Volume 24 Issue 4 [2024]
Editorials
English/Language Arts Education
Editorial: Critical Perspectives on Digital Platforms in ELA Teacher Education
TikTok to #BookTok: Preservice Teachers Navigating, Situating, and Transferring Their Digital Literacy Practices for Teacher Preparation
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Today’s teacher education programs (TEPs) are tasked with teaching essential English language arts (ELA) methods while also including the digital tools that shape reading and writing instruction in K-12 classrooms. To stay atop the swiftly moving digital pendulum, TEPs look to popular digital platforms, such as social media apps, as powerful ELA learning tools for preservice teachers (PSTs). Platforms such as TikTok significantly impact cultural trends and provide avenues for students to engage, manipulate, and construct meaning. This places PSTs in a distinctive position where their digital lives can be situated as critical learning sites and transferred to classroom environments. This study delved into the intricacies of one specific digital platform, #BookTok, the TikTok reading subcommunity, to explore how PSTs navigate and confront the multifaceted design and multimodal composition considerations to create a #BookTok video. The inquiry shed light on the challenges, issues, and tensions associated with using these digital spaces for ELA instruction within TEPs. Findings suggest that PSTs drew upon previous applications as TikTok consumers as they transitioned into producers to create a #BookTok video. PSTs took on distinctive roles as prosumers, using their viewing patterns as mentor texts informing how they might remix for their video construction.
Competition, Speed, and Personalization: Surfacing Platform Logics in Preservice Teachers’ Reflections on Accelerated Reader
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ReadingPlus, i-Ready, Epic!, Accelerated Reader —digital reading platforms for education (DRPEs) are pervasive in today’s literacy classrooms across grade levels and contexts. It is, therefore, crucial that both English language arts (ELA) educators and teacher educators, alike, understand the potential lasting effects DRPEs can have on young readers. In this article, the authors report findings from a study of literacy autobiographies written by preservice ELA teachers, in which participants reflected on the ways Accelerated Reader, a DRPE many of them used as children, influenced their understanding of and relationship to reading. Through their analysis, the authors identify three platform logics — competition, speed, and personalization — that structure the Accelerated Reader platform and show how these logics surfaced in preservice teachers’ literacy autobiographies. The authors conclude with recommendations for classroom practices in ELA teacher education that critically attend to such platform logics in support of more vital forms of reading education.
Mathematics Education
The Teaching of Instructional Technology Implementation in Mathematics Teacher Education Research: A Critical Analysis From a Praxeology-Informed Perspective
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Instructional technology implementation is increasingly being addressed in teacher education, though research literature on its implementation remains limited. This literature analysis draws the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic to map what and how instructional technology is integrated into preservice mathematics teacher education and to identify conditions that facilitate or hinder the adaptation. Drawing from 22 peer-reviewed articles published between 2010 and 2022, the study maps empirical studies of instructional technology integration in mathematics teacher education. Key findings reveal that preservice teachers consistently engaged in lesson planning, practiced teaching peers in 13 cases, and taught actual learners in three instances, while reflection occurred in seven cases. However, the underlying reasoning (logos) behind the didactical practices were not presented to the preservice teachers, remained implicit, or were not clearly linked to the praxis. Furthermore, the decomposition of teaching practices was an underused pedagogical practice. Learning opportunities included rehearsals, the use of exemplary curriculum materials, teamwork, and constructive feedback. A key challenge in adapting the didactical praxeologies was the participants’ lack of prior experience with technology. The analysis highlights the need to make the reasons behind teaching practices explicit and calls for more intentional integration of teacher education pedagogies to enhance learning outcomes.
Science Education
Exploring Preservice Teachers’ Engagement in a Digital Clinical Simulation for Inclusive Science Education
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This study analyzed elementary preservice teachers’ (PST) participation in an equity-oriented digital clinical simulation administered in a science methods course. Using the Teacher Moments’ open access platform, PSTs completed the simulation, To Intervene or Not, about two students from historically minoritized communities who appeared disengaged during their fourth-grade science class. PSTs are put in the position of student teachers who are asked to identify causes for the classroom teacher’s inaction, propose interventions, and reflect on their roles as teachers. A qualitative analysis of their responses showed that PSTs posed a range of productive questions, proposed a variety of viable interventions, and expressed an ethic of care, in which they saw themselves as responsible for the well-being and success of all students. Findings and implications for using equity-oriented simulations in teacher education are discussed.
