Engaging Preservice Teachers in Professional Development about iPads

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-43
Author(s):  
Katheryn E. Shannon ◽  
Theresa A Cullen
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Classroom Practice ◽  
College Of Education ◽  
Student Feedback ◽  
Community Members ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Development Approach ◽  
Integration Strategies ◽  
New Applications

The iEducate mini-conference was a professional development approach used in a college of education that has a one to one iPad initiative. Students were strongly encouraged to attend workshops on effective iPad integration strategies for the classroom during a one-week period. A total of 87 students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members participated and two-thirds indicated they would participate in similar events in the future. Participants indicated that opportunities to share their knowledge and collaborate with peers to explore new applications and integration strategies, connect new knowledge and skills to K12 classroom practice, and talk to K12 students about their vision for technology integration were beneficial outcomes of the experience. Discussion of the structure and management of the event, student feedback and plans for future implementations are provided.

Engaging Preservice Teachers in Professional Development About iPads

2018 ◽  
pp. 1065-1073
Author(s):  
Katheryn E. Shannon ◽  
Theresa A. Cullen
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Classroom Practice ◽  
College Of Education ◽  
Student Feedback ◽  
Community Members ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Development Approach ◽  
Integration Strategies ◽  
New Applications

The iEducate mini-conference was a professional development approach used in a college of education that has a one to one iPad initiative. Students were strongly encouraged to attend workshops on effective iPad integration strategies for the classroom during a one-week period. A total of 87 students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members participated and two-thirds indicated they would participate in similar events in the future. Participants indicated that opportunities to share their knowledge and collaborate with peers to explore new applications and integration strategies, connect new knowledge and skills to K12 classroom practice, and talk to K12 students about their vision for technology integration were beneficial outcomes of the experience. Discussion of the structure and management of the event, student feedback and plans for future implementations are provided.

From salvation to inquiry: Preservice teachers’ conceptions of race

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 368-384
Author(s):  
Lucinda Grace Heimer
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Classroom Practice ◽  
Future Teacher ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
The Impact

Race is a marker hiding more complex narratives. Children identify the social cues that continue to segregate based on race, yet too often teachers fail to provide support for making sense of these worlds. Current critical scholarship highlights the importance of addressing issues of race, culture, and social justice with future teachers. The timing of this work is urgent as health, social and civil unrest due to systemic racism in the U.S. raise critiques and also open possibilities to reimagine early childhood education. Classroom teachers feel pressure to standardize pedagogy and outcomes yet meet myriad student needs and talents in complex settings. This study builds on the current literature as it uses one case study to explore institutional messages and student perceptions in a future teacher education program that centers race, culture, identity, and social justice. Teaching as a caring profession is explored to illuminate the impact authentic, aesthetic, and rhetorical care may have in classrooms. Using key tenets of Critical Race Theory as an analytical tool enhanced the case study process by focusing the inquiry on identity within a racist society. Four themes are highlighted related to institutional values, rigorous coursework, white privilege, and connecting individual racial and cultural understanding with classroom practice. With consideration of ethical relationality, teacher education programs begin to address the impact of racist histories. This work calls for individualized critical inquiry regarding future teacher understanding of “self” in new contexts as well as an investigation of how teacher education programs fit into larger institutional philosophies.

Teachers’ Professional Development in a Climate of Educational Reform

1993 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Warren Little
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Educational Reform ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Classroom Practice ◽  
School Organization ◽  
Reform Initiatives ◽  
Coaching Model ◽  
Development Policies ◽  
Teachers Professional Development ◽  
Policies And Practices

This essay posits a problem of fit among five streams of reform and prevailing configurations of teachers’ professional development. It argues that the dominant training-and-coaching model—focused on expanding an individual repertoire of well-defined classroom practice—is not adequate to the conceptions or requirements of teaching embedded in present reform initiatives. Subject matter collaboratives and other emerging alternatives are found to embody six principles that stand up to the complexity of reforms in subject matter teaching, equity, assessment, school organization, and the professionalization of teaching. The principles form criteria for assessing professional development policies and practices.

Teacher Data Analysis and Assets-Based Discourses about Multilingual Youth: Exploration of Relationships

2020 ◽  
Vol 122 (11) ◽  
pp. 1-42
Author(s):  
Daniella Molle
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Student Engagement ◽  
Classroom Practice ◽  
Data Use ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Multilingual Students ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Mediational Role ◽  
Teacher Data ◽  
Over Time

Context The pervasiveness of deficit-based discourses about multilingual students has long been documented in the scholarly literature. Such discourses severely erode the learning and well-being of multilingual youth. One of the spaces in which deficit-based discourses about students may be transformed is professional development. Focus of the Study The study connects a key practice of high-quality professional development, the analysis of classroom evidence of student learning, to student-focused discourses about multilingual youth. The research questions the study addresses are: As they make sense of data together, (a) how do teachers discursively position multilingual youth? and (b) what factors reinforce and undermine assets-based discourses about multilingual youth? Research Design Leveraging a case study approach, I explore how a team of three middle-school teachers positions students while analyzing classroom evidence during a one-year professional development designed for educators of multilingual youth. I rely primarily on transcripts of professional development sessions to trace student positioning by the team over time as teachers analyze dissimilar types of classroom evidence. Findings The findings reveal complex mediational relationships among teachers’ data use, student positioning, and shared theories of student engagement. These co-constructed theories reinforce deficit views of students when student reasoning and participation in learning are obscured by the data teachers are exploring. When the data make the process of student engagement available for reflection, however, teachers shift toward assets-based discourses. In addition, the findings shed light on relationships between type of evidence and implications for classroom practice. The teachers in the study shift their focus from teacher-centered instruction to the scaffolding of student interaction when the data make visible student participation in learning. Conclusions The study contributes to a nascent knowledge base about the complex relationships between teacher analysis of classroom evidence and assets-based discourses about all students and multilingual students in particular. The findings expand current conceptualizations of teacher data use by foregrounding student positioning over time as a key element of teacher sensemaking, and revealing the significant mediational role that shared theories of student engagement play in teachers’ data use. In terms of practical implications, the study offers insights into the mechanisms through which assets-based discourses about multilingual youth can be fostered across learning contexts.

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