Teacher learning beyond knowledge: an ecological model for fostering pedagogical innovations with ICT

Abstract

Since the mid-1990s, many global, regional and national policy documents have been published that put forward strong arguments for ICT to be used in schools in order to realize new goals of education which are seen to be important for the 21st century. These include goals such as developing lifelong learning skills and the ability to engage in collaborative knowledge creation and problem solving with peers and experts around the world. It is the transformative uses of ICT to support system-wide education reform initiatives that are most challenging. This paper highlights the disruptive role of technology in such innovations and argues for the need for teacher learning to go beyond the TPCK framework of teacher knowledge for ICT use in teaching and learning put forward .by Mishra & Koehler (2006). To be able to innovate their educational practice, teachers need to develop meta-cognitive, social and socio-metacognitive capacities. Further, professional development must address issues of educational values and epistemological beliefs which provide the orientation and motivation for teacher learning. Teacher preparation initiatives should thus prepare teachers to engage in pedagogical innovation that leverages on the disruptive potential of ICT. The educational values influence the teacher’s perception of what are the important content goals (CK) as well as the pedagogical choices adopted. Designs of professional development to build such orientations and capacities would be more effective if the teacher learning is to take place in the context of a professional network of innovators sharing similar aspirations and challenges. The final part of this paper describes a “prosumer” model of teacher learning that focuses on building an ecology conducive to teacher learning in the 21st century.