About the project
The project investigates how primary school teachers' planning and organization of learning activities is mediated by work plans for pupils. This is done by studying a team of teachers at a primary school during the transformation from paper based to digital work plans for pupils.
Objectives
Two main overarching research questions are guiding this study:
- How is the teachers’ planning and organization of learning activities mediated by work plans?
- How does the different paper and digital formats of work plans influence on the teachers planning and organization of learning activities?
The aim of this study is to investigate how the teachers utilize new opportunities through the digital tool regarding teaching and organizing learning activities, and how this influence on the use of work plans in general. My study also aims to enlighten the impact introduction of new digital work plans has on the relation between individual and collaborative learning activities.
Theory and methods
Analytical approach
Sociocultural concepts of mediated action (Wertsch, 1998), participation (Wenger, 1998) and trajectories of participation (Rasmussen, in press) are guiding the analysis.
Data and empirical case
The data consists of video and audio recordings from 12 teacher team’s planning meetings (audio and video) in a period of 18 months (before and during transformation to digital work plans).
Three data collection clusters spread over the period of 18 months containing a trajectory of 1) the team of teachers' planning meeting while constructing the work plans, 2) video/audio of teachers’ introduction of work plans (+ field notes from pupils work) and 3) video/audio of summing up and collections of pupils work. Data are collected from level 6-7 (11-13 years old) in a primary school at the outskirts of Oslo.
Research design
Different trajectories are followed in this study. One constitutes a path from the planning meeting towards the pupils uptake of the work plans. Another constitutes the developmental path of the digital work plans.
Funding and timeframe
Funded by: Faculty of Education, UiO
Timeframe: 2009-2013
Outcomes