Exploring new pedagogies – a

way forward towards practice

based competence building

Marianne Georgsen

& Jacob Davidsen

Aalborg University

Department of

Communication &

Psychology

Agenda

• ICT in schools – where are we?

• Competence within ICT-based teaching

– what do teachers need?

• Two empirical studies -findings and

new questions

ICT in teaching and learning in

schools – promises and problems

• Political focus on the importance of using ICT

in schools since late 1980’s ICT can help

develop teaching and learning further

• National evaluation in Denmark shows that ICT

in schools is used in three main ways:

• as a motivator towards pupils (to make learning

”fun”);

• by pupils to produce nice looking products and

presentations;

• but first and foremost to search information on the

internet.

Three phases of ICT development in

schools in Denmark

• Phase 1 technology into the school

buildings (hardware and software which is

mostly very general ’office type’-programs,

or very specific software: dictionaries,

maps)

• Phase 2 ICT becomes integrated into

teaching in general, and finds its way out of

IT-rooms, and into the classrooms

• Phase 3 we need to focus on integrating

ICT into the content subjects of the school

What we are still missing

• Way of developing teachers’

qualifications within pedagogic ICT-

use

• Ways of relating this comptence

building closer to the teaching

practice,

• and orient it towards actual use of ICT

in classrooms and schools

Ways of dealing with

competence building

• Through policy making – as part of policies for ICT

integration into teaching/learning and into schools

• Through formal education – as part of teacher

training in colleges or other institutions (pre

service)

• Through further education – as part of

courses/training programmes offered to in service

teachers

• Through peer to peer-learning and/or workplace

learning – as part of development projects, special

initiatives or ’private’ initiatives by a few teachers

Research questions

o The competence development of teachers

involved in the projects – how does

progression from the operational level to

the level of pedagogical planning take

place?

o What are the main resources used by the

teachers in the development process

o In what ways do they learn from their

practical experience and share their

experience and knowledge with each other

4 stages in teachers’ ICT learning

1. Gaining basic ICT skills

2. Conducting ICT-focused lessons

3. Appropriate ICT integration

4. Challenge existing pedagogical

structures (ICT as means for

pedagogical development)

(Schibeci et al. 2008)

TPCK (Mishra & Koehler, 2006)

Approach in study

• Two different projects were studied

• Project A: 6 weeks project in 7th grade with

mobile technologies; students doing field

work/project work in small groups. 5

teachers, one pedagogical ICT-coordinator,

70 pupils

• Project B: 10 months project in 2nd grade

with interactive screens in the classroom;

pupils work in pairs; technology used across

all subjects. 3 teachers, one ped. ICT-

coordinator, 45 pupils

Methods used

PROJECT A

• Observations, video and

field notes – classroom

and in the field

• Interviews with pupils

• Group based and

indvidual interviews with

teachers

• Document analysis

PROJECT B

• Classroom observations

for 10 months – video

and field notes

• Interviews with teachers

and pupils

• Video feedback sessions

with teachers

• Video analysis with ICt-

coordinator

• Teachers blogging

throughout project

period

Findings I

• The collaboration with researchers is a

unique way of creating a space for reflection

in everyday practice

• This challenges the common understanding and

practice that training and teaching must take

place in ’labs’ and ’safe’ environments

• The school in this study has a policy for ICT

use and –integration – it is supported by

school management, but formulated and

implemented by the ICT-coordinator

• Challenges our preference for consensus-based,

democratic policy making

Findings II

• Teachers have personal preferences and

circumstances which influence their approach

towards the changes involved in taking ICT into use

• Challenges our understanding that those who enter into

development projects, are always positive towards the

changes occuring

• Parents turned out to be a substantial source of

opposition to the changed teaching practices – if

they do not understand (= recognise) these from

their own experience, they get insecure about the

learning outcomes

• This challenges the conception that parents want new

(’modern’) ways of teaching and learning for their children

Findings III

• The participating teachers took of in very

different directions

• Anne got into preparing her own teaching

materials for the interactive screens – not

converting existing materials, rather creating

new ones which integrated merged P, T and C

knowledge in new ways

• Following video feedback sessions with

researchers, Clive started reflecting about his

way of interacting with the pupils (from ’zapper’

to ’dweller’)

• Bridget used the technology to conserve her

current teaching practice – turned problems into

virtues (e.g. teacher control)

ICT-coordinators as innovators

• Motivate teachers and other to rethink

• Contextualising his/her work to the

experiences of teachers and pupils in

developing ICT-pedagogical designs

• Point out what the potentials in various

technologies are, and how new learning

designs will work in the specific context

• Manage the phases of change

• Take part in the change and development

proces and work together with teachers

Conclusions…

• Room for reflection is very important

• This approach will (probably) not work well

in schools with strict curriculum ’control’

• Support from the surrounding environment

is crucial

• colleagues; ICT-coordinator; school

management; parents; and pupils

• Practitioners need to join forces, and work

in teams

Future work

• Further conceptualise these (and more)

findings into a model/framework which can

be used proactively in school development

• Conduct more studies (less detailed that

these ones) on a range of different schools

in order to test the versatility of this model

for competence building

• Your feedback and suggestions are

welcome…