A multilevel and multiscale exploration of teacher learning in the process of technology-enhanced pedagogical innovations

Abstract

In order to foster students’ 21st-century competencies, there has been a worldwide effort to initiate technology-enhanced pedagogical innovations (TEPIs) aiming to renew teachers’ practices. However, very few of them can have sustainable impacts after the innovation projects are completed. This thesis aims to understand how teachers learn to implement and sustain their practices in the process of TEPIs. The success of TEPI practices depends not only on teachers’ growth in their professional competencies (e.g., technological and pedagogical knowledge) but also on multifaceted conditions at broad contextual units such as schools, local districts, and education systems. There has been limited dynamic exploration of how contextual factors change over extended periods of time and how the changes impact teachers’ learning and classroom practices.

To address this gap, this thesis frames teacher learning conceptually from a multilevel and multiscale learning (MLMS) perspective which is grounded on a theory of change as learning. The multilevel and multiscale learning, on the one hand, highlights the multilevel interdependencies between teacher learning and contextual factors at the school and joint-school network levels. On the other hand, the effective way for teachers to learn is engaging them in collaborative inquiry with peers at multiple levels (i.e., colleagues in the same school and from other schools, school principals, project managers, collaborators from business sectors, etc.) because idea diversity contributes to one’s knowledge advancement (Law, personal communications in 2019).

Guided by the MLMS framework, this study is designed as a set of three longitudinal multiple-case studies involving three joint-school TEPI projects funded by the Hong Kong government from 2011 to 2014 and a further two-year follow-up study funded by the Research Grants Council in Hong Kong. By conducting an extended longitudinal study, this study explores: (1) within the multilevel dimension, what are the conditions at the school and joint-school network levels for teacher learning to take place, how the conditions change over time and what are the impacts of change on teacher learning; and (2) within the multiscale dimension, what are the opportunities for teachers to interact with the diversity of ideas at multiple levels that change their TEPI practices. To develop a holistic view of interdependencies at multiple levels, data collection and analysis were carried out at three hierarchically embedded levels: the teacher, school and project levels.

This thesis has three major findings. Firstly, the joint-school network interactions would broaden teachers’ pedagogical ideas and prompt them to reflect on the school contexts that make the TEPI successful, while the school-based interactions focused on creating feasible teaching resources and providing local supports are crucial in providing the conditions for change in teacher practices. Secondly, school leaders should have a vision on changing teachers’ pedagogy and regarding teachers as the key targeted learners. Finally, the TEPI vision, teachers’ learning opportunities and their practices were interrelated. They were co-evolving. The findings enrich our knowledge of the interplays between teacher learning and contextual environments. On a practical perspective, the result suggests some design principles to construct effective learning conditions for teachers to implement TEPIs.