INITIATIVE FOR LITERACY IN A DIGITAL AGE
  • Home
  • Our Initiative
  • The Divergent Award
    • 21st Century Literacies Lecture Series
    • LECTURE VIDEOS
  • InitiatED Conference 2023-Nashville
  • InitiatED Project
    • InitiatED micro-credentials
  • Our Team
    • Affiliates/Collaborators
    • Collaborate
    • Leadership Team Interest Form
  • Our Thinking
    • Call for Participation
    • Grant Opportunities
    • Military Connected Resources
  • Text Sets to Push the Canon

Our Thinking

Snapshots of our thinking and grappling with current issues related to our work.
Latest blog

University Teacher Preparation – A Responsibility to Explore What is Possible in the Best of All Possible Worlds

4/21/2016

2 Comments

 
by Sheri Vasinda

Four years ago, after describing a revisioned and revised assignment that required students to begin to curate their teaching strategies in a digital format, I overheard one of my 20-something-year old students remark on her way out of the classroom, “I just want a classroom with an old-fashioned chalkboard.”  I chucked a bit as I thought, “That classroom no longer exists.”  While I do know that globally there are classrooms that long for a chalkboard and there may be chalkboard attached to some US school walls, I’m speaking metaphorically about change.  I thought about the third-grade classroom I recently left where chalkboards had been replaced ten or more years previously with white boards and dry-erase markers and where I piloted the newer interactive whiteboard two years previous and that were in the process of being installed.  (Not my favorite way to spend tech dollars- but more on that for another post.)

As I continue to explore technology-rich learning environments that mobile technologies afford and that many students access in their lives outside of school, there is often some pushback by both faculty and our preservice teachers such as the one I mentioned above.  Faculty argues that many schools districts where we sent our newly minted teachers don’t have the technology devices some of us propose or are using in our university classrooms.  We might also hear that if we provide them a good foundation of content and pedagogy, the schools will support their technology integration development.   The rub here is that principals expect, or hope, that we will send them new teachers that are comfortable and competent not only with technology tools and applications, but also with pedagogically sound practices in the implementation of technology.  Additionally, practicing teachers say they are given devices with little to no instruction as to how to support high levels of student learning and engagement, and, as always, little time to explore and figure it out.  And there is little to no talk about transforming learning.  So, what is our responsibility as faculty who prepares future teachers?  

I want to challenge those of us involved in teacher preparation to transform what we do into a model of what’s possible that includes technology integration.  We already do this in terms of promoting practices grounded in research from the 1980s, such as workshop teaching and learning, that still has yet to appear in 21st century in some classrooms, but we can’t stop there.  And we can’t leave it all up to our ed tech courses.  It continues to look like an add-on if we leave it to someone else.
We live in a transitory time in which we strive to prepare teachers for classrooms neither they nor we experienced.  We straddle the 20th and 21st century preparing teachers for learning environments we can’t clearly see.   The Internet alone has transformed how we access and consider new information, and Web 2.0 tools are transforming how we create and communicate our understanding and construct new learning.  How are we leveraging these tools to demonstrate what’s possible for 21st century learners?  How is our thinking about teaching and learning changing in light of these new tools?  Do we see it as an add-on and siloed- reserved as an event for the computer lab.  Mobile means anywhere and anytime.  What are we doing to rethink what we do in this type of environment?
​
One of the strategies I’ve employed is including frameworks for thinking about technology-rich learning environments.  This includes models such as TPACK and RAT or SAMR as well as considering the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) standards.  Preservice teachers report that what they see and experience with their university professors in their preparation coursework and mentor teachers in the field have the most influence on their practice (Blackboard, 2013).  We have a responsibility to them to model an explorative, responsive, and inquiry-based stance of teaching while supporting them in content knowledge and concept attainment- just as they will do in their classrooms.  

2 Comments
is academicwriting.com.au reliable link
4/13/2017 01:01:41 am

English language is little tough because it has lengthy process for understand. This responsibility of teachers and it also depend on the trick and if we teach them step by step then students can understand. Many professional are working very well for online learning.

Reply
buying an essay link
10/25/2018 09:37:30 am

I just got to this amazing site not long ago. I was actually captured with the piece of resources you have got here. Thumbs up for making such wonderful blog page!
<a href="https://www.essaycyber.com" target="_blank">essay writing website</a>

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Contributors





    George Boggs
    Edgar Corral
    Jose Paco Fiallos

    Katherin Garland
    Charise Kollar
    Tresha Layne
    Mark Meacham

    Raúl A. Mora

    Barbara Pace
    Amy Piotrowski

    Rikki Roccanti

    Ekaterina Rybakova
    Sheri Vasinda

    Amy Vetter
    Shelbie Witte

    Sergio Yanes

    Archives

    November 2019
    March 2019
    September 2018
    June 2017
    April 2017
    April 2016
    October 2015
    September 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014

    Categories

    All
    21st Century Literacies
    Access
    Amy Piotrowski
    Barbara Pace
    Charise Kollar
    Classic Literature
    Classroom
    Dewey
    Digital Natives
    Edgar Corral
    Ethics
    Film
    Flipped Classroom
    George Boggs
    Google Glass
    Grafting
    Inquiry
    Instruction
    Jose Paco Fiallos
    Journey
    Kathy Garland
    Katie Rybakova
    Language Arts
    Media
    Multimodality
    Music
    Pinterest
    Popular Culture
    Preservice Teachers
    Qualitative
    Raul A. Mora
    Research
    Rikki Roccanti
    School Reform
    Sergio Yanes
    Shelbie Witte
    Technology
    Video
    Wikipedia
    Young Adult Literature
    Young Writers' Camps

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Our Initiative
  • The Divergent Award
    • 21st Century Literacies Lecture Series
    • LECTURE VIDEOS
  • InitiatED Conference 2023-Nashville
  • InitiatED Project
    • InitiatED micro-credentials
  • Our Team
    • Affiliates/Collaborators
    • Collaborate
    • Leadership Team Interest Form
  • Our Thinking
    • Call for Participation
    • Grant Opportunities
    • Military Connected Resources
  • Text Sets to Push the Canon