Designing for Teachers' Designing of Technology-Enhanced Learning

• In Event: 60.028 - Teachers as Designers of Technology-Enhanced Learning

Abstract

Objectives
With the understanding that teachers should be able to design learning experiences that use new technologies in their local contexts, we investigate how engaging teachers in designing changes beliefs, understandings, practices and identities as designers of technology-enhanced learning experiences.
Perspectives
We refer to teachers as designers of learning experiences to emphasize teacher involvement in designing from pre-instructional designing (e.g., lessons, learning environments) to their design work that continues into the classroom (Schön, 1983). Teachers’ adaptation and implementation is informed by their knowledge of their classroom contexts (Cohen & Hill, 2001), their beliefs about teaching (Brickhouse & Bodner, 1992), their beliefs about the content area (Bryan & Abell, 1999), and the degree to which they see the curricula fitting into their classroom (Keys & Bryan, 2001).
Methods
We compare and contrast three different cases. Each case was part of a separate research study and therefore the initial methods of data collection varied by case. The cases were selected based on three similarities: a focus on teachers as designers of technology-enhanced learning experiences; design of learning experiences that reflect user-centered pedagogical approaches and design for real world use. Likewise, we deliberately sought cases that could span contexts by comparing cases drawn from different nations (United States, Canada and Israel), pedagogical settings (professional development, course, program), lengths (weeks to years), and particular instructional foci and grade levels of the enacted designs developed by teachers.
Results
We identified three additional commonalities in the designs of the three cases. In each of the three cases the instructors/mentors modeled the desired practice as part of their own teaching and design. Each of the cases supported the dialogue between teachers as part of the design process, and each case included Scaffolding for the design process.
Although design work was diverse, all studies involved technology as a support for teacher learning and design work, and as a component of their designs for learning. Across studies, teachers learned about pedagogies (e.g., learner-centeredness, collaborative learning) as they designed with the expectation that these pedagogies would be evident in their designs.
With these supports, our collective findings show that we encouraged the evolution of teachers’ beliefs, practices, understandings and professional identities. By contrasting these cases, we identify ways to support teachers’ designing when the pedagogical approach or technology they are designing for is relatively new or complex.
Scholarly significanc
In an era in which teachers are increasingly adopting the role of designer as part of their practice (Laurillard, 2012), it is imperative that they also develop a professional identity that will encourage them and provide them with tools to analyze how their designing impacts learners. Therefore, it is important to understand ways to support the development of design identities, practices, understandings and beliefs in teachers.

Authors

• Vanessa Svihla, University of New Mexico

• Richard J. Reeve, Queen's University

• Ornit Sagy, University of Haifa

• Yael Kali, University of Haifa