1. Teacher education through digital space: Enquiring into students online participation during a blended teacher training course
Helen Coker
BERA 15

2. In this presentation Brief overview of the course and context
Case Study from first year of delivery
Changes made and the perceived impact

3. 2013-2014 2 students 4 students 5 students 9 students
For the first year of delivery our students were spread across 4 Academic partners

4. 2014-2015 3 students 2 students 8 students 9 students 18 students
This year the numbers doubled and a five Academic partner joined. Next year a sixth AP will join us as well as a group of Gaelic Secondary students.

5. Useful Information/ Weekly Timetable / Assignments
The Digital Space
Online Space
Reflective Journal
Useful Information/ Weekly Timetable / Assignments
Module 1
Module 2
Module 3
Module 4
ePortfolio
The initial VLE design was theoretically informed - Social, cultural and pedagogic factors influence the use of technology in education (Creanor, 2013)
Pedagogic approach - important consideration.
Meaning = negotiated (Bruner, 1996; Wenger, 1998) through social interactions in a cultural landscape (Cole, 1998)
The online space provided a context for learning but did not determine it (Oliver, 2013).
Technology = mediating artefact (Conole, 2013), enabling and constraining students’ participation.
The VLE spaces were designed to enable students to actively engage with content, reflect on their learning and interact with each other; they modelled the pedagogy they taught.
The course was designed to enable students to enter the community of practice (Wenger, 1998) of teaching. Learning to become (Thomas & Seely-Brown, 2009) a teacher was seen to require more than just the acquisition of information. The course aimed to enable students to enter the professional community of practice; to develop their identity as a teacher.
Blackboard

6. The Student Experience
Weekly Timetable (College Blocks)
Monday
VLE sessions
Tuesday
Wednesday
College based VC sessions
Thursday
Friday
Local workshops
Students week was organised into VLE – Virtual Learning Environment, VC – Video Conferencing + Locally based experiential

7. PGDE Case Study Methodology
Ethnographic approach to data from the online space
Qualitative approach to data
Aim – to observe student experience
Data
Online space
Feedback from students
Methodological approach - sought to observe and understand students’ participation rather than measure it.
Aimed to document the way in which students participated in the VLE and the way in which the VLE mediated that participation.

8. Mediating Artefacts
Vygotsky ‘Thinking and Speech’ The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky, Volume One: Problems of General Psychology, Eds Rieber and Carton, translated by Minnick, Plenum Press: New York and London (1987)
Thinking and Speech are not given determinants of development but evolved as part of human consciousness. A social and cultural negotiation of meaning
Wertsch, J (2007) ‘Mediation’ in ‘The Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky’ ed. Daniels, Cole and Werstch, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Explicit mediation – tools (cultural and physical) are used specifically to shape practice
Implicit mediation – language enables and constrains both thought and speech

9. Discussion Boards
Compared discussion boards – big range in terms of participation – no correlation with dates, after placements, before assessment etc. Then looked at language used when setting tasks:
The language used for Discussion Board tasks was found to relate to participation.

10. Social Capital
Bourdieu, (1979) Distinction: A Social Critique on the Judgement of Taste translated by Richard Nice; 2010, Routledge: London Penuel, Riel, Krause and Frank (2009) ‘Analyzing Teachers Professional Interactions in a School as Social Capital’ Teachers College Record, vol. 11 (1), pp Hargreaves, A and Fullan, M (2012) ‘Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in every school’ Routledge: London

11. Comparing Academic Partners
Students from APs with smaller groups of students spent more time in the online space
Students in smaller APs used the online space noticeably more than those in larger groups – F2f contact was perhaps preferred
This had an effect on the largest cohort though as they didn’t access the capital which was shared in the online space – comparing contexts, Local authorities, policies etc.
As shown in next session patterns of participation related to success and the cohort from the largest partner came out at the lower end.

12. The Negotiation of Meaning
Wenger, E (1998) ‘Meaning’ in Communities of Practice, Meaning and Identity, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge
The interplay of participation and reification:
Participation = taking part, involving mutuality
Reification = projecting meaning, reified in a book, a word, a webpage

13. Patterns of Participation
Looked at students use of the space – asked tutors to identify high achievers - identified students who had resubmitted assignments
Interesting – proportion of time spent in content area and on discussion board – cf these as a percentage

14. Patterns of Participation
CLICK
Students above this line were all independently identified as high achievers
Students below this line all resubmitted assessments
Suggests that a dialogic approach is beneficial - can’t see whether this is predictive or reflective of high achievement though
A dialogic approach was found to correlate with higher achievement in assignments

15. Questions from the Case Study
Does the size of the local group influence students online engagement? Are patterns of participation reflective or predictive of success? In what ways does the structure and language of an online space mediate students participation?

16. 2014/15 Delivery Ongoing review of data Ongoing session feedback
Formal review sessions at the end of the year
Increased participation on discussion boards
Engagement with weekly seminar discussions
Cross AP tasks successful
Use of chat rooms in cross AP groups
Changes made in showed increased engagement on discussion boards
More spaces were opened for dialogue and critical engagement was observed as having added depth
In we have re-structured the digital space, informed by our ongoing reflection and critique

17. Next Steps
In what ways do online spaces mediate student participation?