eden - lisbona
TRANSCRIPT
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.
