1. Educating Teachers for the Knowledge Society
Social Media, Authentic Learning & Communities of Practice
Hanna Teräs & Marjatta Myllylä
Tampere University of Applied Sciences / School of Vocational Teacher Education
Finland
Image: andy.wolf
Thursday, March 31, 2011
2. What is this presentation about?
• Why is a new approach to teacher education needed?
• What are 21st century skills and how to teach them?
• What is our teacher training program like?
• How have we combined inquiry-based learning, authentic learning principles
and social media?
• What have we achieved with it?
Image: maxroucool
Thursday, March 31, 2011
3. The time of individual performances is over.
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4. We live in a global, networked knowledge society.
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5. 21st Century Skills
what are professionals of
today made of?
• Core competencies of the
knowledge society expert,
independent of subject matter
• Numerous definitions, e.g
Trilling & Fadel (2009): 21st
Century Skills - Learning for
Life in Our Times
Image: Seier & Seier
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6. Learning and
innovation skills
• Critical thinking
• Problem solving skills
• Collaboration
• Creativity and innovativeness
Image: theonlyone (Flickr)
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7. Image: Cristobal Cobo Romani
Digital literacies: media
(More advanced than e-mail.)
literacy and ICT skills
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8. Career and life skills
• Flexibility
• Adaptability
• Initiative
• Social skills
• Intercultural skills
• Responsibility
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10. You can’t.
These skills can only be acquired when the learning environment supports their
acquisition and rewards from it. (Ruohotie 2002)
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11. Mission: help teachers acquire 21st century skills and build a knowledge society professional identity
Ongoing dialogic
Open, social media
assessment - no
environments
exams
New
approach
Principles of authentic to teacher Team learning
learning
education and facilitation
Inquiry-based Networking
learning
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12. Authentic context
• Non-linear: beware of
oversimplification!
• Second Life instead of LMS:
less control, more surprises ->
more like real life
• Helping the students to cope
with complexity rather than
making it too simple
Image: vgm8383
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13. Image: Bodum
Authentic tasks
• Real-life relevance
• Ill-formed and complex -
students won’t love them!
• Inquiry-based learning: defining
one’s own goals and questions
• Using students’ own work as a
starting-point
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14. Access to expert
performances
• Second Life: observing expert
teachers worldwide, e.g.
Harvard
• Networking and social media:
significantly vaster scope of
expertise available.
Image: Destiny’s Agent
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15. Image: Brian Hatchcock
Inquiry-based
learning +
social media
collaboration
tools = multiple
perspectives
Linear format offers inadequate experience in complex problem solving!
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16. Collaborative knowledge
construction
• Team learning.
• Central element in inquiry-
based learning: a reflective
process on individual and
collaborative level.
• 3D worlds proved to be
effective in collaborative
knowledge construction in
distant learning: sense of
community facilitates team
work.
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17. Image: Minette Layne
Social media offers
versatile tools for
Reflection
Blogging about the
observations and
experiences gained
e.g. in Second Life
Assess one’s action
and skills, relate new
skills to previous
knowledge, attend to
feelings, learn from
others
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18. Blogging offers a channel of
articulation to enable
tacit knowledge to
become more explicit
Online discussion: ideas are
visible for everyone, available for
discussion and further
development... the thinking
processes of learners are
displayed, enabling individual &
collaborative reflection
Image: Robert Higgins
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19. Image: James F Clay Image: Bernzilla
An aspect SL students value most is the
Scaffolding and coaching are vital
elements of authentic learning. participation, presence and
A common feature of a traditional LMS-based
support of the teacher.
course is the absence of a teacher.
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20. Many e-learning courses use conventional
assessment methods.
Higher education assessment still largely
measures relatively easily acquired cognitive
skills: remembering, understanding and applying,
instead of analyzing, evaluating and
creating.
image: william & mary law library
These methods assess individual
performance and focus on competition Image: ccarlstead
rather than collaboration.
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22. What is a good
teacher like?
• Competence is historically and
socially defined -> interplay
with experience.
• Experience that doesn’t fit the
current practice of the
community -> learning takes
place. (Wenger)
• Need to shake the practices
and mental models, give new
experiences, offer plenty of
opportunity for sharing &
discussion.
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23. Why do this with the help of Second Life?
• Interacting in virtual worlds broaden worldviews and provide access to
alternative viewpoints (Steinkuhler & Williams 2006)
• Increased awareness of one’s own and others’ perspectives (Jarmon et al
2009)
• Experiences in VW have affect attitudes and behaviors irl (Kapp & Driscoll
2010): beware with classroom simulations!!
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24. What are the results?
Global networking Openness and
with the help of social defining one’s goals:
media creative solutions
and innovative
methods
Team learning and
dialogue: diversity
and shared expertise
Freedom of choice
in one’s learning
New conception of path and working
expertise and methods: initiative
teacher’s work Kuva: Ruff Life (Flickr) and self-direction
Collaborative knowledge construction:
from consumers of knowledge to co-creators
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25. Thank you! hanna.teras@tamk.fi
hannateras.com
Thursday, March 31, 2011
