Kirsten R. Butcher portrait
  • Associate Dean of Faculty and Student Affairs, College Of Education
  • Professor, Educational Psychology
801-587-1728

Current Courses

Fall 2024

  • ED PS 6431-001
    Adv Instr Design-Ed Tec
  • ED PS 6440-001
    Human-Computer Interact

Professional Organizations

  • American Educational Research Association (AERA). 07/21/2004 - present. Position : Member.

Courses I Teach

  • EDPS 3140 - Using Technology in Diverse Classrooms (K-6)
    Given the increasingly high-stakes of successful classroom instruction, how can teachers integrate technology into the classroom in ways that result in meaningful and measurable improvements to student learning? This course provides the fundamental concepts, knowledge, skills, and attitudes that all teacher candidates need for applying technology in the classroom. This is a basic technology-in-education course and is pre-requisite to ED PS 5441/6441 and ED PS 5442/6442, which are courses in which technology is directly applied to classroom contexts. The course has been designed to meet the 2008 National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) developed by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE): http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=NETS
  • EDPS 5442/6442 - Integrating Tech into Instruction II: Science
    Investigate ways to integrate technology into the instruction of science and integrated curriculum. This course is to be taken concurrently with TL 5370/6370: Elementary Science Methods. Effective technology instruction for pre-service teachers occurs in two phases. First, pre-service teachers complete an introductory technology-in-education course in which students learn basic technology skills through meaningful project-based learning scenarios. Next, pre-service teachers practice these skills and integrate them into content areas by taking courses that cover the use of technology in methods courses or field experiences. This approach allows students to examine ways in which technology can be seamlessly integrated with practice. This two-phased approach has been adopted in the Department of Educational Psychology; therefore, you should have already taken the basic technology-in-education course (EDPS 3140) and are now ready for this course, a 1-credit technology course to accompany your science methods course. This is a required one-credit, pass/fail course for teacher certification programs. The course has been designed to meet the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) developed by the International Society for Technology in Education. NETS-T are available online: http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_for_Teachers_2008.htm This course is designed as an online technology lab course that will give you practice and experience in implementing technology into your science instruction. You will be integrating the technology skills you learned in EDPS 3140 (e.g., creating websites, digital learning objects, wikis, blogs, and instructional multimedia) with the pedagogical content knowledge you will be building in your science methods course. You will be expected to design learning objects and technology-based materials to support the science lessons and ideas that you will be using in your science methods course.
  • EDPS 6447 - Introduction to Web-Based Tools and Applications
    In this course, we will provide an overview of tools used in web-based applications. This course will focus mainly on using Dreamweaver and Fireworks in Adobe CS4. The integration of Flash CS4 animations and activities into instructional websites also will be covered briefly. This course will emphasize cognitive aspects of website design and implementation. Although many students will be building new web development skills in Adobe CS4, these skills cannot (and should not) be learned in isolation. In this course, practice in applying CS4 skills will be embedded in the development of high-quality websites that support meaningful learning and instruction. In addition to implementing website components, you will be analyzing the goals of your site, learning to target key cognitive processes, assessing user needs, and deciding upon the site components relevant to your goals.
  • EDPS 7440 - Learning Sciences Seminar
    Focuses on measurement, design, and analyses problems faced in research. Engages students in discussions of cutting-edge research conducted in the Learning Sciences.
  • EDPS 6440 - Human-Computer Interaction & Emergent Technologies
    Interactive learning environments offer many advantages to learners, if they are easily used and strategically designed. But how do you know that students will be able to use and learn from the instructional technologies that you design and build? The primary focus of this course is the design and evaluation of human-computer interactive systems. The content presents a broad survey of designing, implementing, evaluating, and refining the user interface of computer systems. A psychological approach focusing on user-centered design will be taken in the course presentation, and special emphasis will be given to issues concerning educational technology. Course content includes: theories, principles, and guidelines of human-computer interactive systems; review and evaluation of the user interface; balancing function and fashion of the user interface; online help and tutorials; computer-supported cooperative work; hypermedia and the World Wide Web.