Examining Bilingual Teacher Candidates' Use of Digital Media

2022 ◽  
pp. 688-705
Author(s):  
Iliana Alanís ◽  
Margarita Machado-Casas

Digital media has transformed how we interact with each other, how we stay connected, and how we learn about the world around us. Digital media has also changed the teacher's role from knowledge provider to facilitator (Lee, 2006). Teachers however, continue to struggle with technology and curricula integration as a vehicle for engaging young learners with academics (Chen, 2010; Wachira & Keengwe, 2011). This chapter underscores the need to provide bilingual teacher candidates with specific instructional uses for digital media to increase their capacity with technology integration, pedagogy, and content knowledge (Mishra & Koehler, 2006). This chapter explores the use of digital media within an after-school technology project. This research lends additional support for teacher preparation programs to integrate the use of technology if they are to serve teachers who work with a growing culturally and linguistically diverse school-age population.

Author(s):  
Iliana Alanís ◽  
Margarita Machado-Casas

Digital media has transformed how we interact with each other, how we stay connected, and how we learn about the world around us. Digital media has also changed the teacher's role from knowledge provider to facilitator (Lee, 2006). Teachers however, continue to struggle with technology and curricula integration as a vehicle for engaging young learners with academics (Chen, 2010; Wachira & Keengwe, 2011). This chapter underscores the need to provide bilingual teacher candidates with specific instructional uses for digital media to increase their capacity with technology integration, pedagogy, and content knowledge (Mishra & Koehler, 2006). This chapter explores the use of digital media within an after-school technology project. This research lends additional support for teacher preparation programs to integrate the use of technology if they are to serve teachers who work with a growing culturally and linguistically diverse school-age population.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 47-68
Author(s):  
Eduardo Muñoz-Muñoz

Translanguaging has become a particularly relevant (and controversial) concept for the field of bilingual education, with concrete implications for teacher preparation programs serving teacher candidates (TCs) who may identify as heritage speakers of Spanish. However, the regard and understanding of translanguaging, its pedagogical potential, and the positionality to implement it are not evenly distributed among stakeholders involved in the teacher preparation process. This article explores the relationship among California public teacher preparation programs, their bilingual teacher candidates, and the districts that host their field placements that ultimately hire them. Building on the metaphorical concepts of ideological and implementational spaces (Flores & Schissel, 2014), the space between and encompassing the overlap between credentialing programs and school districts is characterized as a friction space beset by tensions between monoglossic and heteroglossic stances and the pragmatism of “entering the workforce.” The dynamics of this space are illustrated in five retratos constructed on qualitative data obtained through semistructured interviews. Based on the author's localized experiences, the article concludes by proposing approaches to navigate the friction space, reinforce the bilingual candidates' counterideological stances, and advance a much-needed productive dialogue in the teacher preparation ecology.


Author(s):  
Salika A. Lawrence ◽  
Rupam Saran ◽  
Tabora Johnson ◽  
Margareth Lafontant

When teachers use technology and digital tools for academic purposes, they are more apt to introduce it to their K-12 students. This chapter describes methods used by teacher educators to incorporate technology into their courses to help candidates meet professional standards, and methods used by teacher candidates to incorporate technology into their teaching to help P6 students meet technology and 21st century standards. Teacher preparation programs should introduce candidates to different technologies and software programs, provide opportunities for candidates to use the tools, and guide candidates as they develop learning resources in the field using the technology. Three factors impacted candidates' use of technology: their perceptions about their capabilities as users of technology in academic contexts, their experiences using technology, and their access to resources such as digital devices and software. Although some pitfalls occurred with program-wide technology integration, the study offers strategies for addressing these obstacles.


