation (VEO) to support teachers' peer-observation, feedback, and reflective practices. Her work has been supported by Iowa State University's Miller Faculty Fellowship to develop and implement a novel vide-enhanced mobile observation pedagogy to implement in science teaching methods courses.
