Teacher Candidates’ Perceptions Toward Computing Integration and Digital Literacy Within a Community College Teacher Education Curriculum

• In Event: Fostering Equity Through Computing and Digital Literacy Integration in Urban Community College Teacher Education Programs

Abstract

In light of how technology has fundamentally changed our society, it is important for preservice teachers to have a deep understanding of the knowledge, skills and capacities necessary to successfully navigate today’s informational digital world. With the rise in disinformation and misinformation in recent years, for example, experts advocate that critical digital literacy must be an “essential dimension” in teacher education because teachers play a critical role in shaping society (Trust et al, 2022). Despite the importance of fostering critical digital literacy among preservice teachers, teacher education programs fail to embed critical digital literacy into teacher licensure courses.

We conducted a study that piloted the integration of critical digital literacies in a prerequisite teacher education courses at an urban community college education program with a student population that mirrors the demographics of students who historically have not had access to computational and digital literacy education. Our study aims to understand how our teacher preparation program is addressing inequities by embedding assignments that foster computing and critical digital literacies into preservice teacher courses. The preliminary data, which included 30 students and was based on reflective writing assignments and multimodal discussions, suggest that the preservice teacher courses encouraged students to critically question the production and consumption of digital information that informs their understanding of the world around them and their future teaching practices. After the implementation of critical information literacy activities, students described processes that they engaged in during the final course assignment to ensure the information they consumed came from trustworthy sources, such as scholarly work, respected news organizations that utilize high standards of journalism, or official government publications.

Building upon the initial findings, the next phase of the study will utilize an interactive values exploration activity about computing, as well as a multimodal and multilingual reflective writing assignment with open-ended semi-structured questions grounded in culturally responsive teaching to collect additional qualitative data on students’ perceptions and values toward computing-integration and critical digital literacies. The writing assignment will include opportunities for students to multilingually share their learning experiences, perceptions and values around computing and digital liteacies. For example, students will be asked about digital tools they use in order to obtain, make sense of, make decisions upon, and communicate information.Thematic analysis will be employed to analyze the data using both deductive codes grounded in computational education and critical digital literacy literature, as well as inductive codes based on themes that emerge from the responses to open-ended questions. These results of the study aim to add insight into how the intentional integration of culturally responsive critical digital literacy education shapes the development of preservice teachers’ pedagogical practices and curriculum.

Trust, T., Maloy, R., Butler, A., & Goodman, L. (2022). Critical media literacy in teacher
education: Discerning truth amidst a crisis of misinformation and disinformation.
Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 30(2), 167-176.

Authors

• Laura A. Scheiber, Kingsborough Community College - CUNY

• Denise Farrelly, Kingsborough Community College - CUNY

• Joanna Maulbeck, Kingsborough Community College - CUNY