In 2017 I have the honour and privilege of being one of eight pedagogical ambassadors at Stockholm University. My project within this endeavour deals with mobile learning as a means of enhancing professional development in language teacher education, and to try to find ways of bridging the gap between the theory and practice of teaching. As part of this I'm taking the course Open Networked Learning (ONL). The course has only just started, but already fascinating paths of enquiry are opening up, and I'm very excited. The next few months will be intense and challenging and, most likely, very rewarding.
The first theme that we tackled in the group of ambassadors was scholarship of teaching. To what extent can work related to pedagogical development be understood in terms similar to research in our academic disciplines? In addition to being an excellent and expert teacher, that is knowing your field and being able to reflect on and develop your teaching practices in a systematic way, it also "extends to the integration, application, and transmission of knowledge" (Kreber, 2002). Taking part in the ONL is an excellent way of achieving this.
Reference:
Kreber, Caroline (2002). Teaching Excellence, Teaching Expertise, and the Scholarship of Teaching. Innovative Higher Education, 27(1): 5-23.
Hi Tore. Thanks for an interesting post. I agree that ONL can help us develop pedagogical capacity and that it should be approached in a scholarly way. Like you, I have found Kreber's article (and some of her other work) useful for thinking about the scholarship of teaching and learning.
SvaraRaderaThe issue of how one's development of expertise as a teacher relates to one's research in one's own discipline is crucial, in my view. Shulman's notion of pedagogical content knowledge (1986) can be helpful here: i.e., to teach well expertise in one's own discipline is necessary (crucial!) but not sufficient. One also needs to develop expertise in teaching the discipline. However, the level of expertise is unlikely to be the same as that which one has in one's own discipline. I.e., it is important not to confuse the scholarship of teaching and learning with educational research. Mårtensson et al. (2011, p. 60) put this well: It is unrealistic to 'aim for a professional identity as a teacher that incorporates the identity of an educational researcher’ since a significant part of academic identity consists of the work done around disciplinary research. While as academic teachers need to increase our knowledge of teaching and learning, this should not mean that we all need to get PhD in education and become educational researchers!
-- Johan
References:
Mårtensson, K., Roxå, T., & Olsson, T. (2011). Developing a quality culture through the scholarship of teaching and learning. Higher Education Research & Development, 30(1), 51–62.
Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4–14.
Thanks Tore! I look forward to following your blog and hope to learn a lot from you. Will follow up on the links that you and Johan have posted.
SvaraRaderaA former language lecturer, I was very involved in language teacher training a few years ago. Language teaching is still a passionate interest and I enjoy following @gianfrancoconti on Twitter. He has lots of evidence based, practical ideas.
It will be interesting to follow your blog, and to discuss how to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of teaching! It is an exciting topic when thinking of classroom teaching, and even more exciting adding a mobile perspective and an open learning setting to it.
SvaraRadera