Reimagining Teacher Preparation: Digital Literacy in the Post-Pandemic Era

Abstract

The advent of COVID-19 exposed significant flaws in the capacity of educational institutions to deliver quality instruction to their students in a crisis. The rapid instigation of advanced digital technologies to facilitate remote learning by universities and colleges provided a pedagogical bridge to cover the time and space restrictions forced on the normal face-to-face classroom experience. Unfortunately, as the impact of the pandemic has waned, educational institutions drew down their investments in the digital technology infrastructure, hardware, and software that were indispensable to sustaining student learning over the two years the pandemic interrupted normal educational schedules. However, it is argued that it would be extremely prudent to expand rather than contract these resources.  Research indicates that many teachers struggled with technologies in remote teaching during COVID-19.  This raises the question of how teacher education programs can adequately provide future teachers with essential digital literacy skills to teach in diverse technology-enriched learning environments.  The proposed frameworks aim to reshape the curriculum in teacher education programs to cultivate and develop preservice teachers’ digital literacy skills.