Research reviews have shown that the sensible integration of technology in teachers’ classroom practices can improve students’ understanding of and involvement with the subject matter (e.g., Hew & Cheung, 2013; Smetana & Bell, 2012). An important goal for teacher-training institutes (TTIs) therefore is the preparation of pre-service teachers (PSTs) for the appropriate use of technology in schools. A vast majority of scholars agree that, in preparing PST for effective technology-enhanced learning (TEL), TTIs not only need to develop students’ knowledge of content, pedagogy as well as technology, but should also train PSTs in creating sensible connections between these three forms of knowledge (TPACK) (Mouza et al., 2017).

Recently an increasing number of studies (e.g., Tondeur et al., 2012; Wilson et al., 2020) have started identifying strategies TTIs could adopt to develop PSTs’ TPACK, such as expert modeling, reflection tasks, providing continuous feedback. One of the strategies that has been receiving increased attention is PSTs’ active involvement in the collaborative design of TEL materials (e.g., Mishra, 2014; Papanikolaou et al., 2017). This focus on design ties in with an emerging research field that advocates the redefinition of the teacher’s role as a designer who actively constructs and invents the practice of schooling (McKenney et al., 2015). Reframing teachers as designers of TEL emphasizes the creative problem-solving needed to balance pedagogical, logical, and technological considerations within specific educational contexts (Bennett et al., 2018). Koehler and Mishra (2005) describe this approach as ‘learning technology by design', which aims to put teachers in the role of designers of TEL environments as they work collaboratively in small groups to develop TEL solutions to authentic pedagogical problems. These small groups of (student-)teachers involved in joint design efforts are commonly referred to as Teacher Design Teams (TDTs) (Handelzalts, 2009). PSTs’ collaboratively designing in TDTs is seen as a successful professional development strategy because during groups’ design processes PSTs learn from each other as they share and apply knowledge (McKenney et al., 2016).

Although the benefits of involving PST in designing TEL have been acknowledged in the literature, little is known on how professional development interventions should be created to yield those benefits (McKenney et al., 2015). More specifically, research on how PST’ design activities should be supported is limited.  This study wants to add to the limited but growing research base of student-teachers as designers of TEL via the following research questions:

RQ1: What support needs do student-teachers experience when involved in the collaborative design of technology-enhanced learning materials?

RQ2: To what extent do student-teachers’ perceive professional growth in their TEL-competencies after designing curriculum materials in design teams?

Study context: Twenty-three pre-service secondary school-level mathematics students participate in this qualitative study. All participants completed an ‘ICT in Mathematics Education’ course in the final year of their three-year teacher training program. The aim of this course was to develop students’ TEL-design skills by collaboratively developing ICT-rich curriculum materials in TDTs. The course consisted out of 7 face-to-face sessions, including a 3-hour introductory lecture covering several TEL-topics (e.g., TPACK, affordances of using technology in mathematics education), 5 TDT sessions of 3-4 hours each, and a 3-hour micro-teaching. During the TDT sessions, each group began their design process by selecting an authentic practice case. Each case focused on a real-life problem of practice of an in-service secondary mathematics teacher (e.g., motivating students in a specific content area). These cases made sure that each TDT design process is anchored within a real-life context and its associated constraints (e.g., available infrastructure). Cases were gathered via a regional open call and were presented to the TDT after a careful selection process conducted by teacher educators. Throughout the sessions, students developed curriculum solutions as a response to the problems presented in the cases, which they could try out in a micro-teaching to gather feedback from peers and their teacher educator. To scaffold students’ design processes, several types of support were incorporated based on evidence-based recommendations of both TDT literature (e.g., just-in-time coaching) and TPACK development literature (e.g., TPACK reflection activities). Data collection and analysis: At the end of the course, each participant was interviewed for approximately 45 minutes. They were asked open-ended questions that guided them to reflect on a) their support needs during the TDT course, and b) the extent to which their TEL competencies have improved. All interviews were videotaped after obtaining students’ permission via an informed consent. Each interview was transcribed verbatim for analysis (see Howitt, 2010). As an approach to data analysis, we will conduct a qualitative content analysis, which Hsieh and Shannon (2005, p. 1278) define as ‘a research method for the subjective interpretation of the content of text data through the systemic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns’. More specifically, we will use a directed approach to content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005), which combines inductive and deductive approaches by iteratively moving back and forth between data and theory to validate or extend conceptually existing theoretical frameworks.

