{"id":7424,"date":"2017-07-12T21:04:42","date_gmt":"2017-07-12T21:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/citejournal.org\/\/\/"},"modified":"2017-11-03T16:11:59","modified_gmt":"2017-11-03T16:11:59","slug":"access-is-not-enough-a-collaborative-autoethnographic-study-of-affordances-and-challenges-of-teacher-educators-ipad-integration-in-elementary-education-methods-courses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citejournal.org\/volume-17\/issue-3-17\/current-practice\/access-is-not-enough-a-collaborative-autoethnographic-study-of-affordances-and-challenges-of-teacher-educators-ipad-integration-in-elementary-education-methods-courses","title":{"rendered":"Access Is Not Enough: A Collaborative Autoethnographic Study of Affordances and Challenges of Teacher Educators\u2019 iPad Integration in Elementary Education Methods Courses"},"content":{"rendered":"
In the past, technologies remained relatively stable throughout a teacher\u2019s career. The basic tools for teaching were standardized for most U.S. classrooms: books, paper, pencils, math manipulatives, and overhead projectors (Mishra & Koehler, 2006). Initially, even when computers were introduced as a new tool, they were clustered in computer labs bound by scheduled time and static place (Foulger et al., 2013).<\/p>\n
The current climate of rapid change and the pervasiveness of mobile technology, however, offer a new array of unexplored tools and new opportunities for classrooms to capitalize on the mobile learning that happens outside the classroom. This influx of mobile devices characterizes what Harvard professor of business administration Clayton Christensen (1997) coined as \u201cdisruptive technology.\u201d<\/p>\n
In contrast to \u201csustainable technology,\u201d which is established and changes incrementally, disruptive technologies may not have easily and immediately recognized applications and may lack refinement. Smartphones, tablets, and laptops fall into this category. They are pervasive, but educators are just learning their potential for school-based teaching and learning. \u00a0Because university teacher preparation programs often partner with K-12 schools, faculties want and need to prepare preservice teachers to understand the opportunities and challenges of purposeful and transformative technology integration. To move past a siloed approach to technology integration, which is often relegated to a specific and separate educational technology (EdTech) course, methods courses in each discipline seemed to be a wise and logical choice in which to demonstrate and experience technology integrations that support discipline-based teaching and learning.<\/p>\n
Traditionally, the main responsibility of methods courses is to build pedagogical knowledge for teaching specific disciplines, such as science, mathematics, social studies, and reading\/language arts. Teacher educators often find that they are still building stronger disciplinary content knowledge while addressing pedagogy. Shulman (1986) identified this specific type of teacher knowledge as pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). This task is demanding for teacher educators, who must not only strengthen content knowledge (CK) but also model pedagogical knowledge (PK) in the delivery of CK to demonstrate PCK.<\/p>\n
With the disruption and pervasiveness of mobile devices, more and more K-12 schools are exploring and implementing mobile devices to increase learning opportunities for students. Mobile technology provides new challenges for teacher educators, who currently prepare teachers for teaching and learning environments that neither they experienced as K-12 teachers or teacher candidates experienced as learners. Teachers are now expected also to have technological knowledge (TK) that intersects with CK, PK, and PCK. This integration forms a new teacher knowledge referred to as technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge, or TPACK (Mishra & Koehler, 2006).<\/p>\n
Although young people are often referred to as digital natives (Prensky, 2001), others suggest that simply being born into a world of digital technology does not make one a digital native (Eduardsen, 2011; Thompson, 2013). Recently, Vasinda, Kander, and Sanogo (2015) found that preservice teachers did not naturally transfer and integrate their TK to educational practices. In their study of iPad integration in the context of practicums in the university reading and mathematics center, preservice teacher tutors integrated only what their university instructors modeled in class when working with their tutees, indicating that their development of TPACK was dependent upon experiences with digital technologies modeled for students in their methods courses. Preservice teachers tended to prioritize the PCK that they learned ahead of the TK, which resulted in limited TPACK (Vasinda et al., 2015). This finding was consistent with studies that have challenged and disputed the idea of the digital native (Bennett & Maton, 2010; Dresang, 2005; Johnson, 2006; Koutropoulos, 2011; Thompson, 2013).<\/p>\n
