The Preparation Of Student Teachers' ICT Competency In China's Normal Universities

With the publication of the latest "National High School Curriculum Standard" in 2017,K-12 education in China has entered a new stage with a clear goal to develop students' key competencies.Consequently,it demands capacity building of teachers' competencies for supporting student's development of key competencies.In addition,with the rapid development of artificial intelligence,we have entered a new era of the information age-the intelligence age.Information Communication Technology(ICT)has extensive potential to support the reform of education aiming at the development of students' key competencies.Compared with most of the in-service teachers who are digital immigrants,pre-service teachers,as digital natives,have an inborn closer connection with ICT.If the normal universities can effectively develop the ICT competencies of the pre-service teachers for students' key competencies,the pre-service teachers today will become the change agents and catalysts for the development of future students' key competencies.However,many pre-service teachers are still using ICT to transmit knowledge rather than develop students' key competencies.This thesis mainly studies five questions:(1)To develop students' key competencies in the future,what kind of ICT competencies should pre-service teachers have correspondingly?(2)What kind of models are employed to develop the ICT competencies of pre-service teachers in normal universities? Under different development models,how are the willingness and competencies of pre-service teachers to develop future students' key competencies with the support ICT?(3)Under the different development models of normal universities,what are the promoters and barriars in the development of the ICT competencies of pre-service teachers for developing students' key competencies?(4)Which strategies are proved to be effective in top-level policy design,meso-level management,and curriculum implementation? Which strategies have not achieved the desired results?(5)How to integrate the forces of different stakeholders at all levels and systematically scale up the development of the ICT competencies of pre-service teachers for students' key competencies?This research first developed the output structure for pre-service teachers' ICT competencies in accordance with future teacher's roles,and then developed the preparation structure for pre-service teachers' ICT competencies under the guidance of the key competency framework in China's latest "National High School Curriculum Standard".From the perspective of complex systems,we believe the preparation of preservice teachers for their ICT competencies is a complex reform in the system of normal universities.Hence,this research studied the research questions within the system of three normal universities for the preparation of pre-service teacher's ICT competencies.By analyzing the policy texts of the three normal universities,and conducting in-depth interviews with senior pre-service teachers who have completed their teaching practice,subject teacher educators,ICT teacher educators,subject ICT teacher educators,and management level staff,data was collected from different stakeholders within each case.After the interviews,the recordings were transcribed into texts.Based on the preparation framework of pre-service teachers' ICT competencies,the data was coded and analyzed in Atlas.ti8.The status quo of pre-service teachers' ICT competencies was therefore analyzed.After that,we studied the status quo of the major stakeholders within each system and the factors influencing their role in developing pre-service teachers' ICT competencies,and analyzed the strength and weakness of the three models of preparing pre-service teachers' ICT competencies,as well as its feasible contexts.On this basis,the strategies that have been proved effective in each of the three cases are summarized,thus forming a systematic collection of preparation strategies for pre-service teachers' ICT competencies at three levels.The main research findings are as follows:Firstly,pre-service teachers' the ICT competencies for the development of future students' key competencies are the competencies of pre-service teachers to support K-12 students' key competencies development through the integration of ICT in teaching and learning.In this view,the pre-service teachers' ICT competency structure must highlight its purpose for supporting the development of students' key competencies.This research integrates the key competencies of K-12 students in the output structure of pre-service teachers' ICT competencies.In addition,it integrates key competencies in the preparation structure of pre-service teachers' ICT competencies,and integrates key competencies in the TPACK framework and consequently forms TPACCK framework.Secondly,there are three main models for the development of ICT competencies of pre-service teachers in China's normal universities: the first one is the top-down model of an individual ICT course;the second model is the bottom-up model that driven by the subject teacher educators who act as pre-service teacher's role models with their own ICT-supported teaching;the third model is the model in which the collaborative forces of stakeholders are integrated to prepare pre-service teachers' ICT competencies,where the explicit curriculum and the implicit curriculum coexist.All three development models have their respectively rationality and limitations,and their effectiveness depends on the context of the university system.Thirdly,the effective development of the pre-service teachers' ICT competencies depends on the top-level policy design,meso-level management,and curriculum implementation which involves multiple stakeholders in the complex system of the normal university.The overall desirable strategy of the top-level policy design is to engage different development forces for pre-service teachers,and support all the stakeholders to develop pre-service teachers' ICT competencies for future students' key competencies;The management level should give full play to the change leadership,and strengthen the construction of the subject ICT course through personnel support,culture support and facilities support,so as to provide high quality subject ICT courses for the pre-service teachers and support the professional development of the subject teacher educators.To provide rich and high-quality ICT integrated learning experience,ICT teacher educators should focus more on ICT supported teaching for the development of students' key competencies and pre-service teachers' competency to solve problems with the support of ICT rather than simply on their skills of using ICT.Teacher educators of subject ICT courses should emphasize the close integration of ICT into the subject.Only under the shared vision and with collaborative efforts of all the stakeholders in the system,the development of the ICT competencies of pre-service teachers for future students' key competencies can be scaled up.