Social Studies Education
Unleashing the Power of Video Cases: Enhancing Teachers’ Ability to Engage Learners in Problem-Based Geographic Inquiry
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Inquiry-based learning is not common in secondary geography classrooms in the United States. The goal of this initial foray into design-based research was to maximize the potential of online video-case technology to disrupt this trend and support geography teachers in enacting high-quality problem-based geographic inquiry (PBGI). Informed by research on video and multimedia production for professional development, the authors worked with a team of social studies teachers in Mississippi to design PBGI curriculum materials and create a video case for use in future professional development with preservice and in-service geography teachers. This paper describes key features of the video case and presents findings on modifications to the video case that might improve its potential as a professional development tool.
Objects to Think With
The Promise and Complexity of Open-Source Hardware in K-12 STEM Learning: Commentary on Discussion at the 2024 National Technology Leadership Summit
Creating Inclusive Environments Through Authentic Engineering Design Initiatives: Commentary on Discussion at the 2024 National Technology Leadership Summit
General
Bridging Generative AI Technology and Teacher Education: Understanding Preservice Teachers’ Processes of Unit Design with ChatGPT
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This qualitative exploratory study aimed to examine how preservice teachers constructed unit plans with the assistance of ChatGPT. Due to the constantly evolving landscape of technology and rapid development of Generative AI (GenAI), teacher education programs are compelled to prepare preservice teachers with the necessary skills to integrate these advanced technologies into their daily teaching practices. Grounded in the conceptual framework of technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge (TPACK), this study delivered an in-depth analysis of the processes through which preservice teachers interacted with ChatGPT when creating unit plans. It further explored factors that preservice teachers considered when using ChatGPT to support curriculum design. Findings from the study illustrated preservice teachers’ complex and nuanced interactions with ChatGPT. It underscored the importance of leveraging technological knowledge, content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and contextual knowledge for preservice teachers in the digital age. Findings also suggested that the current GenAI, such as ChatGPT, can support preservice teachers in completing certain teaching tasks, such as unit plan design, but is not capable of replacing the teaching profession. Implications drawn from the study may provide insights for teacher education programs on how to effectively prepare future educators to utilize AI technologies.
Teaching Justice-Oriented Technology Pedagogy: An Inquiry-Based Approach for Teacher Educators to Critically Address Edtech
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In this article, the authors drew on conceptual frameworks of justice-oriented technology and inquiry pedagogy to explore the question, “How can teacher educators teach and best prepare their own students (preservice and in-service teachers) to teach about justice-oriented technology pedagogy?” The authors provide an example for teacher educators to use in practice in teacher education using the Learning Cycle, an inquiry model of teaching. They discuss the implications of justice-oriented technology inquiry on policy, practice, and research. This article provides resources for exploring ways to incorporate justice-oriented technology pedagogy and inquiry. It closes with an explanation of how justice-oriented technology pedagogy is applicable to multiple contexts and content areas as a pedagogical strategy that has potential to cultivate deep, critical thinking via inquiry.
Teacher Educators as Designers: Integrating Digital Simulations Into Methods Courses
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In this study, three math and three science teacher educators (TEs) were positioned as designers of instruction. The investigation considered how TEs supported preservice teachers (PSTs) to learn to facilitate argumentation discussions using two digital simulations. Research questions were (a) How did TEs engage in instructional design around the simulations? and (b) What would TEs do differently if they were able to iterate in another semester? Using a convergent parallel mixed methods design, largely qualitative data were gathered, including from observations, surveys, written reflections, and interviews. An iterative, collaborative approach to qualitative data employed both a priori and emergent coding. Most TEs identified instructional goals and activities that focused on argumentation, questioning, disciplinary content, and student ideas. Half or more TEs cited these topics in their assessment of what PSTs learned. Overall, this study supports that positioning TEs as instructional designers is a contribution to the field’s collective understanding of a pedagogy of teacher education. Further, the study may help researchers investigating TEs’ instructional practices better understand the variability of contexts in which instructional design occurs and has implications for the types of supports designers of digital simulations could provide TEs.
Current Practice
Integrating Computer Science into Preservice Special Education Coursework: Exploring Faculty Perspectives and Practices
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Despite a growing national focus on computer science (CS) education, students with disabilities are often excluded from or not able to access high quality CS experiences and coursework. One reason for this is a lack of teachers who support students with disabilities and also hold CS knowledge and skills. Integrating CS into preservice teacher special education pathways is one way to begin to address this issue so that newly credentialed teachers also have foundational CS knowledge. To explore this possibility, the authors conducted an exploratory case study to better understand what CS activities and content three special education faculty members integrated and why they chose to do this work. Data sources included faculty interviews, CS integration artifacts, and course revision proposals. Thematic analysis was used to uncover emergent themes. The authors found that faculty members were successful in integrating foundational CS knowledge and skills into their coursework, and their primary rationale for doing this work was to address existing inequities experienced by students with disabilities. More work is needed to better understand how special education faculty members could integrate more advanced CS topics, as well as how faculty members outside of special education pathways could begin to integrate CS into other preservice coursework.