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‘Incite, then delight’ : investigating needed cooperative informative technology experiences (incite), then developing experiential learning in guided holistic teamwork (delight)

University of British Columbia

This research began from an educational technology lab coordinator’s personal curiosity and professional endeavour. In the lab, adult learners demonstrated three resistant actions deemed detrimental to learning: constrained social/co-presence, resistance to new technologies, and external loci of focus to learning. The intent was to investigate what cooperative information technology was used by adult learners in an Elementary Teacher Education Program (ETEP) throughout their course and what holistic approach would then guide group learning. Thus, the thesis is titled: INCITE (Investigating Needed Cooperative Information Technology Experiences), then DELIGHT (Developing Experiential Learning In Guided Holistic Teamwork). Based on social learning theories, the research hypothesis stated the chaos and complexity within ETEP activated constrained social interactions, caused performance reduction, and increased the possibility of members dropping out, either physically or spiritually. The research design collected data with a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. Rovai’s (2002a) Classroom Community Scale (CCS), Hammer’s (2009) Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), descriptive statistics, and semi-structured interviews tested the hypothesis. ETEP participants’ responses texturally described the structural descriptions of Aoki (2000), Pinar (2009), and Wenger (1998) where curriculum emerged as both “curriculum-as-plan and curriculum-as-live(d)” (Aoki, 2000), sustainable teaching-learning solutions answered Pinar’s (2009) “key curricular question — what knowledge is of most worth?” when ETEP adult learners developed praxes and collaborative reflective practices, and curriculum design required individual and collaborative activities with assessments that are flexible, fast, and fluid to “learn a practice” (Wenger, 1998). The hypothesis was proven partially incorrect. The interviews revealed the resistant actions to be coping mechanisms for, rather than detrimental to, the teaching-learning environment. The data collection suggested a greater emphasis on face-to-face activities rather than technology-based activities. As a result, the INCITE of ETEP participants’ responses and then the DELIGHT of this study offers a community of practice to support online learning activities, guide ETEP adult learners’ self- directed priorities, enhance community relations, and assist the transformations from adult learners to pre-service teachers. Future enhancements to this research design include intercultural training and extending the population and time-lines to provide additional data collection and periods when adult learners are on-campus.

Text

2010-08-24

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/27727

Education

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/