Proposal view
| Proposal Type: | Individual Paper |
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| Domain: | Teaching and Teacher Education |
| SIG: | Teaching and Teacher Education |
| Type | Submitted Paper |
| Equipment |
Overhead projector PC and projector |
| Paper Details |
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| Title | Between Planning and Practice: Toward the Implementation of Integrative Learning in an Experimental Teachers Education Program |
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| Abstract | This qualitative-interpretive study, framed by Activity-Theory, was conducted in the context of an experimental teacher education program. Its aims are to describe the process of developing an integrative curriculum by a professional learning community of twenty-five teacher-educators, and to investigate how they managed the issues which obstructed the process: (a) The curricular issue; (b) The relationship issue: (c) The issue of the gap between creation and implementation. The data, which was collected during four academic years, consists of transcriptions of the teacher-educators’ weekly meetings, assignments, student-teachers’ written works, participant observations of the student-teachers’ teaching and student-teachers’ presentations. The data-analysis consists of retrospective identification of research cycles and themes, through a dialectical process with the Activity-Theory (Engestrom 1999; Edwards, 2000). The validation process included triangulation of the various data sources and collaborative interpretation of the data. The research was comprised of three cycles: The first cycle describes the initial stages of developing a professional community of teacher-educators. The disagreement concerning the teaching of the “observation” tool, led to mutual understanding and willingness to build an integrative curriculum which will maintain the essence of the various disciplines and encourage significant connections between them. The second cycle describes the process of developing an integrative modular curriculum. This process encouraged a dialogue between different world views and pedagogical conceptions of the teacher-educators, constructed the frame of the program and determined its boundaries. The third cycle describes the process of work together on tools which encouraged and assessed integrative learning. A core construct emerging from the data was the notion of “middle-level”, in a dual meaning: as a hidden curriculum and as an activist, caring and epistemological team. The significance of this study is in the description of a “middle-up-down” model designed to manage implementation of new pedagogical ideas. |
| Summary | Aims The aims of this study are to describe the process of developing an integrative teacher education curriculum by a professional learning community of twenty-five teacher-educators in the context of an experimental teacher education program, and investigate how they managed the issues which obstructed the process. The research questions were: 1. What are the characteristics of the integrative teacher education curriculum? 2. What are the changes that took place in the context during the implementation of the integrative curriculum? The context Many colleges and universities are creating opportunities for more integrative leaning, in order to foster students' abilities to examine everyday issues from various perspectives(Carnegie Foundation 2004; AAC&U, 2002.) These abilities are based on the capacity to connect skills and knowledge from multiple sources and experiences. An emphasis on integrative learning can help students to build a rich and coherent conceptual framework for multi-dimensional holistic analysis, and to develop complex strategies to address real-world problems (Kim, Andrews and Carr, 2004; Huber and Hutchings, 2005). The staff of the experimental teacher education program were aware of the advantages of integrative learning and were willing to assist the students in developing an interdisciplinary perspective. But the implementation involved several difficulties: a. One difficulty emerged from the danger of blurring the disciplinary thought anddistorting the disciplines’ knowledge structure. The challenge was todevelop an integrative curriculum that on one hand maintains the essence of the individual disciplines, and on the other hand goes beyond academic boundaries. b. The construction of an integrative curriculum, demanded from the teacher-educators a willingness to participate, a tight coordination between them, a revealing of their beliefs and openness to different perceptions. All this in a culture that nurtures academic autonomy and is accustomed to individualism. c. One of the reasons for the failure of the educational reforms is embedded in the gap between the level of planning, and the level of everyday practice and implementation (Sarason, 1990; Spillane, Reiser and Reimer, 2002; Fullan, 1994). Therefore, another question the teaching staff were concerned with was: How will the changes in the curriculum, in the action patterns and in the interactions between the teacher-educators can led to the improvement of the students’ abilities to make connections between various opinions, interpret learning situations from different perspectives and develop rich educational practices, while using knowledge from various sources? This study describes how teacher-educators managed these issues which obstructed the process of developing an integrative curriculum. Theoretical framework The theoretical framework is the Activity-Theory, which explains the activity as a system which develop over time, in the framework of significant interactions in a complex context )Cole and Engeström, 1993; Engeström, Miettinen and Punamaki, 1999). In the activity system, subjects act when there is interest, curiosity and motives in their meeting with the object. This meeting is mediated by cultural tools. The triangle subjects-object-cultural tools is the explicit level of the activity system. However, there is another level of social mediators – the hidden level of the activity system, which includes rules, community and division of labor between the participants. The three components of the hidden level may facilitate the activity, but they can also obstruct it and disturb the achieving of the goals. This study will describe the explicit level of the activity system and will expose the hidden level. Methodology The research approach is qualitative-interpretive. Data collection: Data was collected during four years from different sources and consisted of: - Transcriptions of ten teacher-educators’ weekly meetings - Assignments written by the student-teachers. - Student-teachers’ written works (action research, curriculum planning). - Participant observations of the student-teachers’ teaching - Five student-teachers presentations. Data analysis First stage: Turning points and research cycles were identified through the construction of a “research-narrative". Second stage: Different levels of the activity system were identified through a dialectical process between the data and: (a) The Engestrom's model of the activity system; (c) This model 's applications to teacher learning (Edwards,2000) Findings Three research cycles were identified: The first cycle describes the initial stages of developing a community of twenty five teacher-educators who came from various disciplines. Different perspectives concerning the teaching of the “observation” tool, which aroused from the fact that each discipline has its own research methods for the collection and the interpretation of data, were a source of a conflict. Participation and collaboration led to a mutual understanding and a willingness to build an integrative curriculum which will maintain the essence of the various disciplines and encourage significant connections between them. The second cycle describes the process of developing an integrative modular curriculum. A formulation of a common document framed the integrative curriculum; the “big ideas” were chosen and around them three modules were built; the essence of each module was decided on; the spirality between the three modules was determined. This process encouraged a dialogue between different world views and pedagogical conceptions of the teacher-educators, constructed the frame of the program and determined its boundaries. The third cycle describes the process of work together on tools which encouraged and assessed integrative learning. It describes the development of a mentoring framework, in order to help students to synthesize learning from a wide array of sources. The central finding relates to the identification, description and characterization of the“middle-level” )Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Engestrom, 1998). The concept “middle-level” describes: (a) the hidden curriculum, which determined the routine in the implementation of the integrative learning; (b) the professional learning community as an activist, caring and epistemological team. Conclusions The significance of this study is the characterization of the “middle-level” as a hidden curriculum and as an activist, caring and epistemological team with considerable influence on the teacher education program. In light of the failure of the “up-down” and “down-up” reforms and in light of the awareness of the importance of integrating the two approaches) Fullan, 1994(, it seems that the described “model” can contribute to the implementation of innovative pedagogical ideas in teacher-education and narrow the gap between the macro and micro-levels. |
| Keywords | Integrated learning Planning Teacher education/development |
| Appendices | References5.doc |
| Authors | ||||||
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| Name | Surname | Institution | Country | EARLI Number | Presenting | |
| Edith | Tabak | Levinsky College of Education | Israel | kakb@netvision.net.il | * | |
| Ilana | Margulin | Levinsky College of Education | Israel | mnirim@zahav.net.il | ||
