Empowering Educators for a Digital Classroom: The 'Future Ready Teacher Candidates' Program

This paper presents the ‘Future Ready Teacher Candidates’ professional development program offered at Brock University, Canada. This extracurricular opportunity provided teacher candidates (TCs) in the pre-service teacher education program with access to emerging technologies and pedagogical support on how to use those technologies in interdisciplinary teaching. Workshops included the following topics: micro:bits, coding, and educational robotics; 3D modelling and printing; instructional use of smart boards and e-Glass; and immersive learning experiences through virtual reality and augmented reality. Using a narrative inquiry approach, the authors present the program rationale, successes, and challenges as well as their reflections on its importance. Additionally, the paper documents participants’ reflections collected using a survey that was administered after each workshop. Findings show that TCs reported a positive impact of the program on their technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge related to using emerging technologies in the classroom. The authors highlight the importance of strategic and collaborative approaches to TCs’ training on technology in teacher education programs and the integral role that university resource centres play in this regard. Implications for teacher education research and practice are presented.