2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 728-750 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Brady ◽  
Katie Miller ◽  
Jazarae McCormick ◽  
Lawrence A. Heiser

Educators struggle with “value-added” teacher evaluation models based on high-stakes student assessments. Despite validity and reliability threats, these models evaluate university-based teacher preparation programs (TPPs), and play a role in state and professional accreditation. This study reports a more rational value-added evaluation model linking student performance to teacher candidates’ lessons during Practicum and Student Teaching. Results indicate that K-12 students showed learning gains on these lessons, with mixed findings on comparisons of part-time to full-time internships, academic and functional lessons, and candidates’ grade point averages (GPAs). Results indicated that teacher candidates’ lessons are a viable value-added model (VAM) alternative for TPPs.


Author(s):  
Lisa VASQUEZ

The current state of education embodies increasing public demands and policy mandates for teacher accountability in all classrooms, pre-kindergarten through Grade 12. Leaders expect increased academic performance to meet grade-level curriculum standards within a multicultural society. Teacher preparation programs are tasked to create and manage field experiences that guide practice within diverse learning communities. Teacher candidates interact with the cultural, social, and historical context of schools, of professional colleagues, and of the pupils they teach. In addition, teacher candidates should be prepared to develop practices that are intentional, personalized, differentiated, and purposeful for the pupils within their classrooms. This paper offers a case study of one university’s re-design of field experience supervision in its teacher preparation programs. The curriculum designers sought to ensure support for teacher candidates based on each student’s individual needs, while fostering systemic change responsive to ideas of race, gender, and other areas of intersectionality in a multicultural society. The field supervisor was the key to connect the practical, field-based experiences with the vision and mission of the university. Thus, program leaders identified the need to invest in the professional development of field supervisors in a way that brought the vision and mission to life—from words to action. The resulting framework included a multi-faceted approach of coaching / mentoring, professional development, and reflective discourse with colleagues.


Author(s):  
Reid Richard Riggle

Many teacher candidates enter teacher preparation programs with the desire to serve or to change the lives of others. Teacher education programs are uniquely positions leverage this desire to serve through intentional service-learning field placements. Service-learning, particularly early in the preparation program, can play a critical role in building the disposition to serve. This chapter explores one way teacher preparation programs can cultivate the orientation to serve high-need schools. Candidates enrolled in the Village Project serve in high-need schools, address a real community and educational need, and are provided reflection opportunities to connect the experience to their developing knowledge of learning and motivation. Ultimately, the goal the Village Project as an early service-learning field experience is to help teacher candidates develop a professional identity that increases the personal desire to work in educational communities that have a need.


Author(s):  
Tonya Huber ◽  
Elizabeth R. Sanmiguel ◽  
Lorena P. Cestou ◽  
Mayra L. Hernandez

As teacher-preparation programs educate and evaluate candidates to become globally competent instructional leaders, special attention should be given to international service-learning. Immersing teacher candidates in real-world experiences beyond their comfort zone is a cornerstone of this theoretical inquiry, including self-reflection strategies grounded on Paulo Freire's liberatory pedagogy for social justice. The research team reviews self- and cultural-awareness experiences, dispositions, and profiles of university teacher candidates, during a semester of curriculum studies affording opportunities to engage in local, local to global, and/or global/international service-learning. The discoveries will inform teacher educators as they develop and strengthen critical inquiry and service-learning components of their own courses.


Author(s):  
Alpana Bhattacharya

Teacher preparation programs in the United States are expected to educate preservice teacher candidates through instructor-learner partnerships. Collaborative learning, project-based learning, and authentic assessment therefore are vital for preparing teacher candidates to teach in 7-12 grades. This chapter shares instances of instructor-learner partnership from an undergraduate educational psychology course via course-based and field-based assignments. First, an overview of constructivism is presented as foundational theory anchoring instructor-learner partnership in the teacher preparation course. Next, instructor-learner partnership is illustrated within a simulation task, technology-enhanced project, and fieldwork experience. Finally, instructor-learner partnership in formative assessment of course-based and field-based activities are illustrated. The chapter concludes with recommendations for inculcating instructor-learner partnership in teacher education courses, and directions for future research pertinent to instructor-learner partnership in teacher preparation programs.


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