Learning Through
Participation in Different
Activity systems
A study of distance learners in a teacher
education programme in Iceland
Thuridur Jóhannsdóttir
Scottish Educational Research
Association Annual Conference.
Royal George Hotel, Perth Scotland.
25-27 November 2004
Reframing distance learning
• Work in contemporary societies is characterized by
polycontextuality - people involved in multiple
communities of practice
• People need to learn to cross boundaries between
communities - interesting focus for study
• Frame factors – space and time resisting to
change
• In distance education many of the frame factors
disappear, while others change
• Which possibilities this brings for breaking down
the isolation of traditional school learning from the
students’ actual life
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The Study: Research on
distance education
• Programme for initial teacher training in
the Iceland University of Education from
the perspective of teacher students living
and working in remote rural areas
• The aim is to explore how one particular
case in teacher education can be
explained and understood with a focus on
distance learning from an activity
theoretical perspective
• Especially the concepts participation in
different activity systems and transfer as
a result of boundary crossing
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The Activity Theory model
http://www.edu.helsinki.fi/activity/pages/chatanddwr/activitysystem/
CONTEXT
Tools
Outcome
Subject
Object
Rules
Community
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Division of labor
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Historical phase
• Analysis of intervews with three
women in the first enrolment using
Internet, started 1993
• Rules for admission were living in the
country-side were lack of teachers
were problem, teaching experience
and a position in local schools
• The new ICT was used to justify and
realize the programme
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Figure from the group Workplace Learning and
Developmental Transfer in Helsinki
http://www.edu.helsinki.fi/activity/pages/research/transfer
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Central concepts
• Developmental transfer:
– understanding learning as being horizontal, where interacting
activity systems benefit, is helpful if we want learning to lead
to development – for individuals and communities alike
• The criteria for developmental transfer:
– the benefits of cooperation between two different activity
systems for both communities of practice; both systems learn
something from each other.
• Expansive learning, a concept put forward by Engestrom
(1987) is initiated:
– when some individuals involved in collective activity take the
action of questioning existing practice, which can then lead to
a debate and analysis of the contradictions in the current state
of affair, which might again lead to new forms of the activity
solving the contradictions
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Methods, participants, context
• 3 currently enrolled distance students interviewed
+ one principal
– All located in fishing villages or towns ranging from 200
to 900 inhabitants
• Their narratives through an AT lens
– See if it enhnaces understanding to iInterpret the
distance learning in the light of activity theory
• Their participation in different activity systems
will be discussed
– How they move between systems and cross boundarys
– What seems to enhance transfer from one system to
another
– The possibilities of the activity system as well as the
individual learner to develop - learn - expand ?
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Changed rules
• No longer required for admission:
– living outside the capital
– having a job as a teacher
– experience as a schoolteacher
• Connection to local schools where
students live is no longer part of the
model
• The school year 2003-2004, 61% of the
distance students were living in the
country-side
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Who are the actors?
Sara age 34
– in her second year of the programme when
interviewed February and May 2004
– experience of being a support teacher with
disabled pupils + one year as class teacher
– Has a teacher job at a school of 150 pupils in a
fishing village of ca 900 inhabitans
– the only teacher at the school and in the
village in her enrolment
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Who are the actors?
Emma (31) and Samuel (45)
• had just finished their first year in the
programme when interviewed in May 2004
– some experience of teaching
– have occupations as teachers in a small school
of approximately 40 pupils and 5 teachers
including the principal
– in a fishing village of ca 250 inhabitants and
many immigrants
– 25% of the pupils in the school do not speak
Icelandic as their first language.
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Why? What are the motvies?
• Sara encouraged by pupils and parents got
enough self-confidence to want to be a teacher
• Samuel, is in his forties, his family has its origins
in the village and he wants to continue living the
village and seeks for a not so wet job as that of a
fisherman
• Emma likes the teacher job and thinks that the
most motivating force behind the studies has to
be the interest to continue to learn
• Both Emma and Samuel have school-pricipals in
their nearest family - mother and brother.
•
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What and how do they learn?
Sara
• Describes with enthusiasm how she has been
applying what she has learned in her classroom
teaching
• How the studies have made her more secure in
what she is doing
– with the pupils and
– in the cooperation with the parents
• For Sara the learning management system
(WebCT) on the web is great
• She indicates she is learning a lot from her costudents´ inputs and discussion on the web
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What and how do they learn?
Samuel and Emma
• More diverse solutions in their classroom
teaching
• More secure in the discussion with the other
teachers in the staff
• They have started to think differently about the
nature of the school as a place for children to be
in and what learning is about, e.g. questioning
the assessment methods of schools
• Do not stress the importance of the learning
management system
• They have been very important mates for each
other, being able to discuss and work together on
assignments
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Multiple Activty systems
• The dist.ed. Programme
– The on-campus sessions
– The LMS (learning management system) on
the web
– The teaching practice
• The local schools
–
–
–
–
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The
The
The
The
classroom teaching
teachers´ staff-room
community of parents
regional community of teachers
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Defining central activities: Between
classroom and virtual community on
the web?
• Sara thinks she learns most from practial
assignments which she can use in the
classroom
• She says that she learns by participating
in discussion on the WebCT
• She transfers what she learns to her
practice in the classoom and in
communication with parents
• Not just a simple transfer of knowlegde –
she is externalizing what she has learned
by developing new practice in the
classroom and with the parents
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Emma and Sam: Moving between
which systems?
• Listen to what teachers say on-campus
sessions and on-line – but critically
• Teaching practice offers new rules, new
object and a new division of labor –
learned the difference between idealized
teaching methods and reality
• They seem to externalize their learning
– to the classroom
– and also to professional discussion in the
school and the community of regional teachers
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Sam and Emma: boundary
crossing ?
• Discussion and collaboration
• To have each other for social discussion as
well as collaboration on assignments
• They are critical towards discussion on the
web – often just reproducing texts in the
books they are supposed to read
• Critical towards teaching methods of the
university teachers
– Paradoxes in theory and praxis
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Developmental transfer?
• Some early distance students acted
as boundary-crossers and change
agents which resulted in developed
praxis in the schools
• The importance of the culture of the
relevant activity system to be
receptive to development
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Distance students as active participants
• Theese three students have all found their ways to
move between te different activity systems in which
they are meant to participate
• In the programme they are obliged to participate
– on-campus sessions, teaching practice and in the webbased activities between on-campus sessions
• At home they apply their knowledge and know-how
from the programme differently and in different
activity systems
• Some use the classroom others the local school
– depending on which spaces they have admittance to
• Distance students are actors in their local
communities and there they externalize what they
learn and thereby develop the relevant activity
system – be it receptive to changes
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Resistance to change
• Why was Sara’s space limited to the classroom
and parents of her pupils?
• Interview with the pricipal confirmed that there
was a resistance
• Lack of willingness to open up and collaborate
• The teachers would listen to Sara’s new ideas and
methods but that was it
• The principal was aware of she was really doing
good things with her pupils but...
• Explore both personal and institutional factors
further
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Openness to change
• Why do Sam and Emma seem able to act
in a wider arena?
• Both personal and institutional factors
• Two distance students in a group of five
teachers
• Only one formally qualified teacher
• The distance students act as their small
school’s voice in a regional meetings of
professional teachers
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Valuable knowledge
• The teacher education university planning
the distance programme should be aware
of the situation in which the teahcer
students are engaged in
• Plan the learning actions and teaching
actions in order to support learning for the
kind of boundary crossing, students living
in remote places are exposed to
• Developmental transfer should be the goal
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