Session Information
01 SES 02 A, Action Research (Part 1)
Paper Session to be continued in 01 SES 03 A
Contribution
This paper reports from a study where a new digital learning design tool (the ILUKS planner) was tested. The ILUKS-project, financed by the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills, aims to support teacher students’ active learning and productive collaboration during their practicum. The ILUKS planner allows students to plan lessons in a flexible and dynamic way, by constructing and co-constructing knowledge (van Schaik et al., 2019), share designs and receive feedback on their learning designs from school mentors, university supervisors or peers.
ILUKS is designed as a boundary object (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011), where students can work inquiry based, create digital learning designs, and receive feedback on these designs before and after their classroom teaching. We present data from student evaluations and interviews and describe how the tool supports teacher students’ active learning and professional development.
Across Europe, there are different training models for aspiring teachers, such as work placement and training schools and the quality of collaboration between key actor varies (Maandag et al., 2007). Several collaborative models exist, such as clinical partnerships (Potter et al., 2020), Professional Development Schools (Darling-Hammond, Cobb, & Bullmaster, 2021), Research-Practice-Partnerships (RPP) (Coburn, Penuel, & Farrell, 2021), and Professional Learning Networks (Poortman, Brown, & Schildkamp, 2022).
Partnership models in teacher education emerged in the mid-1980s with the intention to strengthen both schools and teacher education institutions. However, a research mapping revealed that partners often struggle, partly due to asymmetric relations (Lillejord & Børte, 2016). Some problems are related to the historic dominance of teacher education institutions, schools do not feel included on equal terms. Studies report disagreements between supervisor and mentor – with the student as an unwilling observer to debates. Characteristics of successful partnerships is that partners have a mutual knowledge interest, shared engagement and/or a joint project that is beneficial for both parties. Ideally, partnerships should aim at counteracting asymmetric relations and identify a shared object of collaboration.
In this paper, we use the ILUKS planner as a joint object for knowledge development. In the design process, teacher students learn how to plan their teaching. ILUKS serves as a model for professional learning dialogue where both school mentors and university supervisors must relate to knowledge from practice (experience) and knowledge from research, as is typically the case in the education of professions (Lillejord & Børte, 2020). This more democratic approach (Zeichner, Payne, & Brayko, 2015) will make teacher education programs more productive, as teacher students learn to produce knowledge with relevance for the teaching profession and expand the profession’s knowledge base.
Digital technology has the potential to facilitate collaboration in partnerships. Online tools, such as wikis allow for dialogue about professional practice (Lewis, 2012) and online backchannel platforms allow for discussion of issues observed during classroom practice (Howell et al., 2017). Research on computer-supported collaborative learning has focused on supporting students as collaborative learners and emphasized the importance of dialogical interactions among learners (Stahl et al., 2014). However, for student dialogues to be productive, the depth and quality of peer interactions, conflict resolution, mutual regulation and explicit argumentation is important (Asterhan & Schwarz, 2016). Therefore, how digital environments are designed to support inquiry, collaborative learning and productive collaborative knowledge building is important (Yang et al., 2022). The present study reports from the first test period of the ILUKS planner where the tool was used as a collaborative digital platform and a joint object for knowledge development for teacher students who learn how to teach. The following research question was formulated:
How can technology support productive collaboration between teacher students, university supervisors and school mentors during student’s practicum?
Method
This paper reports from the research and development project ILUKS – Innovative teacher students: Learning designs for student active teaching. The project’s main goals are to contribute to more student active learning in teacher education programs, and improved practicum period for teacher students. To accomplish this, ILUKS was developed to support collaboration between teacher students, university supervisors and school mentors. The learning design tool – the ILUKS Planner – allows users to create learning designs in a collaborative, flexible and dynamic manner, by sharing their learning designs, give and receive feedback on the design to improve it. The learning design tool was tested in a teacher education program at the University of Bergen, Norway in collaboration with four schools in Bergen Municipality, fall 2022 and were subject to research. Participation was voluntary and in the first trial eight teacher students and five schoolteachers from four different schools participated. The use of the ILUKS planner was integrated in the course “Teaching design for student active learning” where university supervisors used the tool to facilitate teacher students’ active learning processes when learning how to plan a lesson. The teacher students used the ILUKS planner to create learning designs for lessons they were going to teach during practicum and shared the design with their school mentor. The school mentor commented on the designs in advance, so the students could improve their design before teaching in class. The ILUKS Planner provides possibilities to enhance students’ learning through productive collaboration, knowledge production, and inquiry about teaching practices. Data collection and analysis Data was gathered throughout the trial and includes students’ and schoolteachers’ evaluations, user experiences of the ILUKS planner and interviews with teacher students. A web-based open-ended questionnaire was used to collect teacher students’ experiences and evaluation of the seminars and a standard usability scale (Brooke, 1996) was used to measure students’ user experience with the ILUKS planner (N=8). The schoolteachers answered a web-based questionnaire at the end of the students’ practicum (N=3). In addition, the eight teacher students were interviewed about their experiences using the ILUKS planner as a digital platform to facilitate contact with their mentors during practicum. The data analyzed for this paper are answers from the web-based questionnaires and qualitative interviews with the teacher students. A qualitative thematic analysis was conducted to identify the underpinning principles of teacher students productive collaborative learning processes.
Expected Outcomes
Preliminary findings show that the ILUKS planner supported students’ productive collaboration for creating and co-creating knowledge and served as a shared knowledge object for inquiry and collaboration during practicum. The shared learning design facilitated productive learning dialogues, and students acted as knowledge producers. This gave students and school mentors a joint point of departure for deliberations and feedback. For students, feedback on their learning design prior to teaching was important as this allowed them to improve designs before entering the classroom. One student said, “feedback made me reflect more on how the class wanted it rather than how I wanted my lesson to be”. Another student said, “I am now more aware of my pedagogical and didactic approach, what I need to practice more, a reality check on the practical pitfalls of teaching.” For teachers, the learning designs was a valuable basis for mentoring and feedback. It provided insight into how students reflected on teaching and planned a lesson. Also, students appeared better prepared and ready to discuss issues related to their learning design and teaching. One teacher said “ILUKS forces students to plan their teaching in an orderly and comprehensive manner. Awareness of various issues that must be considered when planning teaching is an advantage in the reflective dialogue we have with the students after their teaching. ILUKS makes communication easier as it provides opportunity for direct input and comments on learning designs before the teaching. If all students use ILUKS, it will lead to a more equal opportunity for feedback/communication.” University supervisors shared theoretical perspectives and didactical models with the students, school mentors provided valuable experience-based knowledge for how to plan for teaching. The ILUKS planner provided a digital support structure for professional collaboration between teacher students, school mentors and university supervisors, teaching teacher students how to teach.
References
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