Since this research is in progress, no final findings can be reported at this stage. However, the intervention has taken place and the coding processes of the interview data have started. Preliminary findings show that student-teachers indicate that collaborating in design teams was both supportive as disruptive to their professional development. In terms of support, students indicate that design discussions were enriched by other students’ knowledge of existing technological tools and different educational beliefs. For example, one student indicates that before participating in her TDT she was not an advocate of game-based learning (GBL) in mathematics, but her team and their selected problem of practice stimulated her in exploring this pedagogy as well as discovering new technological tools related to GBL. At the disruptive end, however, it was noticeable that team members from an efficiency point of view decided to divide group tasks among them. Consequently, only certain group members were assigned the responsibility to examine a technological tool and develop technology-specific artifacts, whereas other members were occupied with non-technological tasks. Moreover, students indicate that it was the team member with the most familiarity with a certain tool and/or with the well-developed ICT competencies that was assigned with technology-related tasks, hindering the other group members in any TEL-competency development. The final results of this study will provide recommendations on how TTIs can successfully support student-teachers as designers of TEL. As such, this study contributes to the literature on future teachers’ TPACK development as well as the effectiveness of teacher design teams as an instructional strategy within TTIs.

Bennett, S., Lockyer, L., & Agostinho, S. (2018). Towards sustainable technology-enhanced innovation in higher education: Advancing learning design by understanding and supporting teacher design practice. British Journal of Educational Technology, 49(6), 1014–1026. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12683 Handelzalts, A. (2009). Collaborative curriculum development in teacher design teams. University of Twente. https://doi.org/10.3990/1.9789036528634 Hew, K. F., & Cheung, W. S. (2013). Use of Web 2.0 technologies in K-12 and higher education: The search for evidence-based practice. Educational Research Review, 9, 47–64. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2012.08.001 Howitt, D. (2010). Introduction to qualitative research methods in psychology: Putting theory into practice. (D. Howitt (ed.); Second). Pearson Education Limited. Hsieh, H. F., & Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 15(9), 1277–1288. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732305276687 Koehler, M. J., & Mishra, P. (2005). Teachers Learning Technology by Design. Journal of Computing in Teacher Education, 21(3), 94–102. https://doi.org/10.1080/10402454.2005.10784518 McKenney, S., Boschman, F., Pieters, J., & Voogt, J. (2016). Collaborative Design of Technology-Enhanced Learning: What can We Learn from Teacher Talk? TechTrends, 60(4), 385–391. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-016-0078-8 McKenney, S., Kali, Y., Markauskaite, L., & Voogt, J. (2015). Teacher design knowledge for technology enhanced learning: an ecological framework for investigating assets and needs. Instructional Science, 43(2), 181–202. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-014-9337-2 Mishra, K. &. (2014). Teachers Learning Technology by Design Downloaded. Journal of Computing in Teacher Education, 23(4), 121–218. https://doi.org/10.1080/10402454.2005.10784518 Mouza, C., Yang, H., Pan, Y.-C., Yilmaz Ozden, S., & Pollock, L. (2017). Resetting educational technology coursework for pre-service teachers: A computational thinking approach to the development of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 33(3 SE-). https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.3521 Papanikolaou, K., Makri, K., & Roussos, P. (2017). Learning design as a vehicle for developing TPACK in blended teacher training on technology enhanced learning. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-017-0072-z Smetana, L. K., & Bell, R. L. (2012). Computer Simulations to Support Science Instruction and Learning: A critical review of the literature. International Journal of Science Education, 34(9), 1337–1370. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2011.605182 Tondeur, J., van Braak, J., Sang, G., Voogt, J., Fisser, P., & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, A. (2012). Preparing pre-service teachers to integrate technology in education: A synthesis of qualitative evidence. Computers & Education, 59(1), 134–144. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2011.10.009 Wilson, M. L., Ritzhaupt, A. D., & Cheng, L. (2020). The impact of teacher education courses for technology integration on pre-service teacher knowledge: A meta-analysis study. Computers and Education, 156(December 2019), 103941. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2020.103941