Research School Network: Guest Blog: Challenges to Implementing A New Technology in Teacher Education

Read this month’s guest blog from Jo Byrd, Senior Lecturer in ITE & Partnership Manager at the College of Arts, Humanities and Education, Derby University. Jo writes about her journey in implementing a blog-style platform for ongoing reflections on practice as part of initial teacher training provision. The theme is extremely relevant to any of us wanting to reflect on our own practice, implement new structures to encourage reflections across a school or as a part training programmes we are designing and delivering. 

Three years ago, whilst working with some second year B.Ed. students, I saw my own reflection and reaction in something I was asking them to do: namely the eye rolling and the ​‘oh, what a waste of time’ comments. I was asking the students to write down reflections on their teaching practice and categorise them depending on which of the 8 Teachers’ Standards the reflection fell into. Now, if you know the Teachers’ Standards – or anything in life really – nothing can ever be neatly packaged and compartmentalised so I appreciated the students’ pain. They also told me they frequently backdated the form. Writing down their reflections was a course requirement, and so something they were doing to pass, as opposed to something they were doing so they would grow and develop; it seemed that as Gore & Zeichner (1991) wrote regarding their analysis of some models of reflective practice:

In some extreme cases, the impression is given that as long as teachers reflect about something, in some manner, whatever they decide to do is acceptable, since they have reflected about it, (Gore & Zeichner 1991:120).

Ottenson, (2007) discusses the problem I encountered, whereby students feel they think all the time and become frustrated with this externally imposed reflective structure that is demanded of them. As Larrivee states, ​‘The process of becoming a reflective practitioner cannot be prescribed’, (Larrivee, 2000: 296). And Tarrant (2013) argues that if being reflective is externally imposed on someone then it will not be effective.

However, the notion of critical reflection is not always clear to students, (James 2007; Finley 2008; Moon, 2009) and this is something that needs to be modelled. Moon (2004) suggests that the representation of learning is a further source of learning material. As the learner captures and records her thoughts, the learner re-organises her thoughts and the presentation of ideas, ​‘she is sorting out her understanding of those ideas and is learning more since the organisation and clarification of ideas are a process of learning’ (Moon 2004: 14). These re-presentations of learning represent a process of reflection within a chosen medium, rather than a ​‘direct mirror of what happens in the head’ (Moon 2004: 80). This results in secondary learning or a deeper level of learning. So, I am not proposing we do away with reflecting, but just that we allow more flexibility in how it is done.

Reflecting on this (although I did not write it down, or compartmentalise it) I began to wonder if using a digital tool where students would be free to embed videos, hyperlinks, photos, lecture notes, talks etc. and write more in a blog form, which they could design and manage themselves would give them a better sense of ownership. I wondered if they would see the process of reflecting – on a module entitled ​‘Reflective Practice’ – as less of a bind and more of means to challenge and improve their practice and grow as a professional. This had to make sense, I mean I was looking at the ​‘google generation’ and the ​‘digital natives’, right?

Wrong. Some of our students struggled to use the technology as they had become very heavily reliant on paper folders.

Why implement new digital technology?

I wanted our students to be able to represent their reflections in a more meaningful and personal way to them. I was also keen to develop their digital competencies and give them a tool that they would then be able to work with once qualified to ease their workload and to model using technology to the children they would be teaching. It has been argued that trainee teachers and teachers are not always digitally competent and that this then hinders the effective use of technology in the classroom, (Montgomerie and Irvine 2001; Wilhelmsen et al. 2009; Tømte, Kårstein, and Olsen 2013; Beadle 2016; Lohnes Wataluk 2016). This in turn, does not allow the pupils to always see technology being modelled effectively. We were keen for the students to become competent in using a tool which they would continue to use once qualifying (Lohnes Wataluk 2016).

‘Digital natives’, did you say?

The first barrier was my naivety in assuming our students were ​‘digital natives’, a term I have since seen critiqued. Blau, Peled & Nasan (2014) discussed the phrases we have come to accept as reality, such as: ​‘digital natives’; ​‘the millennials’ or ​‘google generation’. They dispute these terms and accept instead a far more appropriate term suggested by Prensky (2009) of ​‘digital wisdom’; using technology wisely; this has less to do with the era in which someone is born and more to do with appropriately and competently using technology.

Some of our students were not confident in adopting this tool and for some I actually increased their stress and workload – that is why, for the initial trial, I made it optional as it was not my intention to increase workload, something Beadle (2016) discusses.

However, the students still had an imposed system, albeit a more flexible one, so whilst there were options, there was definitely a ​‘Am I doing it right’ mentality, which does not marry with developing something in a personalised way. A further risk, which some students did do, was just swap the paper files for on-line files and this was not really my intention either. As Laurillard (2007) stated, caution must be had in that we do not simply recreate what we do digitally in the same way as we do on paper. There is a capacity to transform practices (Laurillard, 2007) not merely to recreate them.

