Preparing elementary education teacher candidates to teach with technology: The role of modeling

Abstract

In teacher education programs, modeling from both teacher education faculty and clinical educators in schools can support teacher candidates’ adoption of new instructional practices. This study examined how modeling from both teacher education faculty and clinical educators influenced elementary education teacher candidates’ development of technology integration knowledge and use of technology while teaching. Further analysis looked at how technology modeling and use aligned to higher-order thinking skills using the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy framework (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2000). Teacher education faculty primarily modeled technology integration with higher-order thinking skills such as rigorous practice activities and project-based learning, whereas the clinical educators modeled technology integration through lower-level activities such as educational review games and showing videos. Further, candidates used technology in lower-level ways more than higher-level ways. Based on the findings of our study, we discuss how modeling can support teacher candidates’ development of TPACK.