Theses and Dissertations

Advisor

Alley, Kathleen

Committee Member

Lemley, Stephanie

Committee Member

Miller, Nicole

Committee Member

Javorsky, Kristin

Committee Member

Walker, Ryan

Date of Degree

5-10-2024

Original embargo terms

Immediate Worldwide Access

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Major

Curriculum and Instruction (Elementary Education)

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D)

College

College of Education

Department

Department of Teacher Education and Leadership

Abstract

Demands of the workplace and society have made 21st-century knowledge and skills critical elements for success. As a result, the role of teachers in adequately preparing students to meet these demands continues to grow. National and state standards also call for increased attention to multimodal reading and writing. Today’s teachers must have the skills to effectively integrate technology into teaching and learning, supporting student development of digital reading and writing skills. Unfortunately, many teachers do not feel adequately prepared to do this (Hutchison & Reinking, 2011). Teacher education preparation programs must intentionally design programs to prepare teacher candidates for this challenging task (Starkey & Yates, 2020). The purpose of this study was to determine teacher candidates’ perceptions of technology integration and to understand their preparedness to integrate technology into a disciplinary literacy lesson. The conceptual framework for this study consisted of 4 interwoven theoretical perspectives. Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1986) was used as the overarching foundational framework, with the New Literacy Perspective (Leu et al., 2004), the SAMR Model (Puentedura, 2006), and the Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework (Mishra & Koehler, 2006) as additional lenses for interpretation of the findings. This qualitative case study examined 11 Elementary Education teacher candidates as they planned for and created a disciplinary literacy lesson plan. A variety of data sources were collected, including pre- and post-technology surveys, documents, verbal protocols, and semi-structured interviews. First and second-cycle coding was applied to the data to determine themes. The data revealed that participants’ technology integration was generally inconsistent across the SAMR levels. Often, participants’ thinking processes revealed a deeper level of technology integration than their actual integration in lesson plans did. Additionally, 4 participant profiles emerged as a result of the levels of technology integration in participants’ disciplinary literacy lesson plans: (a) Minimal Integrators, (b) Inconsistent Integrators, (c) Consistent Integrators, and (d) Insightful Integrators.

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