EXPLORING LITERACY PEDAGOGY WITH DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES IN TEACHER EDUCATION

ii Despite current emphasis in teacher preparation programs on developing pre-service teachers ‘ comfort and competence with digital learning technologies (DLT), research suggests that pre-service teachers struggle to transfer innovative applications of technology into their eventual teaching practice. In particular, they resist change from traditional constructs of teaching and learning. In this dissertation, I suggest that disrupting pre-conceived notions of teaching and learning is a requisite step to facilitating change in classroom practice. Neuman (1990) observed that classroom practice is ―disrupted ‖ when digital technologies are integrated ―in a way that fundamentally alters the instructional environment so that teaching and learning occur differently than before the technology was appropriated ‖ (p. 110). This thesis is composed of five chapters. The first chapter provides the theoretical framework that has informed the study and describes the case study methodology employed to explore the following two research questions: (a) How do pre-service teachers experience DLT in the context of a 12-month elementary teacher education program? (b) How do we disrupt pre