Seeing through ICT: Re-Viewing Student Teachers' Transformation of Practice from University Session to School Placement
Source: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 5, Issue 1 May 2009, pages 61-74.
(Reviewed by the Portal Team)
The integration of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) into subject teaching raises additional complexities for teacher educators. There are technical ICT skills to be taught. Furthermore, there are also many questions about how these skills relate to the development of subject knowledge and pedagogy. This article analyses the impact of the teaching of an ICT activity by a teacher educator. The authors traced two student teachers' transformations of the ICT activity in lessons during their school practice.
The authors focused on the work of two PGCE students. First, while the second author (Sasha) taught the session, the first author (Jean) made notes and video-recorded the two students' work. The first author held a brief interview with the students immediately after the university session and made notes on their impressions of the task. Then she observed, made notes and audio-recorded each of the students teaching a similar ICT lesson in school. The authors also collected lesson plans, resources and outcomes from the school lessons. This was followed by a semi-structured interview with both students. All the students in the cohort wrote reflections on their ICT lessons for their teaching portfolio. This was repeated the following year, although the authors did not collect detailed lesson data for the second cohort.
At the end of the first year of the first author's appointment, they interviewed each other about their experiences of becoming a teacher educator. At this stage the authors reviewed the video-recording of the university session several times and discussed it in relation to theoretical framework.
They show how tracing the transformation of an ICT activity from a university session to school lessons can make the dilemmas associated with subject knowledge, learning, and pedagogy more visible for teacher educators.
The self-study reveals the value of being explicit about the intentions behind selection and framing of an activity. The authors show that identifying a learning problem can offer potential for focused critical framing by teacher educators with student teachers. Finally, they explore the potential of a meta-language of teacher education for promoting a culture of shared practice and professional development for teacher educators and student teachers.
The research suggests that ICT creates an additional layer of complexity within teaching while also allowing the process and problems of learning to be more visually evident to a researcher. The authors also suggest that a focus on mentored self-study can be valuable professional development for teacher educators new to the role.