Dissertation Defenses – COE Dept. of Educational Technology & Literacy
Wednesday, April 19th at 10:00 am
Psychology Building Room 312 or Via Zoom
K-12 Teachers’ Preparedness for Integrating One-to-One Technology: Measuring Digital Competence
Presented by: Heather Swinder
One-to-one technology in education refers to learning environments where every student has access to their own device (ISTE, 2022). These environments are quite different from traditional classrooms and require an alternative approach to teaching. While a current trend in K-12 Public Schools across the United States is to equip classrooms with one-to-one devices, many studies acknowledge the lack of focus on teacher preparation for effective instruction in one-to-one learning environments. Through a descriptive analysis, this study utilizes a cross-sectional descriptive survey, that reflects predetermined digital competencies for the student-centered, one-to-one educator, to measure and describe teachers’ preparedness for effective instruction in such environments. The results describe teachers’ digital competency skill levels and the frequency with which competencies are implemented into instructional practices and the relationships between skill level and frequency of use as well as skill level, frequency of use, and participant demographics. These results of this study provide a framework to guide teachers with effective one-to-one implementation practices and offer professional development resources.
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Friday, April 21st at 10:00 am
Hawkins Hall Room 110 or Via Zoom
From Professional Development to Praxis: Exploring Teachers’ Experiences with Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Practices
Presented by: Laura Cometa
Classrooms across the U.S. are becoming increasingly diverse, but many teachers are unprepared to meet the needs of multilingual learners (MLs), students who are learning English in school. Sustained professional development focused on culturally and linguistically responsive (CLR-PD) practices aims to equip teachers with “mindsets and skillsets” to promote equity and success for MLs. This alternative format dissertation presents three manuscripts that explored the experiences and views of teachers participating in a three-year CLR-PD graduate studies program. An interpretive qualitative case study design was used with reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) methods to develop themes in each of the manuscripts. The first manuscript illuminates the participants’ experiences with CLR practices and praxis, as they taught MLs during emergency remote learning (ERL) in the 2020-2021 school year. The second manuscript describes the participants’ experiences with and notions about CLR school leadership. The final manuscript adds to our understanding of how participants’ CLR-PD experiences related to their teacher self-efficacy (TSE) and efforts to build collective teacher efficacy (CTE) in the 2021-2022 school year after their CLR-PD graduation. These studies offer insights into how progress can be made to improve instruction and outcomes for MLs through investing in teachers’ professional learning. Implications for practice and recommendations for future research are discussed in the conclusion.
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Tags: ResearchCategorised in: General
This post was written by Miller, Kendall