Empowering Teachers
Curriculum and Pedagogy in STEM Education: Developing Teacher Candidates’ Technological Literacy and Inclusive Practices
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Isha DeCoito, Mohammed Estaiteyeh
In this paper, the authors detail a STEM education course enriched with digital technologies, which concurrently focused on principles of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). The course is entitled Curriculum and Pedagogy in STEM Education and is offered to teacher candidates (TCs) in a teacher education program at a Canadian university. The course engages TCs in curriculum development while promoting reflective practice, collaborative learning, and scientific and technological literacies. The course was initially developed and enriched with digital resources and assignments focusing on digital case studies, curriculum websites, digital timelines, and digital video games. Furthermore, to ensure that TCs are trained on inclusive practices, the course integrated EDI principles throughout all assignments, seminars and resources using an explicit and reflective approach. As an example of inclusive practices, tailored tasks requiring the application of differentiated instruction were included. The authors present their reflections on the course development and share findings on the impact of the course derived from data analysis of quantitative (pre-and post-surveys) and qualitative data (coursework) collected from TCs. This research advances knowledge on teacher preparation in online teaching and inclusive education. It demonstrates the impact of digital pedagogies on TCs’ technological literacy as well as their engagement with EDI principles.
Talking Back to Shakespeare in a South African Lecture Room: Engaging in Critical Conversations about Social Justice, Understanding and Tolerance View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ansurie Pillay
In this paper, I reflect on a series of lectures, underpinned by the principles of Freire’s critical pedagogy, when engaging with Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Working with pre-service teachers in a South African School of Education, I used a talk-back design to enable them to talk back to the canon and open interactional dialogue about social justice, understanding and tolerance. I used hot seating, teacher-in-role and written work and found that pre-service teachers grasped the opportunities to set the agenda for interrogating and resisting forms of knowledge usually deemed worthy. I understood that using a dialogic platform enabled them to identify different forms of knowledge and it allowed them to understand that all texts are socially constructed, are of a time, reflect an agenda, and need to be interrogated and resisted, if necessary. I found the talk-back design important in enabling democratic participation as pre-service teachers designed their own counter-discursive responses as they confronted the canonical imperatives.
Empowering Teacher Candidates of Mexican Descent: Adapting Artificial Intelligence for Science of Teaching Reading in the Southwestern United States
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Heriberto Godina
The present study examines teacher-candidate preparation in the Southwestern United States, and how AI usage can be adapted and shared for optimal learning outcomes in a manner that maintains academic integrity and intercultural competencies for learning among historically stigmatized minorities. Participants for this study include teacher candidates of Mexican descent enrolled in literacy education classes and preparing for the Science of Teaching Reading examination as a requirement for teacher certification. The present study takes place along the border between Mexico and the United States in the Laredo region. Public-school performance in literacy has been in decline post-covid quarantine among the mostly Hispanic/Mexican American public-school population. The need for professionally trained and knowledgeable literacy teachers to address the present literacy crisis has never been greater. Data collection is ongoing and implements reflective narratives and assignment artifacts as exemplars used to illustrate and examine how AI usage is influencing teacher candidates. Initial results reveal how participants share mixed attitudes about AI usage. The present study examines how AI can be adapted for successful retrieval of lesson plans that correlate with Texas state standards for instruction and for scholarly teacher articles pertinent to Science of Teaching Reading. In contrast, teacher candidates engage innovative assignments that purposefully circumvent the use of AI as a substitute for practical knowledge and skills related to teacher-candidate preparation. Educators who seek to examine innovative applications for AI usage among culturally-diverse populations should be interested in this study.
