Learning About, With, Through, and Against Technology: Imagining New North Stars in Teacher Preparation Programs (Poster 10)

• In Event: Expansive Views on the Role of Computing and Digital Literacies in Teacher Education

Abstract

Objectives
Future teachers must be fluent in content and practices related to computing and digital literacies that go far beyond what is traditionally offered in 3-credit educational technology courses. Often limited to how to use basic tools in the context of teaching, many key implications of the digital landscape for teacher education go unaddressed in these courses, such as teaching creative media production, data analysis, and computational thinking across disciplines. This poster shares results from a content analysis of 104 learning goals representing 12 programs across 6 colleges of education involved in initiatives to comprehensively and holistically integrate computing and digital literacy pedagogies across their teacher education programs.

Theoretical Framework.
The Entry Points to Computer-Integrated Teacher Education (EnCITE) Framework (Vogel et al., 2024) shares heterogeneous onramps for faculty to support their teacher candidates to holistically navigate the ever-changing technology-in-education landscape. Specifically, the framework invites teacher candidates to communicate about technology, enhance learning and teaching with technology, creatively express themselves through modifying and creating technology, and advocate against unjust technologies.

Methods
A content analysis was performed on 104 learning goals using a deductive coding scheme based on the EnCITE framework (Vogel et al., 2024), and the InTASC standards (Council of Chief State School Officer, 2013), to identify trends and to illustrate examples of how teacher candidates were positioned to learn or teach about, with, through, or against technology in relation to teacher education areas (learners and learning, content knowledge, instructional strategies, and professional responsibility).

Findings
The analysis revealed the following trend: the most common learning goals oriented teacher candidates to learning about and teaching with technology. Learning goals were less likely to orient teacher candidates to learning and teaching through and against technology. This is unsurprising given that the predominant orientations towards technology focus teacher candidates on what they should learn about the technologies they may be expected to teach with (Mishra & Koehler, 2006) rather than on how they can create and modify technologies (through), critically interrogate technologies (against), or prompt their (future) students to do the same.

Given this, it is promising that a number of learning goals did attend to the orientations of learning and teaching through and against technology. For example, two learning goals that orient teacher candidates to learn against technology include “assess whether specific technologies are developmentally appropriate and culturally responsive,” (Instructional Strategies) and “Critically analyze biases in educational policies and their impact, including policies about technology,” (Professional Responsibility).

Significance
The research presented expands the broader knowledge base related to an understudied topic: the formation and content of learning goals within the context of computing-integrated institutional change efforts in teacher education preparation programs. The analysis reveals (1) how colleges of education infusing technology can trend towards orientations of learning about and teaching with technology and (2) emergent examples of orientations towards learning and teaching through and against technologies. Taken together, these findings provide guidance for colleges of education preparing teacher candidates to be holistic and agentic in their interactions with computing-integration.

Authors

• David Phelps, Telos Learning LLC

• Rafi Santo, Telos Learning LLC

• Sara Vogel, City University of New York

• Jean J. Ryoo, University of California - Los Angeles

• Jessica Velez Tello, Brooklyn College - CUNY

• Aankit Patel, City University of New York