Connecting university early childhood and family educators' experiences with student ipads through dialogical positioning to shifting pedagogies and culture

The purpose of this study was to explore the process of student iPad implementation using democratic tactics to influence teaching practices and emerging cultures of innovation. Students whose learning experiences manifested new considerations of iPads as future early childhood and human service practitioners determined culture shifts. The problems that prompted this research were threefold. The first was the dearth of evidence connecting democratic innovation tactics to subsequent teaching practices. The second was to make the process of shifting teaching practices that accommodate digitally mediated learning more visible. The third was lack of evidence of student perceptions about iPads enhancing learning, and subsequent considerations of iPads for working with young children and families in professional settings that suggest the development of a culture of innovation. To address these issues and this phenomenon taking place at Texas Woman’s University with three university professors and their students, multiple ethnographic methods were employed. Interviews, classroom observations, reflexive journals, weekly debriefing meetings, and focus groups provided substantial data over the course of 1-year. I used NVIVO, a computer assisted qualitative data analysis system (CAQDAS), to code and analyze using Matrix Coding, Cluster Analyses, and Word Frequencies. Findings showed connections between professors’ democratic experiences during their implementation process and shifting teaching practices. Further, the dialogic negotiations that took place during their exploration of student iPads illustrated how dialogue within a small community could support appropriate and practical teaching practices in university early education and family and consumer sciences courses.

Grantor dc:publisher

Texas Woman's University

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Masek, Nicole

• contextual implementation
• culture of innovation
• Democratic Implementation
• Dialogic negotiations
• early childhood educators
• professional development

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11274/8765

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:twu-ir.tdl.org:11274/8765