Structural Contradictions and Individual Contexts: Using Cultural Historical Activity Theory to Understand Networked Learning

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 5
  In Roundtable Session: Nontraditional Approaches to Teacher Education

Abstract

Teacher education programs (TEPs) and teacher educators (TEs) have faced calls for reform for decades (Conant, 1963; Levine, 2006), and while research on teacher education improvement has focused either on individual TEs or on large scale policy changes (Cochran-Smith et al., 2016), research on networked learning across TEPs (Duran et al., 2009; Martin & Gobstein, 2015) shows promising results in translating local change into system-wide improvement. Here I examine how three TEs learning to improve their practice within a network context. I analyze the contradictions inherent in this work as well contextual factors that encompassed TEs efforts. I argue that cultural historical activity theory is a useful framework to understand this kind of networked program improvement.

Author

• Maia Young, University of Washington - Seattle