Teacher Training
Digital Literacies: Preservice Teachers Instructional Practices
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Victoria Cardullo
This study addresses the pre-service teacher’s implementation of digital literacy strategies within an alternative field placement. The participants first learned about strategic learning in both the print and digital world, evaluated their own strategy use, and then implemented lessons using technology. Although they were aware of the benefits of technology and how successful learning with technology requires the explicit teaching of digital literacy strategies, they often struggled with implementation. Despite the reflective comments made during coursework and after the field experience, there seemed to be an underlying assumption that students already had the tools needed to learn on a digital device. The analysis of these six cases infers that pre-service teachers may need more explicit instruction in the implementation of digital literacy strategies to move beyond the application of tools to teaching thinking strategies.
Fostering Teaching Development through Teaching Observations: A Framework Proposal
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Leonardo Caporarello, Manuela Milani, Federica Cirulli
Teaching improvement is essential to guarantee the continuous alignment with students, while their habits and styles as learners evolve over time. With this regard, we ran a study aiming at proposing a framework for teaching observation so to complement the teacher development process. Based on these premises, this paper focuses on the exploration of current teaching observations practices and the proposal of a preliminary framework to be adopted in the University domain. In the effort to support the quality of teaching and learning in higher education, and to sustain teaching development, the aim of our teaching observation framework is twofold. On one side, the aim is to provide structured feedback to instructors about their teaching from a point of view of an expert. For this reason, instructors agree with the criteria of the non-evaluative observation and will receive feedback and suggestions. The latters could support them to become reflective instructors improving as a consequence, the entire learning process. On the other side, the aim of our teaching observations is to collect data and evidences useful to design effective Faculty Development proposals as part of our institutional training project. At the level of the instructor, the desired result should consist in a personal improvement thanks to the received feedback. At an institutional level, observations should facilitate the (re)design of courses and activities that are part of the instructors’ training offer. Our study is innovative because it enlarges the concepts of teaching evaluation, going beyond the evaluations provided by students.
