Challenges and Aspects of a Research-Based Agenda for Teacher Education for the Use of ICT in Classrooms

Building a research-based agenda for teacher education requires a broad basis of data. For an agenda focusing digital skills these data should cover a range of aspects: national or international specifications and standards for teacher education, e.g., DigCompEdu (Redecker, 2017), pre-service teachers’ prior knowledge and characteristics of course concepts which are effective for the development of digital competencies, for example those linked to TPACK and the use of ICT in classrooms. It is achieved to develop and discuss an effective concept for academic pre-service teacher education at universities targeting digital competencies based on data collected for the listed aspects. Therefore, this symposium focusses on four different aspects related to the development of such a concept for a research-based agenda for science teacher education:

First, empirical data on pre-service science teachers’ experience with digital media in school and at university is collected (Thyssen et al., 2018). With these data, their prior knowledge and resulting desiderata in digital competencies can be described. Based on these data content and aims of courses designed for the development of ICT competencies can be deduced (Abstract A).

Second, the symposium will summarize the results of a study on courses for pre-service teachers. 12 courses designed by fellows of the Kolleg Didaktik:digital were evaluated in their effectiveness to foster ICT competencies of pre-service science teachers (Vogelsang et al., 2019). Despite different objectives and types of digital media used in these courses, the results of the study indicate that it is possible to trigger positive effects on the pre-service science teachers’ motivation, self-efficacy and attitudes towards the use of digital media in classroom instruction (Abstract B & C).

At German universities, science teacher education programs basically consist of three academic subjects: science (biology, chemistry and/or physics), pedagogy and science education. This subjects mainly cover content knowledge (CK), pedagogical knowledge (PK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), as described in the PCK-model (Shulman, 1986). Also, teaching with digital media needs/relies on PCK-model based skills and competencies however technological knowledge (as described by the TPACK model, cf. Mishra & Koehler, 2006) and related skills and competencies have to be developed as well (Koehler et al., 2014). Therefore, an agenda for science teacher education has to integrate this technological perspective into existing curricula without neglecting non-digital components. Since course time at universities is limited, new strategies for teaching should initiate synergies and integrate all different lecturers and teacher educators involved in the educational process. In this sense, the third aspect of the symposium will be discussing a framework for the science teacher education (biology, chemistry and physics), which will cover competencies and knowledge related to digital media and tools. This framework will include categories derived from inquiry and experimental procedures. The framework will also suggest integrating lecturers from different backgrounds such as TCK (Technical Content Knowledge) or TPK (Technical Pedagogical Knowledge). For example, it is not necessary to cover certain digital techniques such as image analysis which is used in modern scientific research, in courses focusing on science education. Such techniques, however, could be an obligatory element of lectures in the technical science disciplines (e.g., biology or physics). The workload of teaching these techniques could be distributed on science, science education and pedagogic courses with a focus on TCK, TPACK or TPK, respectively. Pedagogic courses could cover the methodological implementation of digital techniques and their organizational challenges. Meanwhile, specialized science education courses could demonstrate how these techniques can be usefully integrated into school lessons (Abstract B).

As part of the commitment of EERA to ensuring that our annual European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) is as sustainable as possible, we were delighted to work with the local organisers of our Hamburg 2019 conference to develop our 'Green Agenda'.  Watch this videoto learn more!