What are the two main ways in which interventions intended to change how teachers teach actually attempt to do this? (page 26)
The UK government, for example, has invested significantly in establishing computer-based and networked infrastructure in schools, colleges and universities, and has, in parallel, introduced many e-learning initiatives.
Many of these initiatives have been top-down and strategic, including the Department for Education and Skills(2005) e-learning strategy document introduced to facilitate and guide developments in pre- and post-16 education sectors (Department for Education and Skills 2004).
What are the six main ways in which practice has currently been modelled? (page 27)
• Practice models developed to describe or prescribe specific approaches by practitioners [e.g. Salmon’s (2000) five-step model of online learning; Laurillard’s (2001) conversational model].
• Other practical accounts that don’t fit any modeling framework such as case studies, action research reports, project findings and staff development materials.
• Theoretical accounts designed to provide coherent explanations of learning activities and practice (e.g. systems theory, activity theory, cognitive/constructivist theories).
• Taxonomies and ontologies (structured vocabularies)developed to provide systematic ways of labeling and organizing features of the learning situation.
• Standards and specifications such as Instructional Management Systems Learning Objects Model and Learning Design or ISO SC36; also representations such as workflow diagrams, Unified Modeling Language models or instantiations of standards in working systems.
• Organizational models designed to ensure an institution’s processes make best use of learning systems and best practice standards, such as quality assurance documents.
What are the five main factors that Sharpe (2004) identifies as influencing the success of interventions intended to improve practice? (pages 28–9)
- Usability
- Contextualization
- Professional learning
- Community
- Learning Design
What do the authors mean by ‘reverse engineering’ of their practice by the participants on the workshops? (page 33)
Represent context of teachers’ own teaching. Teachers had to consider their own processes and context of teaching in a different context: out of their own teaching and learning context (acontextuallity)
How does Wenger’s concept of reification help you to understand why pedagogical models cannot just be ‘given’ to practitioners with any hope of their being implemented successfully? (page 36)
A reification, Wenger proposes, is something that a community produces through its shared practice. It may be an outcome of practice (e.g. something that is produced, such as a lesson plan) or may reflect the process of practice (e.g. guidelines on how to design lessons).
When these reifications are produced, their meaning is clear to the producers, because they are aware of both the practice and the reification that seeks to describe it.
It cannot just be ‘given’ because reifications emerge from practice, but they do not define it; the valorization of any model (e.g. as ‘good’ practice) must therefore be treated with caution.
Nevertheless, why are reifications necessary for sharing practice, particularly between practitioners from different contexts?
When this reification is passed on to others (whether as a model, a design tool or an account of ‘best
practice’) members of that new community must work to make it meaningful by constructing a link between the reification and their practice. In Wenger’s view, then, the meaning of any model is situated, arising from the way that particular communities attempt to appropriate them.