Thuridur Jóhannsdóttir PAPER IN PROGRESS
http://ust.khi.is/tjona
Boundary crossing between local schools and web-based
learning management systems in teacher education
A study of distance learners in a teacher education programme in Iceland
Paper presented at the First international ISCAR Conference - International Society for cultural and Activity Research. Acting in changing worlds: learning, communication, and minds in intercultural activities. Sevilla 20-24 September 2005.
Introduction
From 1993 the Iceland University of Education has offered initial teacher education for primary and lower secondary teachers in a distance learning programme. Initially it was organized to meet the lack of qualified teachers, especially in rural areas and rules for admission were holding a job as a teacher (Jóhannsdóttir & Skjelmo, 2004). Now it has evolved as an option for all students alongside the traditional on-campus version and in 2004 45% of the student teachers were enrolled in the distance programme. The model is blended though as distance students meet on-campus two weeks per semester but otherwise the programme is run mainly using learning management systems on the internet.
The study presented here considers the content and methods of the distance approach for teacher education as performed in selected on-line courses during the school year 2004-2005. Special attention is given to the contribution of selected teacher students living in remote rural areas and working as teachers at the same time. The participation of the selected students in the activity systems of their local schools has been described in earlier work which will be referred to at the end of this paper.
The courses under study have been chosen to represent the diversity of knowledge in teacher education. Five courses have been followed and are being analyzed. Three are part of the core curriculum of the initial teacher education programme, for primary and lower secondary teachers. They are ethics stressing the importance of dialogue, mother language teaching for the youngest pupils and spoken language and performance. Two were chosen from optional courses; textile and craft education where teacher students are supposed to exhibit their creative work on the web for peer reactions and science and creativity in early childhood education.
This research is part of a doctoral study on distance education for initial teacher education at the Iceland University of Education. The aim of the doctoral work is to explore how teacher education in a distance learning programme can be explained from a socio-cultural perspective, by using concepts and models of analysis mainly from cultural-historical activity theory. The concepts of learning through participation in different activity systems, the role of possible shared objects and transfer as a result of boundary crossing as well as the concept of developmental transfer is considered. It is discussed how the possible shared object between the activity systems of the local school and the teacher education programme can support developmental transfer and expansive learning in both systems. The problematic relationship between theoretical or propositional knowledge on the one hand and practical or procedural knowledge on the other hand is in focus as an understanding of the educational model being researched seems to have the potential of making a contribution to the debate on the development of content and form of teacher education.
Theoretical background
In research on teacher knowledge and the knowledge base of teaching, Verloop et al. (Verloop et al., 2001) discuss the problem experienced by prospective teachers between the “theory” as presented in the teacher education and the knowledge of experienced teachers at the practice schools. The reason might be, they continue, that “it is not at all clear how formal theoretical knowledge and teacher knowledge can be integrated and used as ‘input’ in teacher education”(444). The challenge in teacher education as in other professional education is to find out how to bring about exchange between theoretical principles and teacher expertise so that they interact and refine each other (Stones, 1994, in Verloop and van Driel). Thiessen (Thiessen, 2000) talks about “interrelated use of practical knowledge (routines, procedures, processes) and propositional knowledge (discipline-based theories and concepts, pedagogical principles, situation specific propositions)” (528) He says that for teacher education this implies that the teacher education programmes should focus on “practically relevant propositional knowledge” and the teaching practice on “propositionally interpreted practical knowledge” (530).
The socio-cultural tradition that has been developed on the basis of the theories of Vygotsky (Vygotsky, 1978) and especially Engeström’s (Engeström, 1987) contribution to the development of cultural-historical activity theory form the basis of the theoretical conceptions in the research. The activity theoretical model and the activity system as a unit of analysis have guided both the organization of the research and analysis of data. The stress laid on the connections between individual functioning and development and the socio-cultural practices in which the individual takes part is an important perspective in the study.
Within the socio-cultural tradition Edwards and others (Edwards et al., 2002) have developed a view on teacher education based on a critical sociological analysis of mainstream teacher education paradigms. They discuss the need for rethinking relationships between knowledge created in practice on one hand and in universities on the other and suggest that teachers need to be able to both use theories and collaborate with colleagues to deal with uncertainties which are unavoidable in their work.
Van Huizen et al (van Huizen et al., 2005) present a Vygotskian perspective on teacher education from a psychological point of view where they claim that the main role of teacher education should be to support student teachers in developing professional identity. They point out that Vygotsky’s concept zone of proximal development pre-supposes the need of ‘ideal forms’ to direct individual development. Student teachers therefore will need “… an environment presenting and modeling an ideal standard of achievement and providing supporting conditions for a successful approximation of this standard” (272). Among the basic principles of a Vygotskian paradigm for teacher education that van Huizen et al. present are: learning through participation, orientation toward ideal forms and development of professional identity to be arrived at through guided participation. They claim that professional learning like teacher education is best conceived of as an evolving participation in a social practice. That understanding brings an important message for teacher education which traditionally has been organized as separate activities: the theoretical knowledge to be acquired in universities versus the practical knowledge to be learned by practice in schools. The way teacher education has been organized may explain the known ‘practice shock’ experienced by beginning teachers, they say.
