Participatory Design Research in Building Community through Telecollaboration Project

July 3, 2013

Alain Breuleux, Ph.D.McGill University, Canada

Gyeong Mi Heo, Ph.D.CEFRIO, Canada

ISCAR C-US 2013

Agenda

Design-based research for innovative educational environment

Case : Building Community through TeleCollaboration

Describe participatory design as improvement

Introduction: BCT Project

Building Community through Telecollaboration (BCT) project is a province-wide initiative with educators and administrators from English school boards across Quebec.

A goal of the BCT Project is

“to encourage, facilitate and support collaboration among students, teachers and educational leaders to enhance

learning across the community.”

BCT Website: http://bctcollaboration.wikispaces.com/

Purposes of this presentation

To present design research and participatory design as an innovative combination of research approaches.

Theoretical Framework

A collaborative design-based enterprise Brown (1992); Collins (1992); Design-based research collective,

(2003)

A focus on teacher knowledge Cochran-Smith & Lytle (1999); Lieberman & Miller (2001);

Shulman (1986)

Fostering a culture of sharingBecker & Riel (2000); Louis (2008)

Design Research

An emerging educational research paradigm

To create and extend knowledge about developing, enacting, and sustaining innovative learning environments (Design-based research collective, 2003, p. 5).

Characteristics: Interventionist / Iterative / Process-oriented / Utility-oriented / Theory-oriented (van den Akker et al., 2006, p. 4)

Participatory Design Research

Participatory design (Schuler & Namioka, 1993) originated from the industry sectors in Scandinavian countries.

The objective of the participatory design is “the inclusion of the users / participants in the design and implementation of any new technology (Silva & Breuleux, 1994)

Research Question and Context

How do we facilitate communication and collaboration in a professional learning network for developing teacher professional practice and enhancing student learning?

Project context and Participants: About 50 teachers from 11 schools across all nine English

school boards in Quebec in 2010-2011.

BCT teachers attend four F2F meetings per year and communicate and collaborate with each other through diverse ICT tools to develop collaborative classroom projects with their students.

Building Community through Telecollaboration (BCTN)

40-50 teachers from 9 School boards

Design research(Iterative process)

ResearchersConsultants

40-50 teachers from9 School boards

2 school boards

25-30 teachers/SB

ResearchersConsultants

Cycle lead teachers

Participatory design Research

(Lead teachers)

Participatory design Research

(Two school board-based PLNs)

ResearchersConsultants

SB1 Lead TeamSB2 Lead Team

Phase 1 (2007-2009)

Phase 2 (2009-2011)

Phase 3 (2011-2013)

ListservLive Classroom

BCT Blog & Wiki

BCT SAKAI portalLive ClassroomBCT Website

E-Mail

BCT Website & E-MailSB1: SB portal & Wiki

SB2: SB WebsiteZenlive

Participants

Characteristics

Leadership team

ICT tools

F2F meeting II- Encouraging using the SAKAI portal- Developing collaborative projects: Cycle group planning

F2F meeting III- Developing collaborative projects: Cycle group discussion- Web 2.0 hands-on sessions

F2F meeting IV- Sharing and celebrating BCT project 2009-2010 and collaborative classroom projects

F2F meeting I- Introduction to BCT project- Self-reflection- Group guidelines- Sharing stories

F2F meeting II- Introduction to the process of building collaborative projects - Cycle group discussion- Web 2.0 hands-on sessions

F2F meeting III- Modeling of a classroom practice - Cycle group discussion

F2F meeting IV- Sharing and celebrating BCT project 2010-2011 and collaborative classroom projects - Reviewing and reflection

Year 1 (2009-2010): Potential – To introduce and incubate the BCT community with potential facilitators in cycle groups and cultivate social relationships between the BCT teachers.

Year 2 (2010-2011): Coalescing – To develop shared visions and goals of the BCT community as well as individuals and cultivate a culture of reflecting and sharing practice among the BCT teachers.

F2F meeting I- Introduction to BCT project: Goals, Objectives, Themes, & BCT SAKAI portal- Building cycle groups

Implications of Participatory Design Research (I)

Away from strict reliance on “knowledge-for-practice”

Inclusion of “knowledge-in-practice” into the conversations

Better opportunities for “knowledge-of-practice” to emerge through intentional investigation and interpretation by teachers and others in the leadership team

Implications of Participatory Design Research (II)

Implications of Participatory Design Research (III)

An “interpretive community” (Fish, 1980) Interpreting “emerging practice”

Intersection of Teaching, Reflection, and Participatory design

Emerging practice is the object of interpretive conversations

The object of design conversation in an iterative process

Conclusions

Design-based research with increased and more structured participation

Applied to one instance of innovative educational development

Applicable in other contexts