Assessment Across Online Language Education - Stephanie Link
6. Evaluating Teacher Tech Literacies Using an Argument-based Approach
Assessment Across Online Language Education - Stephanie Link
Jesse Gleason [+]
Southern Connecticut State University
Elena Schmitt [+]
Southern Connecticut State University
Description
Across the US, the need for language teachers with technology-specific literacies is climbing, yet many teachers may be underprepared for such positions due to inadequate experience with or training in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) (Godsey, 2015; Lynch, 2016). What is more, language teacher education programs may struggle to equip teacher candidates with the tools they need to approach an ever-changing multimodal landscape (Borthwick & Gallagher-Brett, 2014; Nami, Marandi & Sotoudehnama, 2016; Sehlaoui & Albrecht, 2009). In the Northeastern US, in a region with critical need for language teacher training, faculty in an MS Bilingual Education & TESOL program took up the challenge to train PK-12 teachers using state-of-the-art videoconferencing (VC) technology. The present study showcases data taken from one course in this program, and uses an argument-based approach to validity (Chapelle, Enright & Jamieson, 2008; Kane, 2006) to make the claims that teachers in this course (a) were able to transform their traditional face-to-face (f2f) teaching practices to sophisticated technology-mediated teaching practices within a synchronous online environment and (b) had equivalent content learning opportunities to those in the on ground courses.