The study
The paper presents a study which is a part of my Ph.D. thesis[1] based on research on the distance education programme for initial teacher training in the Iceland University of Education from the perspective of teacher students living and working in remote rural areas.[2] The purpose of the thesis is to investigate the meaning, importance and possibilities of the programme for teacher students and local schools as well as the importance and possibilities which the connection to the local schools, through the distance students, opens up for the teacher training institution.
The study considers whether the reframing of the distance education programme along activity theoretical conception can enhance our understanding of this approach for distance learning and how it could be a basis on which to investigate and develop distance teacher education and teacher education in general in response to changing needs in an ever changing society. Learning that leads to development of individuals and the activity systems in which they participate are under consideration.
In the study I aim at exploring what kinds of learning actions experienced in the programme, change the practice of the student teachers in local schools. And vice versa, what kinds of experience from teacher work help the student teachers in the learning tasks they are exposed to? And then, how changed practice can lead to development or expansive learning in the activity systems involved.
The main questions to be answered in this paper are: What and how are student teachers learning as participators in the activity system of the on-line course module? What supports developmental transfer as distance students who work in local schools cross boundaries between the two activity systems?
Context
Iceland is situated in the middle of the North Atlantic. Inhabitants are little less than 300 000 living mostly along the coast of the island which is about 103 000 square km. The density of the population is most around the capital Reykjavik in the south west where more than two third of the inhabitants live. In the Westfjord peninsula there are between 7000- 8000 inhabitants living mostly in small villages where the fishing industry is the most important basis for living. In the biggest town with between 2000-3000 inhabitants there a hospital, a secondary school and a center for continuing education which has served the increasing number of distance learning students who are taking courses at universities. With the growing interest in university education a center for university studies has been founded this year and will at first be supporting the distance students and may develop to some form of district college.
The lack of qualified teachers has for a long time been a problem, especially in sparsely populated rural communities in Iceland. With pressure from the school authorities as well as people living there the Iceland University of Education launched a full Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) distance programme degree in January 1993, using new possibilities that were opening up with Internet connections. In the beginning the rules for admission were being resident in a rural area where lack of qualified teachers was a problem, having experience of teaching and holding a job as a teacher. Now admission is open to all who have formal qualifications to enter university studies. In 2004 61% of students in the programme for compulsory school teachers were living outside the capital area (Kennaraháskóli Íslands, 2005).
The school year 2004-2005 18 students living in the northern part of the Westfjord were enrolled in the distance learning programme of the Iceland University of Education and out of them 13 had job as teachers in the local primary schools.
The model of the distance learning programme may be described as a blended one using a mixture of on-line and on-campus sessions. Student teachers enrolled in the distance programme are in that way involved in multiple communities of practice and they certainly have to learn how to cross boundaries. Students are obliged to participate in on-campus sessions approximately two weeks per semester, one week in the beginning of the semester and one in the middle. Between these sessions they are supposed to participate in web-based activities through some kind of learning management system (LMS) and once a year they are to undertake teaching practice, usually in a nearby school, but sometimes they are allowed to take some of their teaching practice in the school where they teach.
METHODS
Data collection and participants
In the study as a whole, five schools have been visited several times a year during the years 2003-2005. While visiting I have been doing a kind of ethnography by staying several days at the time at least two times a year, interviewing distance student teachers, doing field observation in their classrooms, interviewing principals and talking to teachers in general in the schools. I have had contact with 13 of the 18 students living in the area and enrolled in the programme last school year (2004-2005) of which two are not holding job as teachers. In this paper I focus mainly on data concerning three distance student teachers working in three different schools.
In the spring term 2005 I was permitted to follow five on-line courses in the programme. Each term starts with one week on-campus session and I had the opportunity to participate in some of the courses as an observer and present myself and my study. After that I wrote a personal letter to the students on the course’s web asking for permission to observe what happened on the web e.g. their contributions to discussion and assignment they might publish there. In the middle of the term I attended another two on-campus sessions in some of the courses. When the courses were finished I saved the material published on the course webs for further analyzing it. What I draw on in this paper is based on a preliminary analysis of the course-webs but they will be analyzed later in more detail.
The paper will first focus on analyzing what and how - the content and methods students and teachers use in these on-line courses. Then I will turn to the student teachers as participators in the activity system of their local schools and at last discuss and examine possible shared objects between activities of the local schools and the programme.
The models and theoretical framework of activity theory provide a lens and analytical tools that hopefully help explaining the model for teacher education being explored. In developing the activity theory Engeström has defined the activity system as the unit of analysis (1987) and developing it further he claims that two interacting activity systems are the minimal unit of analysis needed in order to enhance research on the possibilities of inter-organizational learning (Engeström, 2001).
In activity theoretical terms teacher students are subjects or actors in the activity system of the distance learning programme at the same time that they are actors as teachers in the local schools were they live. As they are actors in two different activity systems they are required to learn to cross boundaries as they move between the two communities of practice. Meaningful transfer of learning takes place through interaction between activity systems (Centre for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research, Viewed 21.07.2004b). Shared objects of the two systems enhance transfer between them. The boundary zone is the place where subjects act on objects that are beneficial for and serve the goals of both systems.
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