This study explored how prospective elementary teachers developed mathematics teaching that used the cultural, linguistic, and cognitive resources from home and community settings to promote learning school mathematics with robotics. Drawing on lesson planning artifacts and written reflections following lesson enactments, the authors describe how prospective teachers made progress toward more equitable mathematics teaching by connecting mathematics learning and robotics, leveraging community funds of knowledge in mathematics instruction with robotics, and designing for transdisciplinary connections. Analyses showed how robotics can support planning for a range of elementary mathematics concepts – including counting, multiplicative reasoning, distance, and sequence – and may encourage leveraging students’ sense of place to make mathematics learning more accessible for every student. These findings suggest that mathematics teacher educators and teachers should consider using innovative tools not typically seen in classrooms, such as robotics, in mathematics instruction as they work to support a focus on reasoning and sense making and make connections to children’s community and cultural funds of knowledge.
At the start of the pandemic, a lot of talk occurred about reimagining education, especially since the inception of schooling in America is not built for Black children. Research has examined the violence against Black children in schools, not to mention the double pandemic that they are experiencing with COVID-19 and the country's history of racism. As a Black scholar-practitioner, this author was hopeful for the future of education and teacher education. As the school year approached, however, and universities made a decision about virtual, hybrid, or in-person teaching and learning, the author noticed that the content or pedagogical practices had not changed or been reimagined, especially in English Education teacher preparation programs. As an effort to shift from talking about reimagining to action, the author utilized the framework of being, learning and teaching, and technology as a pedagogical tool to center Blackness in redesigning the course, English Language: Grammar and Usage, that did not enact linguistic violence or center white Mainstream English (Baker-Bell, 2020).
This paper reports an analysis of the work of teaching in the wake of the profound and swift transformation of the educational landscape due to the global crisis of COVID-19 as well as concrete suggestions for teachers and teacher educators related to the labor they are expected to perform. Ultimately, the aim of this article was to discuss how understanding the immaterial labor of teaching, the labor that creates value but is often intangible and unseen, can prepare teachers to recognize and possibly resist what might get counted as best practices in the new normal that is and is to come. The authors use the concept of immaterial labor to expand on and complement technoskepticism, a recognition that technology is not neutral and has exploitive and antidemocratic tendencies and, therefore, must be approached with appropriate caution.
This mixed-methods study investigated support for Grades K-5 teachers' learning with Twitter. As more teachers turn to the Twitter microblogging service as an online space for professional development (PD), it is important to understand how and if teachers believe school administrators' support their use of Twitter for teacher PD. Key findings from this study revealed that two thirds of participants considered their administrators to be supportive of Twitter for their PD. Support was perceived when administrators, including superintendents and principals, were (a) active Twitter users and (b) encouraged teachers to share what they had learned on Twitter. However, some participants expressed feeling discouraged by administrators who seemed mostly interested in maintaining the status quo in their schools. Support from administrators may help teachers critically evaluate information they learn from Twitter and ensure its alignment with evidence-based teaching practices, skills that are necessary in an era with an abundance of easily accessed information. In consideration of the COVID-19 pandemic, school leaders and policymakers may want to consider their support for teachers' use of Twitter as a legitimate resource for professional learning, especially for ideas related to remote teaching and online learning.
This qualitative research study examined how teacher candidates’ (TCs) participation in reflection cycles involving recording and viewing video of their teaching practice served to support their development as reflective practitioners. The reflection cycle included viewing and annotating one’s own teaching, receiving peer and instructor dialogic feedback, and synthesizing the feedback to identify strengths, evidence of student (dis)engagement and learning as well as areas for continued professional growth. Analysis of the TCs’ written reflections at the end of each reflection cycle underscored Larrivee’s (2008) assertion that reflection is a complex and interweaving developmental process that is not necessarily linear. The findings highlight the role of teacher educators in supporting TCs to become more critically reflective.
This manuscript describes an inquiry into preservice teachers’ (PSTs) experiences composing a digital story around the concept of adolescent literacy as part of an English language arts methods course built on critical literacy and critical inquiry traditions. Part of the assignment was to examine adolescent literacy “in these times,” paying attention to the literacy lives of current adolescents. This inquiry used qualitative methods to gain insight into the ways digital storytelling about literacy might support PSTs to forge new connections with youth. The article reports three key findings about the role and value of including digital storytelling as a required part of an educator preparation program.
Technology integration models are theoretical constructs that guide researchers, educators, and other stakeholders in conceptualizing the messy, complex, and unstructured phenomenon of technology integration. Building on critiques and theoretical work in this area, the authors report on their analysis of the needs, benefits, and limitations of technology integration models in teacher preparation and propose a new model: PICRAT. PIC (passive, interactive, creative) refers to the student’s relationship to a technology in a particular educational scenario. RAT (replacement, amplification, transformation) describes the impact of the technology on a teacher’s previous practice. PICRAT can be a useful model for teaching technology integration, because it (a) is clear, compatible, and fruitful, (b) emphasizes technology as a means to an end, (c) balances parsimony and comprehensiveness, and (d) focuses on students.
A project called Mobile City Science (MCS), a partnership between the University of Washington, New York Hall of Science, the Digital Youth Network, and two high schools, leverages young people’s proclivity for on-the-move digital engagement to re-place and mobilize learning through public, community settings that youth identify as being relevant to their daily lives. At its most fundamental level, MCS teaches and engages young people in new forms of data science, especially around collecting and interpreting spatial, real-time, and dynamic data. This digital STEAM curriculum has more ambitious objectives. Ultimately, the research team hopes this work disrupts an absence of youth input in neighborhood and community development processes, using the power of spatial data and visualizations that young people create about their communities as a ticket for entry into ongoing policy and planning conversations. As youth will be the ones making critical decisions about these same communities in due time, it is prudent to apprentice them into valued forms of civic participation. Moreover, as long as youth ideas go unheard, leaders and adult community stakeholders have an incomplete picture — and are missing potentially transformative solutions — regarding current issues. This example of a digital STEAM curriculum for youth to engage in data science with mobile technologies provides ideas for teachers to make instruction more public-facing.
