Session Information
Contribution
Description: The study investigates the ICT skills learning process from the perspective of university teachers, with the teachers as learners and developers of teaching. The central questions were: How is pedagogical awareness displayed in teaching staff's teaching development plans? How are the pedagogical choices intended to facilitate and support student learning? How does teachers' understanding of pedagogy and the students' learning develop when teachers themselves take on the role of students in web-based environments? The model of meaningful learning (Ausubel, 1968; Jonassen, 1995; Tirri & Nevgi, 2000) provides a framework for the analysis of the teachers' views. Key features of constructivist learning environments include active learning, authentic instructional tasks, collaborative activities and diverse learning formats (Partlow & Gibbs, 2003)
Methodology: The study employs a qualitative case study (Merriam, 1998) design. Data consisted of university teachers' and pedagogical support staff's (N=26) written weblogs on developing their web-based teaching, and web discussions and Conscious Provocation (de Bono, 1990) (N=11). Our informants have participated in two staff development training courses with the aim to develop the use of ICT in teaching.
Conclusions: The study shows that teachers are keen on developing their teaching, but they do not adopt the use of ICT without reserve. Instead, they consider carefully the implications for learning. ICT is incorporated in the pedagogical planning when the teachers see that it clearly adds value to the learning process. In their teaching development plans the teachers emphasize student learning as collaborative practice and activity. These results are in line with previous research on the development of an online training. The fact that the teachers had commented on each others' weblogs shows that they were utilizing the ideas of collaborative learning and interactivity themselves. Practicing these pedagogical ideas has been likely to increase the teachers' experiences of their worth, and so these were translated into the teachers' projects. However, only in the accounts of four teachers was contextuality and transferability of knowledge brought up as pedagogical elements. ICT may provide remedy to teachers wishing to increase the contextuality and transferability of theoretical knowledge into practice in courses where theory and practice are separated in the syllabi. Conscious provocation in the second case showed that teachers experienced students, activity, intentionality, and collaboration as the main benefits of web-based learning environments. Contextualization and transfer of knowledge were, however, not elaborated. The data provides evidence of Conceptual Change Student Focused approach (Prosser & Trigwell, 1999). In general, teachers' experienced that adopting a student role increased teachers' awareness of web-based learning. For good or worse, the teachers also experienced similar obstacles as their students may experience, i.e. free riding, heavy work load, unclear instructions or not reading instructions carefully.
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