In a survey conducted by Project Tomorrow\u2019s Speak Up (Blackboard, 2013) preservice teachers reported that their experiences modeled by their university instructors represented one of the two most influential factors of their growing TK. The other factor was the technology integration experienced in their student teaching. Similarly, Schuck, Aubusson, Kearney and Burden (2013) identified the need for teacher educators to implement and model teaching and learning with mobile devices to prepare future educators.<\/p>\n
Teacher educators are faced with a new and urgent challenge. Although university faculty members are considered content area specialists with strong pedagogical knowledge committed to modeling and teaching, they may not have well developed TK or TPACK. The understanding of these findings and challenges, led four elementary education teacher educators to study their own mobile technology integration to support curriculum objectives in science, social studies, and literacy courses.<\/p>\n
The research question guiding this study was as follows: In content-specific teacher preparation courses, what are the affordances and challenges for teacher educators of integrating mobile technology in contexts of 1:1 access to iPads? Although Gaver (1991) described affordances as both the \u201cstrengths and weaknesses of technologies with respect to the possibilities they offer the people who might use them\u201d (p. 79), in this study we defined affordance as the benefits or possibilities that technology provides or makes available (Merriam-Webster, n.d.), sometimes referred to as positive affordances.<\/p>\n
We used Hughes, Thomas, & Scharber\u2019s (2006) Replacement, Amplification, and Transformation (RAT) framework to help us understand and evaluate the realized and potential benefits of thoughtful technology integrations that support and offer transformative learning opportunities.<\/p>\n
Two conceptual frameworks informed this study: Mishra & Koehler\u2019s (2006) TPACK framework and Hughes et al.\u2019s (2006) RAT framework. TPACK builds from Shulman\u2019s (1986, 1987) theory of PCK, in which the intersection of PK and CK form a new type of knowledge. This knowledge describes effective teachers\u2019 deep understanding of how to teach their content with special knowledge about intricacies of the process.<\/p>\n
Mishra and Koehler (2006) identified TK as a new kind of teacher knowledge that intersects with PCK. By extending Schulman\u2019s PCK model to include TK as a third knowledge domain, additional knowledge interactions are created: technological content knowledge (TCK), technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK), and the integration of all three knowledge domains resulting in TPACK (Koehler & Mishra, 2005; Mishra & Koehler, 2006). Table 1 describes each of these knowledge domains and their unique intersections.<\/p>\n
Table 1 <\/p>\n TPACK offers a framework for understanding the complexities of teaching and learning with technology and can help educators choose technological tools that enhance student understanding and are aligned with effective pedagogy. This framework also provides a common language with which teacher educators and preservice teachers can more clearly converse about the multifaceted interactions of pedagogy, content, and technological affordances to support learning. Therefore, the TPACK model (Figure 1) was used as a conceptual framework for university faculty as they planned lessons for their respective students.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Brief Descriptions of the Knowledge Domain Represented in the TPACK Framework (Abbitt, 2011; Koehler, Mishra, & Yahya, 2007; Mishra & Koehler, 2006)<\/p>\n\n\n
\n Knowledge Domain<\/strong><\/td>\n Description<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Pedagogical<\/td>\n Knowledge of nature of teaching and learning, including teaching methods, classroom management, instructional planning, assessment of student learning, etc.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Content<\/td>\n Knowledge of the subject matter to be taught (e.g., earth science, mathematics, language arts, etc.).<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Technology<\/td>\n Continually changing and evolving knowledge base that\u00a0includes knowledge of technology for information processing, communications, and problem solving and focuses on the productive applications of\u00a0technology in both work and daily life.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Pedagogical Content<\/td>\n Knowledge of the pedagogies, teaching practices, and\u00a0planning processes that are applicable and appropriate to teaching a given\u00a0subject matter.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Technological Content<\/td>\n Knowledge of the relationship between subject matter and\u00a0technology including knowledge of technology that has influenced and is used\u00a0in exploring a given content discipline.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Technological\u00a0Pedagogical<\/td>\n Knowledge of the influence of technology on teaching and\u00a0learning as well as the affordances and constraints of technology with regard\u00a0to pedagogical designs and strategies.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Technological, Pedagogical, and Content<\/td>\n Knowledge of the complex interaction among the principle\u00a0knowledge domains (content, pedagogy, technology).<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n