Technology

The COVID-19 induced school shutdown dramatically decreased students’ hands-on STEM learning opportunities. An NSF-funded program partnering preservice teachers and undergraduate engineering students to teach robotics to fifth graders was adapted to a virtual format via Zoom. A case study intimately explored one team’s experience as they engineered bio-inspired robots over five weekly sessions. Zoom recordings, written reflections, and lesson slides were analyzed to describe how the virtual context shaped the lesson and influenced the preservice teacher’s experience.

The CHALK tool is a progressive web application that guides educators to improve instructional quality in early education settings. CHALK provides targeted observation tools that allow instructional coaches to easily track key classroom practices on their digital devices in real-time. This tool instantly transforms observation data into user-friendly visualizations for coaches and teachers to engage in data-driven coaching conversations for professional growth.

The use of video is commonplace for professional preparation in education and other fields. Research has provided evidence that the use of video in these contexts can lead to increased noticing and reflection. However, educators now have access to evolving forms of video such as 360 video. The purpose of this study was to adapt and validate an instrument for assessing immersive 360 video use in an undergraduate preservice teacher university training program.

Research has provided evidence of the value of producing multiple representationsof content for learners (e.g., verbal, visual, etc.). However, much of the research has acknowledged changes in visual technologies while not recognizing or utilizing related audio innovations. For instance, teacher education students who were once taught through two-dimensional video are now being presented with interactive, three-dimensional content (e.g., simulations or 360 video). Users in old and new formats, however, still typically receive monophonic sound.