Students and Teachers Discuss and Explore Workplace Dilemmas by means of

an International online COP

Who we are :Roelien Bos-Wierda & Ron BarendsenTeacher educators at the NHL University of

Applied Sciences (Languages and Social Sciences)

ProgramIntervision / Peer consultation

• Analysis of the educational context• How does intervision work?• Drawbacks of face-to-face method• A new way of intervision

Questions & Discussion

educational context teacher training department NHL

4-year bachelor program with internships in all 4 years

Why intervision

• “Increase of insight into one’s own professional behaviour, strentgths and weaknesses and leads to an awareness of new ways and possibilities” (Driehuis, 1997; De Haan & De Ridder, 2001).

• Increase of motivation and empowerment (Hendriksen, 2006)

• “… intervision does lead to the development of a shared professional discourse” (Joyce and Showers, 2002).

Peer consultation : how does it work?

• Incident method - during internship– Weekly f2f sessions (group size 7-10)– Students propose classroom dilemmas – 1 dilemma is chosen

• Group ask questions• Students formulate an analysis

• they formulate their advice– The owner of the dilemma gives his reaction– The session ends with a discussion about

possible transfer of analysis and advice

Are you familiar with this procedure?

• Experiences

• Disciplines

• Alternatives

Some drawbacks to f2f method:

Not enough time

Not recorded

Not enough experts

No literature

Only a few dilemmas discussed

Repetitive superficial discussions

A new way……….

• To meet the aforementioned drawbacks Online intervision via Myschoolsnetwork– Uploading of workplace dilemmas– Voting for the most interesting– Questions and clarification– Analysis and advice

Results Research pilot 2009 - 2010

• 68 % :online intervision added value to the f2f course

• 59% online intervision facilitates in-depth analysis of classroom dilemmas

• 68% more expert participation desirable

(research populations Dutch students only)

Research 2010-2012

Online peer consultation : Dutch and American students

PROBLEM DEFINITION AND HYPOTHESIS

H0: The use of the online intervision method in combination with the f2f method will not lead to a significant difference in the development of the shared professional discourse as compared to f2f intervision only.

H1: The use of the online intervision method to complement the f2f method will result in an increased professional discourse as compared to f2f intervision only.

Conceptual model of this research.

2 sub-questions

1. What is a Shared Professional Discourse (SPD)?

2. How can an SPD (and its development) be measured?

What is a Shared Professional Discourse?

“Like any community [a teacher training course] shares … a common discourse. The discourse creates a set of facts [and] perceptions which are accepted as given by members of the discourse community. …These … become the socially constructed facts on which the shared professional discourse … is based.”

shared conceptual framework

professional discussions of workplace dilemmas

How did we measure SPD (and its development)?

- By collecting discourse containing analysis and advice on the basis of authentic classroom dilemmas

- By scoring the data thus collected

quasi-experimental research design

Data have been collected from an expert group, a test group and a control group.

Instruments

• a pre-test and a post-test. – Central in both tests was an authentic

classroom dilemma. – A questionnaire was formulated around this dilemma in

which the research population was invited to look at the dilemma from different angles, analyse it and formulate an advice.

– In order to analyse the elicited data, the Content Analysis Method was used to elicit keywords/dimensions that will be described later.

research data 2010 - 2011

• 2e year language students of the NHL teacher training faculty (n=46)

• Pre-test respons 100% • Post test 65% respons

– Drop out in the course of the year,– Submitted in the final week of their

internship (priority)

Content Analysis Method Pre-test and post-test analysed

In order to analyze the texts by means of the content analysis method a set of keywords/dimensions had to be developed as a basis to analyze and score the test results. For this purpose the Interaction Analysis Model (Gunarwardena, 1997) was used

Gunawardena model

• Sharing/ Comparing• Exploration of Dissonance• Negotiation/Co-construction• Testing Tentative Constructions• and Statement/Applications of Newly-

Constructed Knowledge”

Key indicators

Hands-on

• Form groups of three/four• Score the 4 analyses individually• Compare your scores with your

groupmembers• Negotiate until you have reached

consensus• Plenary : comparison of the scores

Student teacher Lisanne is doing her internship and is as proctor during a test.

The pupils are 14-15 years old. The pupils have been told that when they have finished the test they have to stay in the classroom and work silently for another subject.Suddenly Lisanne notices that a pupil – Rosa – is using her mobile phone to text someone. Lisanne immediately confronts her and reminds her that it is a school rule that the use of mobile phones is not allowed in the classroom. She tells Rosa that if she does not put the phone away immediately it will be confiscated.

Rosa starts protesting and tells the student teacher that she has forgotten to bring the reference book she is going to need for the Physics test later that day. She adds that she has texted a friend to ask her to bring the book; she seems truly desperate!

Lisanne is faced with a dilemma...what to do??

Some results

The Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney-test

• Pre-test and post-test were taken on an anonymous basis.

• In order to prove or disprove the hypothesis that the intervention of f2f intervision, complemented with online intervision, leads to an increased development of the SPD. The Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon-test was used (Wilcoxon, 1945; Mann & Whitney, 1947).

• With this test a 69.7% validity has been established for the hypothesis that the addition of the online tool to f2f intervision leads to an increased development of the SPD.

Why MySN as platform/portal for intervisiontool

Research and experience had shown to us that an isolated, standalone online tool – i.e. separated from other social and professional/educational activities – would not work and that our online tool would benefit from the application of Etienne Wenger’s 7 principles to cultivate online communities of practice (Cultivating Communities of Practice, 2002)1. Design for evolution.2. Open a dialogue between inside and outside perspectives.3. Invite different levels of participation.4. Develop both public and private community spaces.5. Focus on value.6. Combine familiarity and excitement.7. Create a rhythm for the community

Future ambitions concerning the online intervision tool

– a more structured design in which there are separate fields for the different stages of the intervision procedure

– More experts– More teacher training institutes @home and

abroad – Research pilot 3 with respect to the effects of

online intervision; focus on development professional discourse & classroom performance

Questions and reactions

www.myschoolsnetwork.com

Teacher training Institutions are more than welcome to

participate. Interested? Apply for a guest account via the

homepage or send a message to info@myschoolsnetwork.com

The 5 stage modelGilly Salmon

Myschoolsnetwork

• Some figures– Countries: 15– Schools : 53– Members : 4000– Messages: 56000– Contributions: 4600 http://www.google.com/analytics/

Objectives:• Developing language skills and global citizenship in an authentic environment• Virtual “traineeship” student teachers to practise their coaching skills• Facilitating peer-to-peer consultation (intervision)