Enacting Equity-Focused Technology Integration Practices in Preservice Coursework and Clinical Practice

Framework

Across our COE credential programs, preservice teachers engage in clinical experiences to prepare for their role as future educators. Clinical supervisors utilize state-level Teaching Performance Expectations (TPEs) to evaluate clinical practice, and teacher education faculty integrate the TPEs in theoretical and pedagogical coursework to prepare candidates for teaching in public school classrooms.
However, the TPEs are external standards provided by the state. Past internal evaluation and program review work has identified a significant need for refining and innovating evaluation criteria to move beyond meeting standards and ensure that we are building our program in response to the assets and needs of our candidates and local school communities. This improvement and revision work directly aligns with the call from ISTE and the U.S. DOE’s Digital Equity and Transformation pledge. In short, our research seeks to address current programmatic gaps between preservice coursework and preparation, clinical practice supervision, and expectations of local school districts and administrators, particularly around classroom technology expectations and integration.
This work is situated within larger research-practice partnerships (RPP) that currently exists between the university and the local schools and districts we support (e.g., Coburn & Penuel, 2016). In general, RPPs are “long-term collaborations between practitioners and researchers that are organized to investigate problems of practice and solutions for improving schools and school districts” (Coburn & Penuel, 2016, p. 48). We are working with local administrators and mentor teachers to collaboratively co-construct and define subdomains and assessment strategies for preservice clinical practice experiences based on the specific needs, contexts, expectations, and cultures of the schools we serve. This work builds on existing partnerships with local districts, including the enrollment of many local administrators in our Administrative Services Credential program.  
 In addition to this larger RPP context, this work is situated within the specific context of our university being a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI). Seventy percent of our COE students are Hispanic/Latinx. However, being an HSI is more than demographics or numbers, and requires specific and unique types of support, programming, leadership, and policy to truly act in service of our students (Ballysingh et al., 2017). In our COE, we are continually moving towards enacting and revising policies and practices that align with measures (e.g., enrollment numbers, persistence numbers, university culture) that act in service of Hispanic/Latinx students (Ballysingh et al., 2017; Garcia, 2020). For example, we build connections and opportunities throughout our course curricula for students of color to draw on their own funds of knowledge and experiential wisdom (e.g., Gonzalez et al., 1995). This overarching philosophy of rejecting historical, white ideals and systems permeates the work we do, and serves as a guidepost and anchor for the activities addressed in this proposal.
 Finally, we aim to examine and assess the successful integration of technology through the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework, which offers a way for teachers to integrate technology creatively and effectively in instruction (Mishra & Koehler, 2006). At the foundation of TPACK are three bodies of teacher knowledge: (1) Content knowledge (CK) (teachers’ subject matter knowledge); (2) pedagogical knowledge (PK) (teachers’ knowledge of instructional practices and strategies); and (3) technology knowledge (TK) (teachers' knowledge about how technologies can be used to enhance student learning) (Koehler et al., 2014). A TPACK framework offers teachers a way to understand how content knowledge may often be constrained by the functional limitation of technologies (TCK); how teachers can organize, present, and adapt content knowledge to the diverse needs of their students (PCK); how technologies might constraint implementation of specific pedagogical strategies (TPK); and how a comprehensive understanding of content, pedagogy, and technology and their interactions can help develop context-specific teaching strategies and lessons (Koehler et al., 2014).
Newer iterations of the TPACK framework also include the incorporation of the specific cultural and contextual elements of an environment, which is ideal for the work proposed, as we aim to be highly aligned with the specific and unique contexts of the schools we serve (Warr, Mishra, & Scragg, 2019; see Figure 3 below). An approach that accounts for and centers context and culture aligns with our equity-focused lens of ensuring that the subdomains, rubrics, and professional development we design are highly connected to the specific needs of our local schools.

Methods

The study focuses on the Educator Preparation Program (EPP) in a College of Education at a minority serving university in southern California that supports local partner districts, including Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest district. The EPP’s focus is to prepare critical-minded educators who co-create transformative change in classrooms. Edtech skill development is not currently a central focus of the EPP and no edtech courses are offered. We are employing a mixed-method approach (Creswell & Clark, 2017) across a two-phase study to address the study’s two research questions, as described below:

Phase 1: Fall 2022 (RQ 1) - What education technology (edtech) integration occurs in partner pK-12 classrooms, and what knowledge and skills are expected of incoming teachers?

