Disrupt or co-opt?The role of a pedagogic planning tool in promoting effective design for learning

Liz MastermanOxford University Computing Services

Marion MantonDepartment of Continuing Education,

University of Oxford

Overview

• Planning as a response to disruption• Phoebe “show and tell”

Background and design rationale Development methodology Quick tour of Phoebe

• The tool in context Issues and their resolution at the

theoretical level

Disruption as a driver to (re-)planning

• “E-learning is often talked about as a ‘trojan mouse,’ which teachers let into their practice without realizing that it will require them to rethink not just how they use particular hardware or software, but all of what they do.” (Sharpe & Oliver, 2007, p. 49)

• “It fundamentally made me think about what I actually do in the class. … The VLE really made me think about ‘how am I going to project what it is that I give to a lesson when I’m face to face on this screen?’ … Usually I don’t have to plan my lessons, I just go in and do it … What it brought me back to was the actual lesson plan, you know, like when you first started off … it was like that all over again.” (School teacher)

The problem space: disruption seen as threat

• “Technology-reticent” practitioners: Lack of awareness or interest “Technophobia” Lack of time to explore (esp. if part-time or hourly paid) Aversion to risk inherent in experimentation Fear of being supplanted Incompatibility with institutional model of learning

• But pressure to engage with digital technology From above

• Implementation of VLE• Use of technology as a criterion in performance assessment

From below• Student expectations

• How to engage the technology-reticent? Institutional staff-development initiatives… …mediated by pedagogic planning tools

Enter the pedagogic planning tool…

=Where the individual practitioner starts getting to grips with technology and exploring its implications

• An emergent genre: JISC Design for Learning programme

(2 projects), DialogPlus, ReMath Guide teachers through the construction of

plans for learning sessions that make appropriate, and effective, use of technology

• Pedagogic planning: Concept of “lesson” alien to HE Pedagogy “embraces an essential dialogue

between teaching and learning” (Beetham & Sharpe, 2007, p. 2)

The Phoebe project

• JISC Design for Learning programme• May 2006-February 2008• Builds on research-based

investigation of “generic” tools used for planning

• Aim: Enable teachers in post-compulsory

education to develop their confidence and skills in designing technology-mediated learning experiences

The design challenge

“Maybe it’s going to be difficult to develop a single software tool kit that suits everybody’s preferences for planning learning (paper based, software or a mixture of both!) and maybe it could be useful to develop flexible software tools that support teachers through the ‘process’ and stages of designing for learning…” (Teacher in HE)

Design philosophy

• Principles Propagate effective practice to a wide

audience Allow option to use familiar planning

tools

• Rationale Learning Design tools in limited use;

output XML Successful IT projects build on users’

work, not force them to adapt

Informant design methodology

• Involve representatives of the e-learning community where their contribution will be of the most value (Scaife & Rogers, 1999)

• Practitioner-informants: requirements gathering, scenarios of use, initial design 5 Higher Education 2 Further Education 2 Adult & community learning, work-based

learning

• JISC Experts’ group: confirmation of design decisions

• Becta and HEA: embedding, sustainability

The Phoebe prototype

• Phase 1: proof-of-concept tool• Open source, built on wiki technology• Supports planning for individual learning sessions• Context of use

Initial teacher training Staff development

• Functions Guidance, advice and examples Planning a learning session

The tool in context: issues

• Staff development and teacher-training context validated by reviewers and informants

• Yet continuing dilemma: how to engage technology-reticent practitioners…

• …for whom disruption is not a welcome message

Adopt a theoretical perspective

The tool in context: a theoretical perspective

• Activity Theory and expansive learning (Engeström 1987, 1999)

Linking of the individual and the social Historicity

• Object and motive: the need to work on a problem space to achieve an outcome

The tool in context: planning as an activity system

Outcome Pedagogic plan

+ other resources

needed for the learning

experience

Subject(s) Teachers,

learning technologists

ObjectThe learning experience being planned

Tools

CommunityDepartment,

college/university, subject interest groups

RulesCurriculum, timetable, institutional strategiesand policies

Division of labourPlanning / advising / supporting

Transformation

Cultural:concepts,

templates for plans

Technical:computer, pen & paper

The tool in context: expansion thro’ contradictions

• Development driven by contradictions Within the activity system Through interaction with other activity systems

• Encounter with a “culturally more advanced object and motive” (Engeström, 1987): Design for learning

Currentpractice

Designfor learning

The tool in context:D4L as “culturally advanced”

• “The process by which teachers – and others involved in the support of learning – arrive at a plan or structure or design for a learning situation” that strikes “an appropriate balance between e-learning and traditional modes of delivery” (Beetham and Sharpe, 2007, p. 7; JISC, 2004, p. 11)

• Focus on sequences of activities carried out by active learners

• Design as rational and systematic and creative• Design for: acknowledges the contingent • (But NB people can design for learning without

explicitly “doing” D4L) • A perspective, not a methodology

Towards co-option

• Development through: Reflection on irrupting activity system Appropriation of more advanced models and tools Implementation of new model

• D4L as a creative response to challenges of new technologies but genetically connected to predecessor activity

• Acknowledge connection and build on it: Identify and capitalise on emergent D4L traits in current

practice• Hence co-opt the technology-reticent into a

community of D4L practice• BUT acknowledge that entrenched perspectives

may persist and must be accommodated