Training Teachers to Learn by Design, Through a Community of Inquiry

摘要

As eLearning is evolving into a mainstream, widespread practice, adopted by higher education institutions worldwide, much effort is geared towards the articulation of models and strategies for eLearning implementation in formal education settings. In the field of pre-service teacher education, a rising challenge is to equip the "21~(st) century teacher" with the necessary toolset of skills, competencies and mindsets to grapple with the idiosyncrasies of the new generation of "millenials". To this purpose, what still remains an open issue is the degree of innovation afforded by specific eLearning designs, in a field where traditional teacher training pedagogies co-exist with eLearning-specific ones. This article proposes a synthesis of two eLearning-specific models, the Community of Inquiry (COI) Model, based on the Practical Inquiry, Model introduced by Garrison, Anderson, & Archer (2000) and the Learning by Design framework (LbyD), based on the conceptualization of 'New Learning', as articulated by Kalantzis & Cope (2012). Both models were invented with new and learning styles and circumstances in mind. The six-month introductory course on "Pedagogical designs with ICT" was offered by the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education (ASPETE) and implemented with 20 trainee teachers at the Higher Education Technological Institute (TEI) of Lamia, located in another geographical area of Greece. In this context, elements of the COI framework were employed as tools both for designing and for evaluating the contents, structure and activities of the eLearning course. Two elements of the framework, teaching and cognitive presence were the axes supporting the course structure, whilst the kinds of activities we aimed at promoting the most were discussion, collaboration and reflection. The LbyD framework served as an awareness enhancement mechanism for trainee teachers to formulate, collaboratively negotiate and finally express pedagogical scenarios integrating the meaningful use of technology. The discussion of this experience is supported by a preliminary analysis on the basis of COI-based questionnaires distributed to students, written free-text student feedback, asynchronous discussion transcripts and final students' products in the form of learning scenarios integrating the use.of technology.