Tensions in teacher professional development (original) (raw)
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DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), 2008
This paper reports on designs for effective uses of ICTs in teaching and learning in teaching education. Applying Engeström's schema (1987) at three different levels of use of the computer as a cultural tool, three sociocultural accounts, each one reflecting a different design activity for the betterment of teacher learning environments, were constructed. For each, clusters of interactions at the university-school partnership, networked classroom, and virtual collaborative space levels are described. As the history of each activity is Laferrière y Gervais : Teacher Education and Profession al Development… presented, key features of the designed learning environments stand out, and trajectories of student teachers, teachers, and schools are highlighted.
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A number of policy initiatives have emerged from the UK government in recent years which have been designed to integrate the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) within the professional practice of teachers. This thesis investigates the implementation of these policies. Taking account of previous research that points to the complexity of translating policy statements into embedded classroom practice, the thesis examines factors and processes at the local level that serve to enhance or inhibit the implementation of the policies. Specifically the investigation covers the period 1997-2003 and focuses on teachers' experiences of implementing the ICT policies. Following a grounded theory approach the research involved a multi-site case study of 12 schools across 5 LEAS and 113 teachers. Questionnaires, interviews and observational techniques were combined to produce both qualitative and quantitative data. Findings from this research point to the importance of the social/informal dimension of teachers' professional development as a vital factor influencing the success/failure of policy implementation in the school context. In particular, the research highlights the significance of teachers' communities of practice and specific aspects of school culture (leadership, vision, shared ethos, training, ICT infrastructure) as critical to the integration of ICT. The research also identifies key factors that account for variations in the extent of integration between teachers and departments within the same school and across different schools. The thesis concludes that the process of embedding educational innovations and policy initiatives owes much to the existence of departmental communities of practiceprofessional groupings that are not dependent on the curriculum subject, but on a collegial culture. Ways to stimulate, encourage and sustain communities of practice are considered as constructive proposals to facilitate the implementation of educational policies linked to the professional practice of teachers in schools. Contents
2008
This paper reports on designs for effective uses of ICTs in teaching and learning in teaching education. Applying Engeström's schema (1987) at three different levels of use of the computer as a cultural tool, three sociocultural accounts, each one reflecting a different design activity for the betterment of teacher learning environments, were constructed. For each, clusters of interactions at the university-school partnership, networked classroom, and virtual collaborative space levels are described. As the history of each activity is Laferrière y Gervais : Teacher Education and Profession al Development… presented, key features of the designed learning environments stand out, and trajectories of student teachers, teachers, and schools are highlighted.
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The article is part of doctoral research and aims to analyze some implications of a continuing training entitled ‘Programming and Learning with Scratch in teachers’ practices. It is a ‘research-training’ perspective, in which we analyze narratives produced by 11 teachers managing educational technologies and media resources (Progetec’s), linked to the Educational Technology Center of the Education State Department from Mato Grosso do Sul. From the proposed dynamics, the teachers/Progetec’s were provoked to reflect and narrate about the formation and its implications and consequences in their practices. To perform narrative analysis, we produced a word cloud using the Iramuteq qualitative analysis interface, which highlighted two recurring roles in the training context: the teacher’s and the student’s, not as dichotomous, hierarchical, but from a perspective of collaboration, partnership, and sum, sometimes mixing, sometimes complementing, sometimes confusing. The teachers/Progetec’s...
The Maldives National Journal of Research, 2015
This paper examines technology-related professional development and its impact on teacher educators’ technological and pedagogical practices. The data were gathered from eleven teacher educators through an ethnographic approach that took place during two visits to the research site. With respect to the first visit, the researcher spent six weeks “hanging out” with the participants, interviewed them individually, and observed six participants’ classroom teaching. Then with the second visit, the researcher spent five weeks “hanging out”, and organised focus group discussions with ten participants. Lastly, she had follow-up interviews to clarify and validate the main understandings. The findings were generated through various strategies adhering to grounded theory. Key findings identified two types of professional learning: one is formally designed by the institution and the other is which occurred informally between colleagues. The findings also suggest that teacher educators continued using digital technologies in their early established pedagogical practices without necessarily bringing a change to their approaches to teaching. This paper argues that the professional development does not help teacher educators change their pedagogical practices unless it is connected with their backgrounds and the context of practice.
Tertium Comparationis: Journal für International und Interkulturell Vergleichende Erziehungswissenschaft, 2023
This paper seeks to understand what digital schooling platforms do to teacher professionality; that is, the combination of professional knowledge, discretion and responsibility that enables a teacher to be professional. Specifically, we explore how the European Commission's (EC) teacher professional learning platform eTwinning promotes a projectified (i.e., project-focused) and platformed (i.e., largely occurring on digital platforms) version of teacher professionality. Informed by recent thinking around 'projectification'; that is, the ability of the project form to shape work practices, as well as the topological nature of timespace within a project, we argue that projectified teacher learning and professionality are now constituted through platform dynamics as a perpetual project-initself. As such, the projectified teacher is left simultaneously in-time (i.e., within the bounds of the project timespace) and out-of-time (i.e., out of possibilities of progress that can exist outside of the project), and thus faces the insuperable task of never-ending self-improvement through and as the project form (teacher-as-project).
Technology in Use – Some Lessons About Change in Schools and Teacher Professional Development
2011
Since the 1990s, three large national reforms of digital technologies have swept through the Norwegian education system. The PILOT project (Innovasjon i Laering, Organisasjon og Teknologi) involved 120 primary and secondary schools from 1999-2003. Six universities and university colleges conducted follow-up research. The PLUTO program (Program for LaererUtdanning Teknologi og Omstilling) comprised ten large development projects in eight teacher education institutions (universities and colleges) in the years 1999-2004. In the LN program (Laerende Nettverk), 2004-2009, about 600 primary and secondary schools and 19 universities and university colleges were involved in a large number of networks all over the country (Erstad & Hauge 2011). At the same time, many of the local education authorities in large cities and counties have run technology implementation projects on their own or in conjunction with the national reforms. Taken together, these initiatives represent huge investments for future technology driven practices at many educational levels. The national technology reform initiatives culminated in 2006 marked by the Knowledge Promotion reform stating that digital literacy is one of the five key competencies to be taught and learned for all pupils in school. A unique reform period is now history and questions arise as teachers, school leaders and local educational authorities are left to work continuously on the task of fostering digital literacy for all. Thus, in order to understand the potential for further investment and development in the field, there is a need to sort out some of the challenges and lessons learned from the reforms. We have accumulated quite a number of classroom studies-how technologies are introduced and put to more or less productive use by learners, and sometimes teachers. However, we believe it is also necessary to move beyond microlevel analyses and try to identify some of the more overarching perspectives that emerge. In this special issue, we look at experiences from four perspectives, which are based on international reviews of research with regard to uptake and use of technology in schools and by teachers, analyses of the prevailing political rhetoric of educational technology reforms in Norway, and a critical examination of didactical conceptions of teaching and learning in technologyrich environments. The question of uptake and use of digital technologies in schools is first addressed by Anders D. Olofsson, J. Ola Lindberg, Göran Fransson and Trond Eiliv Hauge by reviewing a large number of international studies. They examine how digital technologies are conceptualized and integrated into practices in relation to policy, school organization and school leadership, teachers and their professional development, and pupils. This multilevel analysis reveals a picture of fragmentation _______________________________________________________________________________________ This article is downloaded from www.idunn.no. Any reproduction or systematic distribution in any form is forbidden without clarification from the copyright holder.