Date of Conferral

2021

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

School

Education

Advisor

Heather K. Pederson

Abstract

Secondary teachers use digital resources for teaching, yet little is known about how they find, evaluate, organize, and share these resources. This basic qualitative study was conducted to fill the gap and examine the experiences and practices of secondary educators in curating digital resources. Findings on how teachers manage digital information, strategies used, and necessary supports may aid in creating targeted professional development (PD) for teaching in face to face and blended environments. A conceptual framework based on Mishra's and Kohler’s technological pedagogical content knowledge theory and Siemens’ connectivism guided the research and informed the data analysis. The experiences of secondary educators when finding, evaluating, and using digital resources in the classroom, as well as the strategies used, and supports needed were investigated. Purposeful sample size of 15 educators currently teaching for at least 1 year participated in semistructured interviews. Data analysis involved the use of a priori codes from the framework categories. Teachers need collaboration time. Quality digital resources are critical to successful teaching and learning in blended and virtual environments and can lead to engaging and effective lessons when used correctly. PD on organization and curation is needed and beneficial. This study contributes to positive social change by informing future development of PD focused on digital resource management, curation strategies, and better ways of using and sharing resources with students. Better curation strategies and sharing could lead to quality digital resource repositories designed to meet blended learning needs in situations such as the recent Covid-19 crisis. These resources could be used to provide engaging content to students in a variety of learning situations who might not otherwise have access.

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