In this blogpost I’m focusing on the teachers’ perspective of digital technologies that are permeating teaching and learning.

In trying to gain an understanding of how teachers employ digital technologies in their teaching I was initially led by a preliminary literature search for models of technology use such as Puentedura’s Model of Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition (SAMR), Moersch’s Levels of Technology Implementation (LoTi) framework, and Koehler's Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) model.  These models project a developmental understanding of the incorporation of digital technologies in teaching (and learning). From my observations, academics align to different standpoints in different situations not necessarily in the order set out by these models temporally. This got me thinking that there is more to this story than what the models were exposing. Besides, these simplistic depictions of a complex state of affairs encourage techno enthusiasts to take a pigeonholing attitude. This exacerbates the tendency to unfairly criticise teachers on their teaching practices and ‘teacher bashing’ as Selwyn (2017) crudely puts it.

Another set of research done on teachers’ uptake of digital technologies in teaching and learning these last two decades seeks to identify enablers and barriers (for example Hew and Brush (2006); Al-Senaidi, Lin and Poirot (2009);  Mulhim (2014); Martins and Baptista Nunes (2016);   Sinclair and Aho (2017); and so on). There is here a directed effort to make sense of teachers’ experiences from their viewpoint, and what they see as an encouragement or a discouragement to incorporate digital technologies in teaching (and learning) practices. In these studies I personally also see projected deficiency connotations with a focus on unearthing the scaffoldings to help teachers fix their technology-less teaching practices and to assist in the clean-up of teachers’ teaching context from issues that impede them from achieving the uptake of technology enhanced and/or mediated learning and teaching.

Accounting for the encompassing complex techno-social educational context, there is a growing amount of literature reporting on HE (higher education) teachers’ lived experiences of teaching and learning using digital technologies, and the attempt to gain an understanding of teachers’ perspectives and beliefs on teaching and learning using digital technologies (for example Mozelius et al. (2019); Bennett (2017); Bälter (2017); Kim, Kim, Lee, Spector and DeMeester (2013). and so on). A subset of this literature corpus features a strong holistic outlook by specifically addressing variation to explore aspects of HE teachers’ perspectives and beliefs. For example, González (2011) investigated variation in HE teachers’ conceptions of e-learning. Lameras et al. (2008) looked at HE teachers’ perceptions of virtual learning environments. Jones and Asensio (2002) explored HE practitioners’ accounts of networked learning design. Recently I contributed to the advancement of this research strand by an exploration of variation in the HE academics’ experiences of networked technologies permeating teaching and learning (Cutajar, 2018). The holistic approach built into these studies investigating variation in the experience of a phenomenon of concern and the resultant research outcomes describing the distinct different ways of understanding and approaching the same phenomenon encourages an outlook which moves away from binaries, simplistic taxonomies, and cause-and-effect. In my work I specifically argue that a strategy to avoid such categorisation is to focus on the differences and commonalities which give rise to these categorisations (Cutajar, 2018) for arriving at the dimensions of situated and emergent discernment which shapes perceptions, beliefs, understandings and consequently practices.

The (research-based) description I put forward for mapping out variation in the HE teacher’s experience of teaching using contemporary digital technologies is an inclusive representation of different ways of acting and reacting temporally and spatially depending on the context and the emergent awareness along distinct dimensions a specific moment in time. In my work I outline 5 distinct ways of understanding and approaching teaching using digital technologies (nowadays generally incorporating the use of the Internet) structurally brought together by 3 dimensions of critical awareness relating to perceived affordances of technologies, pedagogical strategies and human roles for learning (Cutajar, 2018). This description of variation in the experience of higher education teaching incorporating digital technologies may serve individual and collective initiatives to reflect and possible rethink situated practices, for supporting the development of higher education teaching processes and the quality of the students learning experiences in these adult learning institutions.  

References

Al Mulhim, E. (2014). The Barriers to the Use of ICT in Teaching in Saudi Arabia: A Review of Literature. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 2(6), 487-493.

Al-Senaidi, S., Lin, L., & Poirot, J. (2009). Barriers to adopting technology for teaching and learning in Oman. Computers & Education, 53(3), 575-590. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2009.03.015

Cutajar, M. (2018). Higher Education Teachers' Experiences of Networked Technologies for Teaching. Msida, Malta: Malta University Publishing.

Gonzalez C. (2011). The relationship between approaches to teaching, approaches to e-teaching and perceptions of the teaching situation in relation to e-learning among higher education teachers. Instructional Science, 40(6), 975-998. doi:10.1007/s11251-011-9198-x

Hew, K. F., & Brush, T. (2006). Integrating technology into K-12 teaching and learning: current knowledge gaps and recommendations for future research. Educational Technology Research and Development, 55(3), 223-252. doi:10.1007/s11423-006-9022-5

Jones, C., & Asensio, M. (2002). Designs for networked learning in higher education: A phenomenographic investigation of practitioners' accounts of design. In C. Steeples & C. Jones (Eds.), Networked Learning: Perspectives and issues. London, UK: Springer.

Lameras, P., Paraskakis, I., & Levy, P. (2008). Conceptions of Teaching using Virtual Learning Environments: Preliminary Findings From A Phenomenographic Inquiry. Paper presented at the Networked Learning Conference 2008, Halkidiki.

Mozelius, P., Jaldemark, J., & Håkansson Lindqvist, M. (2018). Teachers’ beliefs about professional development and the use of collaborative online tools in higher educational settings. Paper presented at the International conference on Networked Learning, Zagreb, Croatia. https://www.networkedlearningconference.org.uk/abstracts/papers/jaldemark_47.pdf

Selwyn, N. (2017). Education and technology: Key issues and debates (2nd ed.). London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing.