- Two main ways in which interventions
intended to change how teachers teach:
Top-down
and strategic interventions to change management strategy (e.g. government
initiative)
Interventions
to change how teachers teach:
·To create an idealised type of practice to be planned and implemente
·Teacher representing their own practices to be shared, negotiated and
revised
- Six main ways in which practice has
currently been modelled:
·Practice Models - describe/prescribe specific approaches by practitioners
·Other Practical Accounts - case studies /project findings/staff development
·Theoretical Accounts - cognitive/constructivist theories
·Taxonomies and Ontologies - systematic labelling/organising of learning
situation
·Standards and Specifications - Instructional Management Systems / Modelling
language models
·Organisational Models - institutions processes making use of best practice
- Five main factors that Sharpe (2004)
identifies as influencing the success of interventions intended to
improve practice:
·Usability - known, accessible and
understood
·Contextualisation - Customisation/adapting
for the audience
·Professional Learning - Changing perceptions of
learning and teaching
·Community - working with existing
community
·Learning Design - helping practitioners
base their practice on student learning
- What do the authors mean by 'reverse
engineering' of their practice by the participants on the workshops:
Deconstructing models to reflect upon and self-evaluate
own teaching practice through collaborative work and the review of particular
categories
- Wenger's concept of
reification:
The process of which communities take a uniform model and
adapt to their own needs, be it using the language or the processes that
represent their practices.Reifications
'emerge from practice but they do not define it'
Idiosyncratic Definition - 'pertaining to the nature of idiosyncrasy, or something
peculiar to an individual' Dictionary.com
- Why are reifications necessary for
sharing practice, particularly between practitioners from different
contexts?
It can help to review trends and share best practice.By sharing across contexts, it allows for the
analysis to be based on the core of learning and teaching rather than the
traditional and/or consistent barriers/challenges that are met.In essence going back to the central process
of learning.
Additionally, the saying 'a problem shared is a problem
halved' has some merit.By offering a
forum where teachers can reflect upon, discuss but then move on to reviewing
others experiences, takes the teacher away from one particular problem and
instead places them in a community that initially may identify potential
problems but also offer within some potential solutions.
Reference:
S. De Freitas, M. Oliver, A.Mee and T.Mayes. (2008). The Practitioner Perspective on the modelling of pedagogy and practice. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. 24 (1), 26-38.
