Preparing Elementary Pre-Service Teachers from a Non-Traditional Student Population to Teach with Technology

Abstract

This article documents the development of a two-stage curriculum intended to improve elementary teacher candidates’ understanding of technology integration. Most students in the program came from low-income districts and lacked technology experience. The first stage of the curriculum consisted of a prerequisite basic technology skills course offered by the Computer Science Department. This was then followed by an online educational technology course offered by the College of Education. The objectives of the authors in this article are twofold. The first is to describe the rationale, procedures, and design of a two-stage curriculum, as a pedagogical model for teaching elementary teacher candidates to teach with technology, with the goal of preparing a new generation of teachers who are capable and comfortable applying a broad range of advanced technologies to meet the learning needs of their students. The second objective is to share the authors' findings from the evaluation, which employed mixed methodologies, after the students completed the online educational technology course. The results showed that an online educational technology course contributed to the candidates’ development of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge and improved their attitudes and beliefs on their technology integration practices.

KEYWORDS:

• digital divide
• technology integration
• educational technology course
• online course
• pre-service teacher education
• teacher preparation
• technological pedagogical content knowledge
• teaching with technology

Notes

1. Thompson and Mishra (2008) proposed renaming the acronym from TPCK to TPACK (pronounced “tee-pack”) so that it would be easier to remember.