eden - lisbona

NEW LEARNING CULTURES

EDEN Annual Conference

11-14 June 2008 Lisbon

Conceptual and technological artefacts to improve teachers’

professional competencies in an online community

Pier Giuseppe Rossi, Simone Carletti, Patrizia Magnoler, Lorella Pier Giuseppe Rossi, Simone Carletti, Patrizia Magnoler, Lorella GiannandreaGiannandrea

University of Macerata - ItalyUniversity of Macerata - Italy

Training reflective practitioners

During the in-service training we deal with practitioners.

How to Foster competences acquisition?

How to Make the pratictioners used to flexible, reflective thinking?

Key elements

INVOLVING in authentic tasks and open-end problems;

HIGHLIGHT practitioner enciclopedia and philosophy;

UNDERLINE the role of the community and its meaning negotiation (CoP).

Teacher as reflective practitioner

Primary and secondary teachers as reflective pratictioners;

Primary and secondary teachers team as example of CoP.

Objectives of the learning path

Providing teachers with a space to analyse themselves and their own modality; 

Making teachers aware of their own educational philosophy;

Promoting the formalisation and the recognition of the implicit dimension and of the professional knowledge to operate in the context.

Research questions

How an online community of educators can develop a self-reflection on its teaching practices and its own professional identity?

How those reflections impact on the working situation?

Which conceptual and technological artefacts can be used to foster reflection?

Theoretical background

The centrality of action;(Shulman, 1987; LaBoskey, 1994, Korthagen, 1993; Altet, 2003; Bru, 2004; Rey, 2003; Damiano, 2006)

The reflection about practice;(Schön, 1993; Altet et al. 1996)

The tacit knowledge;(Polany, 1967; Nonaka, ; Perrenoud, 1996; Kelchtermans, 2002; Mezirow, 2003)

The proper learning environment.(J.S. Brown, 2005, Jonassen, 2001)

Learning path

Background

2005-2006: Blended explorative research focussed on teachers thinking on instructional design.

• 2006-2007: new experimentation carried out in the online Master degree in didactical models and strategies, (116 teachers of primary-high schools).

2007-2008: new edition of Master with 180 teachers.

Entries

Class 1 11.198

Class 2 6.591

Class 3 7.130

Class 4 7.797

Phases of the path

1. Positioning (motivation, intention)

2. Attention and negotiation. 1- Discussing about the theoretical

prospectives. 2 – Discussion about personal experiences;

3. Re-positioning: (Project Work)

4. Final reflexion.

Two paths

Theory – practice – theory Discussion about a theoretical issue; Cconnection between theories and own practice; Building knowledge and theorization.

Practice – theory- practice Each teacher proposes his/her own teaching

significative experience (case study); The case is discussed in the virtual classroom; New formulation of the didactical path is proposed.

Artefacts to facilitate reflection

The artefacts

1. The environment as a place of connections, interactions and works and the different “dispositifs”/apparatus available to the community and to person;

2. The project work diary;

3. The teacher portfolio.

1. The environment

It’s flexible and autopoietic.

There is a space-time, a «cronothope».

There’s an overlapping of three layers.

There’s tree dimensions/cronothopes.

The three layers connection

2. The PW Diary

Each teacher designs a project to be experimented in his/her own class.

The whole designing process was supported by reflection tools and the P.W. Diary: personal tool in which they are asked to fill in set of questions divided into sections that cover the different phases of the project work:

before the project design at the end of project design After the project was deployed in teachers classes

3. The teacher portfolio

It is a personal space in which teachers are free to collect materials and give evidence of their professionalism.

Writings

The different writings

There are different modalities of writing:

The argumentative one: fostered by the fora;

The free, informal, narrative one: the messages left in the blog;

The directed, formal, reflective one, in the teacher portfolio.

The roles of writings

Writing process makes teachers:

- Recall events and circumstances,- Select and organize information,- Negotiate meanings,- Formalise concepts.

Results

Research results

Analisys of writings (blog, fora, DPW, reflection).

Methodology: qualitative analysis (Miles and Huberman)

Steps of the analysis

1. Overall reading of the writings in order to identify recurring topics

2. Data selection and consolidation in cathegories (throughness, mutual exclusion, pertinence)

3. Comparison of cathegories found among researchers

4. Frequence count in order to determine relevance of occurrences

Results

Teachers’ interest and topics underlined At the beginning

At the end

They ask for different kind of solution, they talk about their personal experiences. The texts don’t let researchrs identify kind of modeling.

51% 33%

They show theoretical reference and traditional models of didactical design.

33% 20%

They show a personal model of educatioanl design and teachers discuss its structure.

16% 47%

The elements for change

• The flexible and autopoietic environment; • The presence of different modalities of

writings;• The different dispositif/apparatus;• The coherence between pedagogical path

and dispositif/apparatus;• The dialogue between tutors – teachers;• The community;• The reflection space.

Thank you for your attention

Obrigado

xxxGrazie per la vostra attenzione!!

pg.rossi@unimc.it