The activity of learning at a distance: a case study from teacher education in Iceland Thuridur...

The activity of learning at a distance:

a case study from teacher education in Iceland

Thuridur JóhannsdóttirThe 3rd Nordic Conference on Cultural and

Activity Research in Copenhagen 3rd – 5th September 2004

04.09.04 ISCAR - Copenhagen 2

Reframing distance learning • Work in contemporary societies is characterized by

polycontextuality - people involved in multiple communities of practice

• People need to learn to cross boundaries between communities - interesting focus for study

• Frame factors – space and time resisting to change• In distance education many of the frame factors

disappear, while others change• Which possibilities this brings for breaking down the

isolation of traditional school learning from the students’ actual life


Research on distance education• Programme for initial teacher training in the Iceland

University of Education from the perspective of teacher students living and working in remote rural areas

• The aim of this paper is to explore how one particular case in teacher education can be explained and understood with a focus on distance learning from an activity theoretical perspective,

• Especially the concepts of boundary crossing, expansive learning and developmental transfer

• The main unit of analysis will be the historical phase


Methods, context, participants

• Three former distance students interviewed• All located in fishing villages or towns ranging

from 200 to 2500 inhabitants• The women’ narratives through an AT lens• The possibilities of expansive learning and

developmental transfer will be discussed,• Interpret the first phase of the distance education

programme in the light of activity theory, especially the concepts of boundary zone and boundary crossing


The informantsHelena: • principal in a small school with 30-40 pupils• head of the organization for compulsory school

head teachers in the West-fjords. • goal is to get into the graduate programme for school management Elisabet:• one of two deputy head teachers in a school of more than 500 pupils in the main

town. • in the graduate programme for school management • working in a school where one or more teachers have always been enrolled in

the initial distance teacher education programme and lately always somebody in the graduate programme.

Jenny:• teacher in a school of approximately 140 pupils serving as a leader in teaching in

the middle school, children age 10-12. • taking graduate courses in general didactics and ICT in education


Who and why? Actors and goalElisabet:• This battle was, well, maybe because of a bad

situation of the schools in the community. It was, well, … the school was not found to be a good institution at that time, and we were here a few women who were in similar situation, we had university education although it was not teacher education which gave us the right to call ourselves teachers.

• …we all had our families here… could not or did not have the courage to move to Reykjavík at that time.


Goal – Rules - Actors

• The admission of students were built on a societal need for qualified teachers especially in the rural countryside.

• In accordance to the rules the community of the distance students became relatively homogenate; – made up of females from the country-side, – average age 30-40, – with the experience of teaching – enthusiastic and ready to sacrifice a lot to get that

education


Outcome – change agentsElisabet The teacher education we got at that time made us

more secure and enhanced our position as teachers. We began to stand up, the teachers without professional teacher education, just finishing a course in didactics of social studies and knew perfectly that we were talking about something that made sense, knew how we wanted to do this and said that we were not satisfied with how things were done now, and we want it this way


Boundary-crossersHelena • When we met in Reykjavík we stayed together as a group a lot, met

a lot outside school and things like that, eating together in the cantina, collaborating on assignments in the library. Things like inviting the teachers to dinner with us. I am still in connection with many of them. It was often really funny. It was interesting to hear what all the others were doing.

• This opened up so many things, opened up so much, you see, because they were all teachers. Because more or less they were teachers in small schools, so you could ask them what they were doing. You could get a lot of information, share a lot.

• If you met someone who was doing exactly what you were doing, teaching Icelandic just like you, and then you laid your cards on the table; that’s what I am doing; can you use anything of it? Then you tell me. And then you return home not only with the knowledge from the teacher college, but also what the others were doing, and in that way you were adding to your knowledge all the time.


Communication – ICT-toolsJenny:• I recall that we sent all our assignments by ordinary mail.

The e-mail was very primitive and something we were not familiar with. And the teachers were not all capable of using the e-mail. From some of them you never heard a word.

Elisabet:• At that time the information technology was very poor.

There was a sort of a tension linked to it, something was always going wrong. We had only this one computer at the school which we could use, we didn’t have it at home. Now everybody has a connection from their homes.


Collaboration

• Lack of contact to the teachers led to a tension

• The students’ answer to that was to stick together and collaborate

• Students learned to collaborate with their school-mates no matter where they were living


Figure from the group Workplace Learning

and Developmental Transfer in Helsinki http://www.edu.helsinki.fi/activity/pages/research/transfer

http://www.edu.helsinki.fi/activity/pages/research/transfer




Interconnecting activity systemsHelena: • You would always adapt to your own situation. Look, this was

your world, the school, where you were teaching and you applied all the material you got. You were always trying to apply, asking: How can I use this in my teaching?

• And at once, when we had learned how to make a teaching schedule and things like that. Integrate - make social studies by integrating geography, history, home economics and things like that, then you just organized a tourist bureau here with the pupils.

• And everything worked out well and you went back happy [to the community of distance learners] Yes this is fine, this is good. And then we shared, you always shared with the others right away.


Boundary-crossing zoneHelena: • Look, if you just said; look; it is really working out

well with me in mathematics if I teach it this and that way. Then someone would come and say: Oh god, can you [help], I heard you were teaching this class, the 3rd grade. It is really going badly. What is it you are doing? And then you told them what you were doing, something like that and the relevant person went home strengthened just like…. And then may be you were sending material and all kind of things afterwards.


Developmental transfer?

• Distance students acted as boundary-crossers and change agents which resulted in developed praxis in the schools – And in the learning community of distance

learners?

• The importance of the culture of the school being receptive


Expansive learningElisabet:• What we wanted to do was to change the situation, change the

image which the community had of the school. We wanted to augment the respect for the school in the community, and diminish some negative aspects that had created a not so good atmosphere in the school and yes become a sort of good school

• I think that when these six women started their studies then the other teachers began to talk together more than before… there was a kind of renewal. There was a group of qualified teachers here but when the rate of unqualified is so high a professional discussion doesn’t thrive. We are quite sure that this has totally changed in the school. The school spirit and the attitude of the community towards the school has changed


Conclusion• Yes - the reframing of the distance education

programme along activity theoretical theories can enhance our understanding of the distance education programme of Iceland University of Education

• My conclusion is that the concepts and models provided by activity theory open up possibilities for a new understanding of the kind of learning that occurs when teacher students engage in distance learning programmes


Useful concepts • Looking at students as boundary crossers

moving between activity systems • Contradictions as a possibility for

development• Developmental transfer understanding

learning as being horizontal, as two interacting activity systems benefit; the local schools and the teacher training programme.

The activity of learning at a distance: a case study from teacher education in Iceland Thuridur...

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