Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Spring 2017

Abstract

This qualitative study investigated how graduate preservice teachers (PSTs) engaged in a digital practicum experience with a geographically distant secondary English Language Arts (ELA) classroom. The graduate PSTs, enrolled in a Masters of Arts, English Education program at a university in the mid-Atlantic United States, mentored the 9th-grade students in the online spaces of a course wiki and video conferencing. In this portion of a larger study, PSTs mentored the students during a poetry unit organized by the ELA cooperating teacher and housed in the ELA classroom. A goal of this practicum was building PSTs’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge (Shulman, 1986) and Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (Koehler & Mishra, 2009) specific to the use of emerging technologies within the ELA classroom. The findings of this study show that online spaces can develop dispositions of New Literacies (Knobel & Lankshear, 2007) and can bridge theory and practice in teacher preparation programs.

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