Teachers and Digital Media Mentors Engaging in "Constant Challenge" as Connected Learners

• In Event: Educators and Mentors as Connected Learners

Abstract

Context: The authors of the Connected Learning report (Ito et al., 2013) identify four interconnected principles necessary for the design of connected learning environments (see p. 77). However, no research has examined the enactment of these design principles. This paper focuses on teachers’ and mentors’ engagement with one principle--”challenge is constant”--in their professional development in an elementary school and a high school in a large urban school district. These schools were involved in whole-school reform focused on the integration of digital media arts and connected learning. During our multi-year ethnographic observations, we observed engagement with all four connected learning design principles. For this paper, we focus on “challenge is constant” in order to fully describe its on-the-ground enactment.

Data Collection & Analysis: Data collected included: field notes from observations of grade-level meetings (n=33), classroom instruction (n=12), an after-school digital studio space (40 hours), and planning meetings for mentors (10 hours); interviews (n=20); and artifact collection (e.g., print and digital artifacts analyzed in grade team meetings). Data was analyzed using qualitative methods for constructing grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006) through constant comparison (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Constant comparison involved comparing and contrasting observations, themes, and theories across the corpus of the data (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) and against the supporting features of the “challenge is constant” principle (Ito et al., 2013).

Selective Findings: Our findings speak to each of the “challenge is constant” supporting features, which include framing activities as challenges; embedded infrastructure that enables sharing; scaffolding of peer sharing; structured access to resources; and infrastructure to support collaboration (Ito et al., 2013, p. 81). For the sake of space, we include only our findings related to ‘framing activities as challenges’ in this proposal.

In grade-team meetings at the elementary school, teachers engaged with challenges (e.g., ‘hacking’ a known game to increase rigor); however, they tended to experience these challenges collectively rather than individually. Moreover, these challenges weren’t necessarily interest-driven; they were often designated by the facilitator of the meetings, who was not a teacher.

Mentors who worked at the high school met weekly to plan their own professional development, choosing to focus on structuring individual challenges within the digital studio space. However, their processes for learning were similarly collective; structures to support individual learning existed in service of their shared goal to improve in one area.

Although the Connected Learning framework supports scaffolding individuals through interest-driven challenges, challenges for teachers and mentors tended to be designed collectively. Teachers and mentors framed their professional development activities as shared challenges, with the goal of developing shared expertise. This shared perspective on “challenge is constant” does not align with the Connected Learning vision for distributed expertise based on individual interests.

Significance: By considering a single connected learning design principle across multiple years of observations in two school-based contexts, this paper contributes a critical perspective on an influential learning design model (connected learning) and investigates the challenges of adult connected learning in school contexts.

Authors

• Rebecca Woodard, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Nathan C. Phillips, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Emily Machado, University of Illinois at Chicago