Some university lecturers and school based mentors also showed apprehension to the proposed changes, and naivety number two for me was underestimating how some people respond to change and the time this can take.

A final barrier, and one we are still working with, is Wi-Fi access in schools – some schools will not allow our trainees their Wi-Fi code for security issues. This is not insurmountable, but it makes life a little harder. Similarly, there is the issue of using personal devices in the classroom – phones, IPads etc. Again, not impossible to work around, but can be more challenging.

Of course the new rules surrounding data protection have also presented challenges. From now on our policy will be for a student to delete all data on schools and pupils as soon as assessments regarding placements have been completed.

Little by little

We have implemented this slowly, the first phase saw 19 students trialling the technology, we then asked another cohort to upload some documents before asking them to use it exclusively the following year. We have also been mindful of giving enough support and training to staff, schools and students.

Exciting Stage

We are now in a position where we have rolled out PebblePad to all of our first year and second year B.Ed. students (approx. 200) and using paper files is no longer an option. Much training has been given from the academic and support staff, and more recently, from our students to students. One in particular in Y2 has been identified and has spoken in a lead and supported in workshops – he has been identified by the University as a digital champion.

The PGCE course have opted for a part roll out this year – where some documents are on PebblePad and some are in paper form. Student feedback has been a request for all to be digital and that is something the PGCE team will be looking into.

Next steps

Change does not happen overnight. We are now in a position where more people see the benefit of the technology than the barriers. Over the next year, as students become more and more competent, I think we will begin to see their digital capabilities improve and they will never look back and wish they were carrying around 3 huge folders of paper!

Final Thanks

A final thanks goes to many of our schools who have been supportive in this change and have worked with us to make this change a success and accepting some hiccups that occur when moving through a process of change.

The full paper is available by accessing: https://ojs.cumbria.ac.uk/index.php/TEAN/article/view/388

References in the blog:

Beadle, H. (2016) ​‘Delivering the future workforce: A highlighting of the need to focus on the relationship between school teachers and technology’, TEAN Journal, vol. 8 (1) 106 – 115.

Blau, I. Peled, Y. & Nusan, A. (2016) Technological, pedagogical and content knowledge in one-to-one classroom: teachers developing ​“digital wisdom”, Interactive Learning Environments, 24:6, 1215 – 1230.

Finlay, L. (2008). ​‘Reflecting on reflective practice’, PBPL CETL, Open University, [Online]. Retrived from: http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/resources/pbpl-resources/finlay-l-2008-reflecting-reflectivepractice-pbpl-paper-52 [date accessed September 2016].

Gore, J & Zeichner, K (1991) ​‘Action research and reflective teaching in preservice teacher education – a case study in the United States’. Teacher and Teacher Education, 7 (2): 119 – 36.

James, A. (2007) ​‘Reflection Revisited: Perceptions of Reflective Practice in Fashion Learning and Teaching.’ Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education 5: 179 – 196.

Larrivee, B. (2005) ​‘Transforming teacher practice: becoming a critically reflective teacher’, Reflective Practice 1(3) 293 – 307.

Laurillard, D. (2007). Pedagogical forms for mobile learning: Framing research questions. In N. Pachler (Ed.), Mobile learning: Towards a research agenda (pp. 153 – 175). London: WLE Centre, the Institute of Education, University of London.

Lohnes Watulak, S (2014) ​‘Reflection in action: using inquiry groups to explore critical digital literacy with pre-service teachers’. Educational Action Research, 2016 VOL. 24, No. 4, 503 – 518.

Montgomerie, T. Craig and Valerie Irvine. 2001. ​‘Computer Skill Requirements for New and Existing Teachers: Implications for Policy and Practice’. Journal of Teaching and Learning 1 (1): 43 – 55.

Moon, J. A. 2004. A Handbook of Reflective and Experiential Learning. Oxon: Routledge/​Falmer.

Moon, J. A. 2009. ​‘The Use of Graduated Scenarios to Facilitate the Learning of Complex and Difficult-to-describe Concepts.’ Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education 8: 57 – 70.

Ottenson, E. (2007) ​‘Reflection in Teacher Education’, Reflective Practice,8 (1):31 – 48.

Prensky, M. (2007) Changing Paradigms from ​“being taught” to ​“learning on your own with guidance”, Educational Technology, July-Aug, 2007 [accessed online – Jan 2017.

Tarrant, P (2013) Reflective Practice and Professional Development. London: Sage.

Tømte,C., Asbjørn, K., & Olsen, D. (2013) ​‘IKT I Lærerutdanningen. På Vei Mot Profesjonsfaglig Digital Kompetanse?’ [ICT in Teacher Education.towards a Professional Digital Competence?] Tromsø: NIFU Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education.

Wilhelmsen, J., Hilde, Ø, Tove, K., & Breivik, J. (2009)’ Digitale Utfordringer I Høyere Utdanning. Norgesuniversitetets IKT-Monitor ‘[Digital Challenges in Higher Education. NOU’s ICT Monitor]. Tromsø: Norway Opening Universities.