Abstract
In this chapter, the authors explore how a digitally literate early childhood education intern successfully incorporated an inquiry cycle for a series of science lessons during her remote practicum experience and how she capitalized on technology to engage and collaborate with children and their family. In describing the remote experience, the authors discuss how communication and documentation through digital tools such as e-books, applications, websites, and authoring tools supported learning and modeling for the family. The authors conclude with teacher takeaways for supporting interns and families in remote inquiry experiences with young children.
TopIntroduction
Historically, there has been significant caution about the integration of digital media and technology into early childhood education, which has been rooted in beliefs and attitudes about the negative impact of technology on learning and social skills and a perceived decline in play, a focus on play-based pedagogy in early childhood education (Lindahl & Folkesson, 2012; Marsh & Bishop, 2013; Palailogou, 2016; Wood et al., 2008). Now, however, there is a general consensus that digital media and technology can be “rich sources of innovative ingredients” (Clements & Sarama, 2002, p. 342) and that digitally literate teachers can develop well designed lessons that intentionally use technology to support cognitive, literary, and social outcomes for children (AAP Council on Communications and Media, 2016; National Association for the Education of Young Children [NAEYC] and Fred Rogers Center, 2012).
Despite messages from leading Early Childhood organizations, such as the National Association for the Education of Young Children and the Fred Rogers Center, that technology and digital media can support learning and development, the integration of technology and digital media in the early childhood classroom has been slow and limited (Marsh et al, 2017; Palaiologou, 2016). This lack of progress has been attributed to a variety of factors including, but not limited to, lack of equipment, educator beliefs and attitudes, lack of knowledge and skills, time, training, confidence, and support (Donohue, 2020; Marsh et al, 2017; Vongkulluksn et al., 2018). Given the importance of digitally literate teachers to provide opportunities for children to learn through and with technology and digital media, and considering the barriers to integrating technology, teacher educator programs must provide knowledge, skills, and models for effective use of technology and digital media in the classroom.
Already the COVID-19 pandemic has provided teacher educator programs the impetus they need to ensure the preparedness of digitally literate educators (Franko, 2021). Due to the pandemic, many universities and schools had to rapidly adapt to remote teaching to create learning environments and prepare future teachers (Flores & Gago, 2020). This abrupt transition required both teacher educators and preservice teachers to adapt to a new model of teaching environment, whereas this process also resulted in several challenges and constraints that they needed to overcome (Carrillo & Flores, 2020). Previous research in teacher preparation programs has been widely conducted to study the impact of remote teaching, factors that influence preservice teachers’ professional growth, challenges associated with poor online teaching substructures, inexperience of teachers, lack of information and resources, complex home environments, and lack of mentoring and support (e.g., Huber & Helm, 2020; Judd et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2020). However, many of these studies are oriented to explore the delivery of remote teaching by teacher educators to student teachers, and thus there is a lack of research studying preservice teachers’ use of remote teaching while working with young children in the field of early childhood education (ECE).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Pedagogical Documentation: An intentional use of images, videos, written work, observation notes, audio recordings, etc. to understand children’s thinking, to analyze how children learn, and to help teachers develop an instructional plan.
Digitally Literate Educators: Teachers who have broad and deep knowledge of various digital tools and can purposefully select and use them to engage students in learning and for their students to demonstrate their learning in meaningful ways.
Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK): Part of the TPACK framework that attempts to identify the complexity of knowledge teachers need for integrating technology into teaching. TPK refers specifically to the knowing what tools to use and how to use them in developmentally appropriate ways.
Cycle of Inquiry: A recursive process of observing, interpreting, planning, implementing, and reflecting; the disposition to engage in this cycle encourages teachers to engage in systematic, intentional, and self-critical teaching practices.
Digital Media: Any communication media that are transmitted digitally, such as applications, websites, video, and virtual reality.
E-Book: A book that can be read on an electronic device. E-books may include multimedia such as animations, audio, or video.
Technology: Any electronic tool for teaching and learning that stores, transmits, or receives information through machine coding in 0s and 1s, such as computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc.