Huang-Yao Hong and Chieh-Hsin Chiu
National Chengchi University, Taiwan
This study explored how students viewed the role of ideas for knowledge work and how such view was related to their inquiry activities. Data mainly came from students’ online interaction logs, group discussion and inquiry, and a survey concerning the role of ideas for knowledge work. The findings suggest that knowledge building was conducive to developing among students a more informed view of ideas that sees ideas as improvable, real-world objects for collaborative and creative knowledge work, rather than merely as abstract thoughts for achieving an individual’s own knowledge acquisition. Moreover, it was found that how a group views the role of ideas was associated with how they improve the quality of the ideas during their group inquiry.
Introduction
As argued by Reigeluth (2013), the educational paradigm before the 21st century was based on an
industrial model in which standardisation and the mass production of manufacturing is highly valued.
Under this paradigm, educational practice tends to highlight efficiency of individual knowledge
acquisition and accumulation by teaching learners the same content and skills that are predetermined by strict curriculum guidelines under a precise time frame (e.g., see Adams & Engelmann, 1996; Magliaro, Lockee, & Burton, 2005). Within such instructional practices, students are seldom given opportunities and autonomy to engage in self-directed inquiry that requires them to produce and continuously improve their ideas for knowledge work. However, given the rise of an information-driven and knowledge-based society (UNESCO, 2005), the industrial age–based educational paradigm is gradually giving way to a new economic model that favours customisation and a personalised information service (Reigeluth, 2013). As such, conventional educational practice is also shifting to focus more on cultivating competent and creative citizens who are able to work creatively and collaboratively with ideas for solving urgent environmental and social issues in service of the public good (Florida, 2002). This is in sharp contrast to traditional teaching in which ideas are often viewed as irrelevant and disruptive thoughts that interfere with the pre-specified teaching plan and classroom routines. Students with innovative ideas in class are sometimes even treated as unruly and misbehaved learners. Unsolicited ideas are especially highly unwelcome as they forbid teachers from completing their deliberate instructional goal and their assigned responsibilities for covering more curriculum materials in less time (Papert, 2000). Papert (2000) described such a situation that is commonly observed in most traditional learning environments as “idea aversion” (i.e., dislike of ideas). Inculcated with such a deep-rooted belief, it is unlikely for students to be given any chances of producing their own ideas and working innovatively with these ideas for collective knowledge advancement. It is also impossible for students to learn to appreciate the importance of ideas for creating new knowledge and solving real-world problems. The aim of this study was to improve understanding of how to foster students’ capacity to work collaboratively and innovatively with ideas and to help them develop a more informed view of the role of ideas for their knowledge work. The two research questions concerned in this study are (1) whether engaging students in knowledge building would help them enhance their online performance by working more cohesively as groups while collaboratively achieving their groups’ knowledge work and (2) whether students who are more engaged in knowledge-building activities would also be more likely to develop a more informed view that sees ideas as essential objects for sustained knowledge work.
Literature review
Fostering a design-mode of view for sustained idea improvement. One way to help students develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of “ideas” as essential objects for knowledge creation may be to engage students in actual “knowledge-building” activities (Hargreaves, 1999; Hong & Sullivan, 2009; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006). Knowledge building is defined as a collaborative process focused on sustained production and improvement of ideas in a community (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 2003). As an idea-centred pedagogical approach, knowledge building draws on Popper’s (1972, 1978) three-world epistemological position of constructivism. In addition to the physical/material world (world 1) and the psychological world existing in the human mind (world 2), Popper posited a world 3 reality that is mainly constituted of ideas. These ideas are produced by knowledge workers (e.g., engineers, scientists, designers, and architects), and, once created, they are embodied within a social life like tangible, real-world objects that can be further tinkered and experimented with by other knowledge agents and become more powerful solutions to problems. Under a world 3 view, therefore, ideas should be treated as tentative knowledge claims and be continuously subjected to critical scrutiny (e.g., through examination, clarification, and falsification) for further development. Likewise, in order to develop a successful knowledge-building community, its members also need to perceive the role of ideas as world 3 improvable objects for collective knowledge advancement (Scardamalia, 2002), rather than merely treating them as world 2 psychological constructs for achieving personal knowledge gain. Unfortunately, as cogently argued by Bereiter (1994), conventional classroom teaching tends to focus on instilling in students’ minds a prescribed body of
knowledge from a world 2 perspective, while neglecting the importance of cultivating students’
competencies to work with ideas in world 3.
To address this concern, it is important to distinguish two different modes of knowledge work: belief
mode and design mode (Bereiter, 2002; Bereiter & Scardamalia, 2003). To elaborate, the belief mode
emphasises the ability to evaluate ideas and/or knowledge claims using well-established and accepted true beliefs. Students’ intellectual life and classroom work in schools is conventionally dominated by such a mode of thinking. When students’ minds are functioning in a belief mode, they are often guided to ponder questions such as: Is this idea true or reasonable? What are the assumptions on which this idea is based? In contrast, the design mode of thinking highlights the ability to go beyond the pursuit of truth by engaging in sustained idea generation and improvement for knowledge advancement. When students are committed to a design mode of knowledge work, they tend to ask questions such as: What is the value of this idea? What is it good for? What can it or can it not do? How can it be further improved? While both modes are needed for knowledge work, a main epistemological difference between the two modes of view is that the belief mode tends to highlight knowledge acquisition and accumulation by viewing ideas as knowledge claims to be verified; whereas the design mode intends to facilitate innovative knowledge work by viewing ideas as improvable objects for knowledge advances (Cross, 2007).
One important thing to note is that engaging in a design-mode of knowledge work is, in essence, a
metacognitive process, as one has to constantly reflect and plan ahead in order to continually advance
ideas. Particularly from the perspective of knowledge building as a social process, the kind of metacognitive behaviours required for design-mode activities must be collectively (rather than
individually) attained. How a knowledge-building group sees the role of ideas and accordingly exercises its self-regulatory efforts can greatly influence the effectiveness of their knowledge advancement activities (Hong & Sullivan, 2009). Previous studies have also shown that productive collaborative knowledge work is greatly related to a group’s regulation activities (e.g., Dehler, Bodemer, Buder, & Hesse, 2011; Goos, Galbraith, & Renshaw, 2002).
Fostering the process of idea improvement
Hong and Sullivan (2009) proposed an idea-centred instructional framework to illustrate the
collaborative, emergent, and self-regulated process of sustained idea improvement in a typical
knowledge-building environment. This framework illustrates “idea generation”, “idea diversification”, and “idea elaboration” as three important activities for the process of effective idea improvement. First, in terms of idea generation, most research literature has considered it as an essential phase for productive knowledge or design work (e.g., Linsey et al., 2011), and an important line of empirical research has investigated effective instructional strategies or techniques to help idea generation (Faure, 2004; Miura & Hida, 2004; Mumford, 2001; Paulus & Yang, 2000; Rietzschel, Nijstad, & Stroebe, 2014). For example, Rietzschel et al.’s (2014) study found that when students were guided to work in a more narrowed (as contrasted with more broad) problem scope or when they were required to come up with ideas that were more original (as contrasted with more relevant), they were more likely to come up with innovative ideas. Hong, Chang, and Chai’s (2011) study found that it is more likely to foster idea generation when students are allowed to work on problems of their own interest and when the learning climate in an environment is perceived by learners as more open and creative. Second, from a socio-epistemological perspective (Fuller, 1988), idea diversification can be achieved by means of exchanging ideas or perspectives among members with distributed expertise. Previous research has suggested that idea exchange is critical to the process of knowledge advancement (Gong, Kim, Zhu, & Lee, 2013; Hong, Scardamalia, & Zhang, 2010; Perttula, Krause, & Sipilä, 2006). For example, Perttula et al.’s (2006) design experiment found that individuals who exchanged ideas were more likely to generate more ideas. Kohn, Paulus, and Choi (2011) conducted two experiments to explore the knowledge sharing process during which ideas are exchanged and/or combined in students’ brainstorming activities. They found that group endeavour was more effective than individual effort in generating more novel and viable idea combinations.
Thirdly, from the perspective of evolutionary epistemology (Popper, 1978), ideas can be refined by
community members acting as knowledge workers reflecting collaboratively on the potentials and
limitations of the ideas at issue. Previous studies have investigated ways of collaboration to help further elaborate ideas (e.g., Chen, Chuy, Resendes, Scardamalia, & Bereiter, 2011; Kipp, Bittner, Bretschneider, & Marco, 2014) and ways of idea elaboration that may enhance or hinder creative knowledge work (e.g., Kudrowitz & Wallace, 2013; Stark & Perfect, 2008; Verhaegen, Vandevenne, Peeters, & Duflou, 2013). For example, Kudrowitz and Wallace’s (2013) study found that the systematic use of a metric integrating three attributes (i.e., novelty, usefulness, and feasibility) as an elaboration means can be helpful in identifying more innovative ideas.
In a productive idea improvement process, once the initial ideas are generated, they need to be reified
(e.g., presented as a note or a message and contributed to an online database). Doing so helps transform these initial ideas from an individual’s mental constructs to become public property recorded permanently (e.g., in an online database). This is important as ideas conceived only in one’s mind (as world 2) cannot be treated as tangible objects for collective improvement. Further, the extent of idea diversification and exchange is a function of how ideas beget more ideas and interact with and relate to one another; and idea reflection or elaboration is a function of how collaborative knowledge workers try to increase the value of ideas and deepen their collective understanding of what the ideas can or cannot do to address the problem they are dealing with. In an optimal situation, idea improvement relies on an emerging process of idea generation, with idea diversification and idea elaboration serving as two essential social mechanisms closely intertwined to enable the transformation of initial ideas into more innovative ones (Chen, Scardamalia, Acosta, Resendes, & Kici, 2013).
Assessing ideas as outcomes of idea improvement
Along with an emerging knowledge-building process, ideas are expected to be transformed into tentative learning outcomes, including (1) initial ideas that are generated and contributed individually to a community’s database, (2) diversified ideas that are made possible through sharing/exchanging of or relating to the initial ideas, to (3) elaborated ideas that are further refined or modified continually by means of collaborative reflection among community members, and (4) more promising and valuable ideas that are made possible from opportunistically integrating diversified and elaborated ideas into more feasible solutions or coherent accounts for addressing a problem. When ideas as outcomes transformed from an emergent improvement process are to be treated as real-world material objects, it is likely for a knowledge-building group or class to form a complex collection of ideas (recorded in a database) that emulates a knowledge community or what Popper (1978) called world 3 reality
Results
Overall analysis of online performance
Pre-post comparisons were made between the early and later knowledge-building phases (using midterm as a separation point) for online activities (see Table 3). The rationale of using the two phases for analysis is because these two phases corresponded to the two main idea improvement activities, with the early knowledge-building phase highlighting more divergent idea-diversification activity and the later knowledge-building phase focusing on more convergent idea-elaboration activity. Overall, the frequency of all activities was quite consistent. There were no significant differences between the two phases in terms of all major online activities, except that there was a significant increase in the number of notes read in phase 2, which indicates increasing community awareness of group knowledge work (e.g., who was interacting or collaborating with whom in a group, and what ideas were being improved) towards the end of the course. Additionally, all the online measures were found significantly correlated with one another (all r’s > .43, p’s < .05, for all measures in phase 1; (all r’s > .31, p’s < .05, for all measures in phase 2; and all r’s > .60 p’s < .01, for all measures throughout the whole semester, e.g., see Table 4), which suggests that the more active the participants were in one type of online activity, the more likely they would be actively engaged in another type of activity.
As a main interest of this study is collaborative knowledge building, additional analysis of interaction
patterns was conducted using social network analysis. As shown in the bottom part of Table 3, overall, there was a descending trend in terms of network density from early knowledge-building to later knowledge-building phase for both note-reading and note-linking activities. Further, there was an ascending trend in terms of betweenness centrality from early to later phase (for note-reading only). To elaborate, relatively lower network density and higher betweenness centrality in the later phase implies that there were less whole community-based online activities and more focused small group-based activities. This may be because that the instructional design of this course encouraged students to progressively form groups and work within groups based on common interest in certain technology problems. Another explanation is that towards the end of the semester, within-group inquiry became more essential for completing each group’s final technological product. This is also confirmed by the fact that there were progressively more idea elaboration and intensive inquiry activities within groups (as shown by the higher-level scaffold use), rather than merely idea-sharing and shallow inquiry activities within the whole community and between groups (as shown by the lower-level scaffold use). It is evident that more frequent use of higher-level scaffolds was found in later knowledge-building phase. Collectively, all these quantitative online behavioural and interactive measures indicate that students were progressively more able to focus on their collaborative group work. As an example, Figure 2 (left side) also illustrates an instance of students’ online knowledge-building behaviours focusing on inquiring how to reduce the noise produced from typing the keyboard. To address this problem, for example, students discussed various ideas such as “using keyboard protection sheet to reduce noise,” “writing by using touchpad instead of typing,” “designing better keyboard by using new materials”. Figure 2 (right side) also shows the overall behavioural pattern of the frequent interactions among students focusing on note-built-on activities.
source : Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2016, 32(1). Ascilite
Rabu, 08 Juni 2016
Using Facebook as an e-portfolio in enhancing pre-service teachers’ professional development
Muhammad Kamarul Kabilan
Universiti Sains Malaysia
This study aims to determine if Facebook, when used as an online teacher portfolio (OTP), could contribute meaningfully to pre-service teachers’ professional development (PD) and in what ways the OTP can be meaningful. Pre-service teachers (n = 91) were asked to develop OTP using Facebook and engage in learning and professional development (PD) activities for 14 weeks. Questionnaires, open-ended items and reflective reports were used to collect data and it was found that many of the pre-service teachers benefitted quite significantly in terms of their development as future teachers through these five facets: (i) community of practice; (ii) professional learning and identity; (iii) relevant skills; (iv) resources; and (v) confidence.
Introduction
Pre-service teachers tend to be satisfied with their existing knowledge and practices, and seldom do they attempt to generate new knowledge, create and experiment with new practices or validate their own ideas (Alfonso, 2001; Kabilan, 2007). If this is not addressed, then these future teachers have the tendency to depend heavily on their preconceived ideas, thoughts and understandings of how they should teach, learn and develop as a teacher rather than consistently, constructively and critically reflect on their teaching practices.
Darling-Hammond (2006) suggests that in order to overcome deficiencies and other variables that influence teachers’ work and their effectiveness, one solution is to engage pre-service teachers in performance assessment, which will help pre-service teachers gain deeper understanding of what they lack and what they need to further improve. According to Darling -Hammond (2006), performance assessment has the capability to evaluate “what novice teachers have learned and organize learning, deliberately marrying knowledge and application, rather than assuming one automatically follows from the other” (p. 114). Eventually, pre-service teachers will progress towards enactment of knowledge and learning in practice rather than remain at a level of mere intellectual understanding. Examples of performance assessment include, among others, portfolio (and electronic portfolio), project work and
seminar presentations.
Creating and maintaining e-portfolio are advantageous to pre-service teachers because these practices provide them the “opportunity to consciously monitor and assess their own current knowledge and to understand pedagogical and subject contents continuously and consistently” (Kabilan & Khan, 2012; p. 1018). Electronic portfolios are also effective in guiding pre-service teachers’ independent learning, selfevaluation and reflective practices (Klenowski, 2000), creating a feeling of self-satisfaction as a future professional (Sherry & Bartlett, 2005), engaging in deep, sustainable and transformational learning experiences (Tosh, Werdmuller, Chen, Light, & Haywood, 2006), and enriching perspectives with diverse approaches, views and activities of learning (O’Brien, 2006).
In this study of Malaysian pre-service teachers, Facebook was chosen as the e-portfolio platform for two main reasons. First, Facebook is a popular social media and networking site with more than 1.23 billion active users (as of February 2014, http://zephoria.com) worldwide. In Malaysia, it is the most visited social media website with 10.4 million users, of which 3.5 million are learners aged between 18 and 24 (Subramaniam, 2014). Through Facebook, users can connect and interact with members of various communities with similar interests, and educators can support their learning and development individually and as a community of practice (Godwin-Jones, 2008). Second, despite Facebook’s popularity and the recognition that PD programmes and experiences can be provided with the aid of technology (Kabilan, 2005; Kabilan & Embi, 2006; Kabilan, Wan Adlina, & Embi, 2011), a literature search reveals that there is a paucity of research on the use of Facebook as an e-portfolio in enhancing teachers’ PD have been published.
Hence, this research utilised Facebook as an e-portfolio to enhance the PD of Malaysian pre-service teachers of various subjects and across curriculum. Pre-service teachers were selected because they often lack confidence and pedagogical content knowledge (Aida Suraya, Ramlah, Habsah, Sharifah Kartini, & Mat Rofa, 2006), awareness of meaningful classroom practices ( Kabilan, 2007), and assessment and teaching and learning practices (Nykvist, 2009 ). Apart from enriching the literature, this research provides researchers, educators and PD facilitators with valuable knowledge and insights into the potential of Facebook to engage individuals as a community of practice in meaningful and relevant costfree PD.
The main aims of the study were to determine if Facebook can be utilised as an e-portfolio to enhance pre-service teachers’ development experiences and to identify its benefits as an e -portfolio, particularly in terms of its contribution, if any, to the pre-service teachers’ development. This research was guided by the following research questions:
i. Can Facebook be utilised as an e-portfolio to enhance and support teacher PD meaningfully?
ii. How does the Facebook environment, when utilised as an e-portfolio, contribute meaningfully to
pre-service teachers’ PD experiences – individually and as a community of practice?
Literature review and theoretical perspectives
A review of Facebook use by students and teachers by Khe (2011) reveals that Facebook has “very little educational use” (p. 668) since there is limited empirical evidence to support such use. Junco (2015) suggests that Facebook may hinder learning processes and negatively influence academic performance. Furthermore, several key issues that concern privacy, safety and inappropriate contents in Facebook have curtailed its use in educational contexts. Papandrea (2012) critically highlights actual cases whereby some educational institutions have restricted electronic communication between teachers and students to avoid inappropriate relationships from developing. Kwan and Skoric (2013) too find that intensity of Facebook use and engagement may lead to bullying and victimisation of students in the Facebook community.
Nevertheless, Facebook can be a valuable pedagogical tool and a communicative platform (Papandera, 2012), as well as a meaningful learning environment (Kabilan, Ahmad, & Abidin, 2010). Roblyer, McDaniel, Webb, Herman, and Witty (2010) and Selwyn (2009) concur that researching Facebook is a worthwhile effort to understand future research and learning possibilities using online social media. It is considered by learners as a source of learning (Arouri, 2015) that can be harnessed for more effective distribution and sharing of learning materials and increased cooperative learning between students (Asterhan & Rosenberg, 2015). These meaningful activities and engagement on Facebook have cultivated weak learners to become comfortable while discussing, giving opinions and forging relationships with peers when online (Promnitz-Hayashi, 2011) due to the pedagogical, social and technological tools of Facebook as a learning management system (Wang, Woo, Quek, Yang, & Liu, 2012) that encourage,
support and sustain meaningful interaction between learners. In sharing information using Facebook, students are actually “communicating with larger audiences with whom they might have no personal relationship, but are doing so because they perceive the value of sharing their knowledge with the larger public” (Beach, 2012; p. 48).
In this study, the notion of community of practice (CoP) is integral. In terms of PD, the link between CoP and, the teachers’ practices and development is strong. This nexus raises pertinent issues such as the nature of socialisation in teaching practices, the type of CoP activities engaged in, the processes of CoPs that lead to productive PD and, the potentials of CoP in enhancing learning processes (Schwen & Hara, 2004). CoP is an activity system or groups of people or participants who share understandings about what they do and what that means in their lives and commun ity (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Other relevant aspects of PD using e-portfolio include: (a) sharing of sets of problems, common issues and passions about a topic; (b) exploring ideas and creating tools, standards and documents; and (c) deepening of knowledge and expertise by interacting with others on an ongoing basis (Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002).
An important concept in CoP is the notion of domain – the problems and/or issues that members experience. Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder (2002) signify the importance of domain in organising the knowledge created by the CoP that assists the members to organise, share and distinguish ideas that are significant/insignificant ones. Members of a CoP are expected to commit to the domains and share practices that they have created in resolving the domains. Without this commitment, the CoP is rather meaningless. It is just a group with no aims and directions. According to Hardey, Tinney, and Davies (2012), such organisation of knowledge is an important facet of e-portfolio use that can lead to knowledge construction and refinement.
In e-portfolios, when teachers share and compare their knowledge organisation (in the form of artefacts) and construction, observations and understanding with others, learning is “transformed from a personal (learning) activity to a social (learning) activity” as the teachers are exposed to challenges and confrontations of their own “meanings through interaction with others” (Kanuka & Anderson, 1998; p. 74). This would facilitate PD in ways that include among others, confidence and self-growth (Kilbane & Milman, 2003); information and communication technology (ICT) skills (Abrami & Barrett, 2005); creativity (Campbell, Cignetti, Melenyzer, Nettles, & Wyman, 2004); meaningful learning (O’Brien, 2006); independent and collaborative learning (SongHao, Kenji, Takara, & Takashi, 2008); and pedagogical knowledge and skills (Kabilan & Khan, 2012). In terms of PD, using Facebook as an eportfolio is a systematic and deliberate decision to design a learning environment that promotes a meaningful learning culture, and utilize it as a platform that scaffolds relationships between learners (Lock, 2006), Many researchers regard Facebook as a meaningful socialisation tool that could be used for learning (see Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007; Madge, Meek, Wellens, & Hooley, 2009). Therefore the
focus of this study is to discern if Facebook can be an appropriate online environment to integrate one’s individualistic learning activity into a meaningful and socially collaborative learning activity through e portfolio, and thus contribute significantly to the teachers’ PD.
The above individualistic learning resonates with Mezirow’s (1990, 2000) theory of transformative learning as “stages in cognitive restructuring and integration of experience, action, and reflection” (Stansberry & Kymes, 2007; p. 489), whereby individuals focus and learn as reflective learners. In addition, Willink and Jacobs (2012) assent that OTP can “foster transformation in teacher beliefs through critical reflection, ownership of learning, and personal agency” (p. 18). These are the features that are integrated into the OTP in this study, whereby elements of transformative learning, critical reflection and performance assessment, are interwoven – each overlapping each other and simultaneously, each affecting each other.
Methods
This study, conducted in a Malaysian university, utilised a mixed method research design, which involved the gathering of qualitative and quantitative data that provide a better understanding of how Facebook, when utilised as an e-portfolio, enhanced and supported meaningful pre-service teacher’ development experiences. This design enabled the drawing of a complete picture by identifying trend and generalisations, which include in-depth and comprehensive knowledge of participants’ perspectives (Creswell & Clark, 2007).
The participants and context of research
The participants involved in this research were 91 pre-service teachers (12 males and 79 females) from Universiti Sains Malaysia. All 91 were in their final semester of their Bachelor of Education academic programme. They specialised in various fields, including teaching English, mother tongue/native language, history, science and geography. They were enrolled in the Information and Communication Technology in Education course, which aimed to equip students with the knowledge and skills to use various current interactive ICT tools and the pedagogies of using them appropriately and effectively across the curriculum (Universiti Sains Malaysia, 2010). The course’s assessment was 100% coursework that focused on two online project works; one of it is the online teacher portfolio (OTP) that is worth 35 marks. As part of their course requirement, students were asked to individually create, develop and maintain an OTP using Facebook for 14 weeks and an individual report to explain their OTP.
OTP implementation
The purposes of creating, developing and maintaining an OTP were to: (a) describe, display, share and discuss/dissect their teaching philosophies; and (b) describe, display, share and discuss/dissect artefacts related to one’s own PD activities and experiences (past or current ones). The specific roles and activities hat were performed by the researcher and the participants (chronological order) during the 14 weeks
Implications and conclusion
Both quantitative and qualitative data confirm that Facebook is a potential tool for an OTP, one that can meaningfully enhance and support pre-service teachers’ PD. This is possible due to the features of the Facebook environment and the tools available in this online social media that encourage an interactive socialisation process. This includes: collaboration; sharing of experiences, ideas and artefacts and building them into an online resource/database; learning from each other; networking and connecting to each other; and the continuous practices of supporting and encouraging of each other. Through the above intricate and complex socialisation process in the OTP, most pre-service teachers in this study experienced transformative learning, critical reflection and performance assessment via personal learning and social learning in a CoP. through many of the activities, interaction s and engagements that they encountered during the OTP process. Their experiences lead to enriched ideas and experiences that facilitated (re)construction, (re)configuration, and (re)fining of knowledge that was personal and meaningful to individual members of the OTP, as well as to the OTP community as a whole.
They augmented their learning and development as a pre-service teacher, and realized the importance of engagement in future PD initiatives as an in-service teacher. Clearly, there is a nexus between transformative learning, critical reflection and performance assessment that are embedded in the OTP. This node leads to PD if both personal and social learning are heightened .
Although at the onset of the project participants were motivated by grades, they gradually began to identify the aforementioned socialisation processes as integral modes of self-learning and self-development. By selecting appropriate materials for the construction and development of their OTP , coupled with the various personal experiences and professional engagements in Facebook enabled participants to identify their professional portraits and discern the benefits and the overall value of OTP for their PD. The OTP process was able to bring and connect pre-service teachers from different backgrounds, regions, and cultures, in a virtual melting-pot for them to discover the views of different and diversified thoughts and perceptions of the world through a critical reflection and learning from the reflection of their own experiences. Previous research results suggest personal knowledge and experiences influence opinion and impact ones’ professional views, leading to construction and reconstruction of knowledge (see Kagan, 1992; Lai & Pek, 2012). Such influences add dimension to one’s existing knowledge, contributes to the profundity of pre-service teachers’ thoughts and ways of thinking and perceiving.
This study strengthens the notion forwarded by Darling-Hammond (2006) and Kabilan (2007), that empowering pre-service teachers is crucial in aiding them to make decisions and complete assignments in ways that generate ideas, views, knowledge and answers - ways that also engage them in the process of improving their effectiveness as future teachers. As the findings suggest and as supported by other research, using social networking such as Facebook as an OTP for pre-service teachers’ learning and development must include an understanding of its purpose and a clear conceptualisation of the envisioned e-portfolio. Walker and Cheng (1996) identified understanding of purpose and conceptualisation of PD as the two of the most significant features of an effective and meaningful PD programme . Also, instructors should support learning and development processes in the OTP , as recommended by Watkins (2013).
Kabilan and Khan (2012) believed that enlightening and engaging pre-service teachers in accepting OTP as a practice has future implications for their PD. Hence, future studies should also explore how instructors can support pre-service teachers’ learning and development using a social network environment such as Facebook as an OTP. In addition, the entwined relationship between personal and professional facets of socialising in OTP warrants further examination, especially how personal connections may lead to PD
On its own, Facebook is just another social network site but if used appropriately and purposefully, it offers an amalgamation of socialisation and professionalisation – two overlapping facets that influence and empower each other in meaningful and prevailing teacher education and development. Findings from this study indicate that an OTP embedded within a social network enhance s and supports pre-service teachers’ meaningful PD. Members become a community of practice, acquire professional learning and identity, and gain relevant pedagogical skills, resources and confidence. These are some of the tenets that most pre-service teachers in this study, as well as other contexts and settings, lack and need help with, and what teacher education programmes at many universities aim to achieve
Sourch : Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2016, 32(1). 20 Ascilite
Universiti Sains Malaysia
This study aims to determine if Facebook, when used as an online teacher portfolio (OTP), could contribute meaningfully to pre-service teachers’ professional development (PD) and in what ways the OTP can be meaningful. Pre-service teachers (n = 91) were asked to develop OTP using Facebook and engage in learning and professional development (PD) activities for 14 weeks. Questionnaires, open-ended items and reflective reports were used to collect data and it was found that many of the pre-service teachers benefitted quite significantly in terms of their development as future teachers through these five facets: (i) community of practice; (ii) professional learning and identity; (iii) relevant skills; (iv) resources; and (v) confidence.
Introduction
Pre-service teachers tend to be satisfied with their existing knowledge and practices, and seldom do they attempt to generate new knowledge, create and experiment with new practices or validate their own ideas (Alfonso, 2001; Kabilan, 2007). If this is not addressed, then these future teachers have the tendency to depend heavily on their preconceived ideas, thoughts and understandings of how they should teach, learn and develop as a teacher rather than consistently, constructively and critically reflect on their teaching practices.
Darling-Hammond (2006) suggests that in order to overcome deficiencies and other variables that influence teachers’ work and their effectiveness, one solution is to engage pre-service teachers in performance assessment, which will help pre-service teachers gain deeper understanding of what they lack and what they need to further improve. According to Darling -Hammond (2006), performance assessment has the capability to evaluate “what novice teachers have learned and organize learning, deliberately marrying knowledge and application, rather than assuming one automatically follows from the other” (p. 114). Eventually, pre-service teachers will progress towards enactment of knowledge and learning in practice rather than remain at a level of mere intellectual understanding. Examples of performance assessment include, among others, portfolio (and electronic portfolio), project work and
seminar presentations.
Creating and maintaining e-portfolio are advantageous to pre-service teachers because these practices provide them the “opportunity to consciously monitor and assess their own current knowledge and to understand pedagogical and subject contents continuously and consistently” (Kabilan & Khan, 2012; p. 1018). Electronic portfolios are also effective in guiding pre-service teachers’ independent learning, selfevaluation and reflective practices (Klenowski, 2000), creating a feeling of self-satisfaction as a future professional (Sherry & Bartlett, 2005), engaging in deep, sustainable and transformational learning experiences (Tosh, Werdmuller, Chen, Light, & Haywood, 2006), and enriching perspectives with diverse approaches, views and activities of learning (O’Brien, 2006).
In this study of Malaysian pre-service teachers, Facebook was chosen as the e-portfolio platform for two main reasons. First, Facebook is a popular social media and networking site with more than 1.23 billion active users (as of February 2014, http://zephoria.com) worldwide. In Malaysia, it is the most visited social media website with 10.4 million users, of which 3.5 million are learners aged between 18 and 24 (Subramaniam, 2014). Through Facebook, users can connect and interact with members of various communities with similar interests, and educators can support their learning and development individually and as a community of practice (Godwin-Jones, 2008). Second, despite Facebook’s popularity and the recognition that PD programmes and experiences can be provided with the aid of technology (Kabilan, 2005; Kabilan & Embi, 2006; Kabilan, Wan Adlina, & Embi, 2011), a literature search reveals that there is a paucity of research on the use of Facebook as an e-portfolio in enhancing teachers’ PD have been published.
Hence, this research utilised Facebook as an e-portfolio to enhance the PD of Malaysian pre-service teachers of various subjects and across curriculum. Pre-service teachers were selected because they often lack confidence and pedagogical content knowledge (Aida Suraya, Ramlah, Habsah, Sharifah Kartini, & Mat Rofa, 2006), awareness of meaningful classroom practices ( Kabilan, 2007), and assessment and teaching and learning practices (Nykvist, 2009 ). Apart from enriching the literature, this research provides researchers, educators and PD facilitators with valuable knowledge and insights into the potential of Facebook to engage individuals as a community of practice in meaningful and relevant costfree PD.
The main aims of the study were to determine if Facebook can be utilised as an e-portfolio to enhance pre-service teachers’ development experiences and to identify its benefits as an e -portfolio, particularly in terms of its contribution, if any, to the pre-service teachers’ development. This research was guided by the following research questions:
i. Can Facebook be utilised as an e-portfolio to enhance and support teacher PD meaningfully?
ii. How does the Facebook environment, when utilised as an e-portfolio, contribute meaningfully to
pre-service teachers’ PD experiences – individually and as a community of practice?
Literature review and theoretical perspectives
A review of Facebook use by students and teachers by Khe (2011) reveals that Facebook has “very little educational use” (p. 668) since there is limited empirical evidence to support such use. Junco (2015) suggests that Facebook may hinder learning processes and negatively influence academic performance. Furthermore, several key issues that concern privacy, safety and inappropriate contents in Facebook have curtailed its use in educational contexts. Papandrea (2012) critically highlights actual cases whereby some educational institutions have restricted electronic communication between teachers and students to avoid inappropriate relationships from developing. Kwan and Skoric (2013) too find that intensity of Facebook use and engagement may lead to bullying and victimisation of students in the Facebook community.
Nevertheless, Facebook can be a valuable pedagogical tool and a communicative platform (Papandera, 2012), as well as a meaningful learning environment (Kabilan, Ahmad, & Abidin, 2010). Roblyer, McDaniel, Webb, Herman, and Witty (2010) and Selwyn (2009) concur that researching Facebook is a worthwhile effort to understand future research and learning possibilities using online social media. It is considered by learners as a source of learning (Arouri, 2015) that can be harnessed for more effective distribution and sharing of learning materials and increased cooperative learning between students (Asterhan & Rosenberg, 2015). These meaningful activities and engagement on Facebook have cultivated weak learners to become comfortable while discussing, giving opinions and forging relationships with peers when online (Promnitz-Hayashi, 2011) due to the pedagogical, social and technological tools of Facebook as a learning management system (Wang, Woo, Quek, Yang, & Liu, 2012) that encourage,
support and sustain meaningful interaction between learners. In sharing information using Facebook, students are actually “communicating with larger audiences with whom they might have no personal relationship, but are doing so because they perceive the value of sharing their knowledge with the larger public” (Beach, 2012; p. 48).
In this study, the notion of community of practice (CoP) is integral. In terms of PD, the link between CoP and, the teachers’ practices and development is strong. This nexus raises pertinent issues such as the nature of socialisation in teaching practices, the type of CoP activities engaged in, the processes of CoPs that lead to productive PD and, the potentials of CoP in enhancing learning processes (Schwen & Hara, 2004). CoP is an activity system or groups of people or participants who share understandings about what they do and what that means in their lives and commun ity (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Other relevant aspects of PD using e-portfolio include: (a) sharing of sets of problems, common issues and passions about a topic; (b) exploring ideas and creating tools, standards and documents; and (c) deepening of knowledge and expertise by interacting with others on an ongoing basis (Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002).
An important concept in CoP is the notion of domain – the problems and/or issues that members experience. Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder (2002) signify the importance of domain in organising the knowledge created by the CoP that assists the members to organise, share and distinguish ideas that are significant/insignificant ones. Members of a CoP are expected to commit to the domains and share practices that they have created in resolving the domains. Without this commitment, the CoP is rather meaningless. It is just a group with no aims and directions. According to Hardey, Tinney, and Davies (2012), such organisation of knowledge is an important facet of e-portfolio use that can lead to knowledge construction and refinement.
In e-portfolios, when teachers share and compare their knowledge organisation (in the form of artefacts) and construction, observations and understanding with others, learning is “transformed from a personal (learning) activity to a social (learning) activity” as the teachers are exposed to challenges and confrontations of their own “meanings through interaction with others” (Kanuka & Anderson, 1998; p. 74). This would facilitate PD in ways that include among others, confidence and self-growth (Kilbane & Milman, 2003); information and communication technology (ICT) skills (Abrami & Barrett, 2005); creativity (Campbell, Cignetti, Melenyzer, Nettles, & Wyman, 2004); meaningful learning (O’Brien, 2006); independent and collaborative learning (SongHao, Kenji, Takara, & Takashi, 2008); and pedagogical knowledge and skills (Kabilan & Khan, 2012). In terms of PD, using Facebook as an eportfolio is a systematic and deliberate decision to design a learning environment that promotes a meaningful learning culture, and utilize it as a platform that scaffolds relationships between learners (Lock, 2006), Many researchers regard Facebook as a meaningful socialisation tool that could be used for learning (see Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007; Madge, Meek, Wellens, & Hooley, 2009). Therefore the
focus of this study is to discern if Facebook can be an appropriate online environment to integrate one’s individualistic learning activity into a meaningful and socially collaborative learning activity through e portfolio, and thus contribute significantly to the teachers’ PD.
The above individualistic learning resonates with Mezirow’s (1990, 2000) theory of transformative learning as “stages in cognitive restructuring and integration of experience, action, and reflection” (Stansberry & Kymes, 2007; p. 489), whereby individuals focus and learn as reflective learners. In addition, Willink and Jacobs (2012) assent that OTP can “foster transformation in teacher beliefs through critical reflection, ownership of learning, and personal agency” (p. 18). These are the features that are integrated into the OTP in this study, whereby elements of transformative learning, critical reflection and performance assessment, are interwoven – each overlapping each other and simultaneously, each affecting each other.
Methods
This study, conducted in a Malaysian university, utilised a mixed method research design, which involved the gathering of qualitative and quantitative data that provide a better understanding of how Facebook, when utilised as an e-portfolio, enhanced and supported meaningful pre-service teacher’ development experiences. This design enabled the drawing of a complete picture by identifying trend and generalisations, which include in-depth and comprehensive knowledge of participants’ perspectives (Creswell & Clark, 2007).
The participants and context of research
The participants involved in this research were 91 pre-service teachers (12 males and 79 females) from Universiti Sains Malaysia. All 91 were in their final semester of their Bachelor of Education academic programme. They specialised in various fields, including teaching English, mother tongue/native language, history, science and geography. They were enrolled in the Information and Communication Technology in Education course, which aimed to equip students with the knowledge and skills to use various current interactive ICT tools and the pedagogies of using them appropriately and effectively across the curriculum (Universiti Sains Malaysia, 2010). The course’s assessment was 100% coursework that focused on two online project works; one of it is the online teacher portfolio (OTP) that is worth 35 marks. As part of their course requirement, students were asked to individually create, develop and maintain an OTP using Facebook for 14 weeks and an individual report to explain their OTP.
OTP implementation
The purposes of creating, developing and maintaining an OTP were to: (a) describe, display, share and discuss/dissect their teaching philosophies; and (b) describe, display, share and discuss/dissect artefacts related to one’s own PD activities and experiences (past or current ones). The specific roles and activities hat were performed by the researcher and the participants (chronological order) during the 14 weeks
Implications and conclusion
Both quantitative and qualitative data confirm that Facebook is a potential tool for an OTP, one that can meaningfully enhance and support pre-service teachers’ PD. This is possible due to the features of the Facebook environment and the tools available in this online social media that encourage an interactive socialisation process. This includes: collaboration; sharing of experiences, ideas and artefacts and building them into an online resource/database; learning from each other; networking and connecting to each other; and the continuous practices of supporting and encouraging of each other. Through the above intricate and complex socialisation process in the OTP, most pre-service teachers in this study experienced transformative learning, critical reflection and performance assessment via personal learning and social learning in a CoP. through many of the activities, interaction s and engagements that they encountered during the OTP process. Their experiences lead to enriched ideas and experiences that facilitated (re)construction, (re)configuration, and (re)fining of knowledge that was personal and meaningful to individual members of the OTP, as well as to the OTP community as a whole.
They augmented their learning and development as a pre-service teacher, and realized the importance of engagement in future PD initiatives as an in-service teacher. Clearly, there is a nexus between transformative learning, critical reflection and performance assessment that are embedded in the OTP. This node leads to PD if both personal and social learning are heightened .
Although at the onset of the project participants were motivated by grades, they gradually began to identify the aforementioned socialisation processes as integral modes of self-learning and self-development. By selecting appropriate materials for the construction and development of their OTP , coupled with the various personal experiences and professional engagements in Facebook enabled participants to identify their professional portraits and discern the benefits and the overall value of OTP for their PD. The OTP process was able to bring and connect pre-service teachers from different backgrounds, regions, and cultures, in a virtual melting-pot for them to discover the views of different and diversified thoughts and perceptions of the world through a critical reflection and learning from the reflection of their own experiences. Previous research results suggest personal knowledge and experiences influence opinion and impact ones’ professional views, leading to construction and reconstruction of knowledge (see Kagan, 1992; Lai & Pek, 2012). Such influences add dimension to one’s existing knowledge, contributes to the profundity of pre-service teachers’ thoughts and ways of thinking and perceiving.
This study strengthens the notion forwarded by Darling-Hammond (2006) and Kabilan (2007), that empowering pre-service teachers is crucial in aiding them to make decisions and complete assignments in ways that generate ideas, views, knowledge and answers - ways that also engage them in the process of improving their effectiveness as future teachers. As the findings suggest and as supported by other research, using social networking such as Facebook as an OTP for pre-service teachers’ learning and development must include an understanding of its purpose and a clear conceptualisation of the envisioned e-portfolio. Walker and Cheng (1996) identified understanding of purpose and conceptualisation of PD as the two of the most significant features of an effective and meaningful PD programme . Also, instructors should support learning and development processes in the OTP , as recommended by Watkins (2013).
Kabilan and Khan (2012) believed that enlightening and engaging pre-service teachers in accepting OTP as a practice has future implications for their PD. Hence, future studies should also explore how instructors can support pre-service teachers’ learning and development using a social network environment such as Facebook as an OTP. In addition, the entwined relationship between personal and professional facets of socialising in OTP warrants further examination, especially how personal connections may lead to PD
On its own, Facebook is just another social network site but if used appropriately and purposefully, it offers an amalgamation of socialisation and professionalisation – two overlapping facets that influence and empower each other in meaningful and prevailing teacher education and development. Findings from this study indicate that an OTP embedded within a social network enhance s and supports pre-service teachers’ meaningful PD. Members become a community of practice, acquire professional learning and identity, and gain relevant pedagogical skills, resources and confidence. These are some of the tenets that most pre-service teachers in this study, as well as other contexts and settings, lack and need help with, and what teacher education programmes at many universities aim to achieve
Sourch : Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2016, 32(1). 20 Ascilite
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