We began to address this question by engaging in preliminary conversations with current COE students, alumni, and local administrators. These conversations informed the design of our formal survey instrument (Dillman, Smyth, & Christian, 2014), which is currently being delivered to local pK-12 administrators to better understand their technology integration needs and expectations. Survey participants are all invited to participate in follow-up semi-structured interviews (Carspecken, 2013) as well as classroom/school observations (Pole & Morrison, 2003).
Data will be thematically analyzed (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Glaser & Strauss, 1999), focusing first on survey and interview data. The surveys are currently being pilot tested and distributed. The interviews will be conducted with current pK-12 administrators, and initial findings will inform tools built for classroom observations. Participants expressing interest will be interviewed.

Phase 2: Spring 2023 (RQ2) - How might we align approaches to edtech integration between EPPs and partner pK-12 school districts, while being mindful of teacher workload?

 Following the collection and analysis of survey, interview, and observation data from research question 1, we will work to integrate our findings into College of Education (COE) coursework during Spring 2023. During this work, participants will be COE faculty and preservice (future) teachers in the COE. Interviews will be conducted with COE faculty and preservice teachers (Carspecken, 2013) and classroom observations (Pole & Morrison, 2003) will take place to observe the integration of newly adopted technology practices and activities. Here again data will be thematically analyzed (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Glaser & Strauss, 1999).
Finally, across all data being generated for both research questions, constant comparative analysis (e.g., Fram, 2013) will be used to continuously and iteratively analyze data to align emergent themes with research questions. Constant comparative analysis is ideal for providing a more holistic, evolving understanding across participant experiences, that is able to capture rich detail across a variety of data sources (Fram, 2013). This analysis procedure will also allow for synthesis of findings and themes across our two research phases / questions.

Results

Data collection began in Fall 2022. Survey, interview, and observation data collection and analysis for Phase 1 will be complete by the end of Spring 2023. Interview and observation data for Phase 2 will begin in Spring 2023 and analysis will be complete during Summer 2023.
Our preliminary results and conversations with preservice teachers and alumni indicate that program graduates receive foundational and initial orientations towards edtech in their programs, but that knowledge does not necessarily translate to classroom demands. The preliminary conversations with local administrators suggested that expectations for the need of technology integration in classrooms vary significantly between schools and districts.
Based on preliminary findings, we anticipate a disconnect between coursework, credential program experiences, actual classrooms, and administrator and district requirements. Preservice teachers have reported not feeling fully prepared for the expectations of classroom edtech knowledge and skills. Local school administrators have reported a wide variance in terms of the experiences preservice teachers bring with them related to education technology as well as their own level of knowledge and skills.

Importance

Balancing tensions between preservice coursework and district expectations can be difficult to navigate, especially given the ever-increasing demands on teacher time and energy. The goal of this study is to provide a nuanced, rich exploration of how one preservice teacher program is engaging with that tension, and exploring ways to align preservice experiences with district expectations, while being mindful of teacher workload.
Additionally, as technology use in schools continues to become an essential part of teaching and learning, it is important we equip our teachers with the knowledge of how to use technology within their classrooms while being mindful of its impact on underserved communities. This work is situated within a COE that forefronts the development of critically minded educators who challenge the ways schools (and technology) perpetuate systems of inequity. While understanding the needs and expectations of local administrators around effective technology integration within their schools is important and foundational work, tensions also exist around competing perspectives of the role edtech should play in the classroom. For example, applications that may be espoused by some as core tools to support differentiation, may also be tools that sell student data to third party vendors. These types of nuanced, critical conversations around edtech integration are what this study aims to explore.
Overall, this study contributes to a better understanding of the often conflicting demands on preservice and new teachers between College of Education preparation programs and local pK-12 school districts, particularly around technology integration knowledge and skills. We aim to explore and find balance between these two sides, while also centering the needs and experiences of teachers, particularly given ever-expanding teacher workloads.

References

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