Session Information
20 ONLINE 43 A, Innovative Teacher Education through Personalised Learning: Reflections on an Emerging International Model
Symposium
MeetingID: 889 6591 8926 Code: 84SP8m
Contribution
Personalisation marks a change of paradigm in education (Deakin-Crick, 2012, p. 28) “an industrial, mechanical metaphor of education” to “a complex, organic and participatory metaphor of learning”. Enabling personalisation, a lot depends on teachers due to their abilities to model educational processes, engaging learners in collaborative and co-creative learning and avoiding putting the learners in the periphery of the learning process (Watkins, 2007). Looking at teacher agency gives the possibility of distance from scrutinizing the teaching methods and instead viewing the broader picture of teachers’ actions, attitudes, values, motivations that influence the classroom practice. The concept of agency draws on the understanding that people can act independently and change their practice. Moving into new educational environments and unpredictable circumstances involves continuous refinement of practical knowledge. The analysis of specific incidents of agency is based on examination of the circumstances of that contextual moment (Cherry, 2005; Greener, 2002). Compared to the traditional classroom, teachers’ agency within personalized learning (PL) is transformed. First, it is connected with the shift of paradigm: from teacher-centred to learner-centred, from knowledge reproduction to knowledge co-production, from traditional to constructivist. Consequently, teachers face new kinds of decisions that affect the classroom practice, assessment, and ways of engaging the learners. Instead of attending to the group needs, they start focusing on the individuality of the learner. At the same time, they need to drive quality collaboration and discovery rather than rely on direct instruction (Prain et al., 2018). The quantitative research approach of survey design was chosen to investigate Lithuanian teachers’ views on personalised learning, and teachers’ agency was expressed in understanding the concept of personalisation, the deep knowledge of learners’ characteristics and individualities, reflection on learning process and flexibility and openness to model education process to engage learners into active and meaningful learning practice. The research was conducted in autumn-winter 2021 among general education teachers from grades 5 to 12. A total of 371 teachers have participated in the study. The online self-reported questionnaire was designed by Lithuanian researchers from Vytautas Magnus University. The questionnaire consisted of 25 items out of which 7 questions aimed to obtain demographic data. The results of the study indicate that teachers’ understanding of the PL concept is positively associated with the diversity of engaging approaches applied in daily educational practice. Teachers’ openness and flexibility, reflection, and careful preparation for the modelling of educational processes increases learners’ active participation and engagement.
References
Cherry, N. L. (2005). Preparing for practice in the age of complexity. Higher Education Research & Development, 24(4), 309–320. Creswell, J. W. (2014). Educational Research: Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research. Fourth Edition. Pearson. Deakin-Crick, R. (2012). Personalisation: integrating the personal with the public in a pedagogy for social sustainability. In M. E. Mincu (Ed.), Personalisation of Education in Contexts: Policy Critique and Theories of Personal Improvement, 27–46. Sense Publishers. Greener, I. (2002). Agency, social theory and social policy. Critical Social Policy, 22, 688–705. Prain, V., Blake, D., Deed, C., Edwards, M., Emery, S., Farrelly, C., Fingland, D., Henriksen, J., Lovejoy, V., Meyers, N., Mooney, A., Muir, T. & Sbaglia, R, Swabey, K., Thomas, D., Tytler, R. & Zitzlaff, T. (2018). A framework to support personalising prescribed school curricula. British Educational Research Journal 6(44), 1101–1119, 10.1002/berj.3481 Watkins, C. (2007). Personalised Classroom Learning. Institute of Education International Network for School Improvement. Research Matters, 29. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258519368_Personalised_Classroom_Learning
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