International cooperation at a global scale

– what and how do we learn?

Keynote Presentation at ECER Cadiz, September 2012 Birgit Pepin HiST ALT, Trondheim, Norway birgit.pepin@hist.no

Outline of the presentation

Education, and in particular schooling, is often regarded as the responsibility of a nation state. Except for some international conferences, or collaborative programmes, each country appears to organise education in their particular ways. In this presentation, I argue (1)  that contrary to common perceptions education, and schooling in

particular, already comprise of many cooperative/collaborative aspects, and that even at local and regional level policy maker and teacher interactions with colleagues, often through ‘resources’, provide rich grounds for, and often include, international collaborative aspects.

(2)  that ‘boundaries’ are not obstacles, but can be ‘sources’ for learning.

Questions to ask

1- Can we identify ‘collaborative/

cooperative’ aspects, and which ‘resources’ afford cooperation/collaboration across ‘boundaries’?

2- Where is/are the ‘boundary/ies’? How do we learn at ‘boundaries’?

Example: Mathematics education

Large-scale comparative studies of pupil achievement (e.g. TIMSS; PISA) -> identification of factors associated with mathematics performance:

–  Impact of home invironment and student characetristics (e.g. attitude to mathematics);

–  Impact of school and education system: the school’s socio-economic context is much more predictive for mathematics achievement than individual students’ socio-economic differences;

–  Explaining changes in achievement in some countries.

Example: Mathematics education

European Commission report 2011: –  The Mathematics curriculum (e.g. curricula, curricular guidelines,

textbooks and learning materials); –  Teaching approaches, methods and classroom organisation; –  Assessment in mathematics; –  Addressing low achievement in mathematics; –  Improving student motivation; –  Education and professional development of mathematics

teachers.

Mathematics ‘resources’ – what counts as a ‘resource’ ? how does a ‘resource’ afford collaborative activities?

Earlier: textbook and teacher guidelines, perhaps a journal article Now: textbook on-line for teachers and for pupils, web-based teacher guidelines, web-based applets, geometry tools such as ‘geo-gebra’, etc. Some research (e.g. Adler) suggests that ‘knowledge’ is a ‘re-source’.

’Re-sources’

“Teachers, in their work in-class and out-of-class, interact with a variety of resources: textbooks, web sites, but also discussions with colleagues, or student work . Adler (2000) proposes to consider as a resource ‘anything likely to re-source’ the teacher’s practice; we retain here a similar meaning of resources, encompassing material, but also all the productive elements which are part of the preparation for teaching (e.g. emails with teachers, websites consulted, students work). … teachers work with resources includes selecting, modifying and creating new resources, in-class and out-of-class.”

(Gueudet, Pepin & Trouche 2014)

Concept: ‘Mutual transformation’

The process of ‘interacting’ with materials is complex, often neither explicit nor public .

Teachers require substantial support in learning how to work with curricular materials/resources -> teachers working with curricular materials

involves ‘mutual transformation’ which includes transforming teachers’ pedagogical thinking and transformation of resources.

New resources (e.g. digital) provide new avenues e.g. Sesamath

EU PRIMAS: Design- Research study -  Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) mathematics and

science tasks as ‘resources’ for professional development

-> 1rst intervention -  Professional development modules involving IBL

approaches -> 2nd intervention

- Teachers work as ‘multipliers’- collaboration

Textbooks at the ‘boundary’

“Textbooks are commonly charged precisely with

the role of translating policy into pedagogy. They represent an interpretation of policy in terms of concrete actions of teaching and learning. Textbooks are the print resources most consistently used by teachers and their students in the course of their joint work.”

(Valverde et al, p.viii)

Investigating curricular documents and practices in France and Norway

Investigation of -  curricular documents (e.g. national curricula) -  commonly used textbooks; and -  teacher ‘curricular practice’ (their work with resources in and

out of the classrooms) Where is the ‘boundary’? -  Between Norway and France as nation states? -  Between policy and practice?

Comparing (selected) French and Norwegian textbooks Figure 1 Sesamath (Sesamath 6eme, p. 126 : www.sesamath.net)

Figure 2 Sesamath (Sesamath 6eme, p. 128 : www.sesamath.net)

Figure 3 Grunntall (Bakke & Bakke 2006, p. 46)

Figure 4 Grunntall (Bakke & Bakke 2006, p. 53)

Findings

Analyses of the curricula: keywords such as -  ‘reason’ in the French NC- link to teacher curricular practice -  ‘practice’ in the Norwegian NC- link to TCP Textbooks: - France: ‘scientific approach’; logic & reasoning - Norway: “Norwegian mathematics textbooks were simpler in mathematical terms (e.g. non-mathematical and ‘common sense’ definitions of reflection), but provided a large number of practical exercises (i.e. cutting, folding) – as identified in the MSC, where ‘practical’ was one of the keywords most commonly used. It can be argued that these practices were underpinned by ‘inquiry-based’ and ‘problem-solving’ ideologies: approaches emphasized by the MSC.” (Pepin, 2013)

Textbooks/’resources’ at the ‘boundary’ between …? •  … policy and practice (e.g. study of policy

documents/curricula and textbooks) •  … the mathematics learning (e.g. mathematical

tasks in textbooks) and pupil attitude/identity/learning

•  … teacher learning and pupil learning (e.g. teacher interaction with ‘resources’; teacher documentation system)

•  … mathematics (& science) teachers in different countries (e.g. EU PRIMAS project)

‘Situated perspective’ & CHAT

The notion of close relationship between social processes and developing knowledge is fundamental to Lave and Wenger’s (1991) social practice theory which emphasises the notions of “community of practice” and collective knowledge that may emerge within the spaces people share and within which they participate -> activity is at the centre (e.g. CHAT)

Engeström (e.g. 1999) provides a conceptual

framework which is useful in coming to understand culturally and historically evolved community systems, such as mathematics classrooms, or teacher communities, that are driven by common motives whilst at the same time being in constant transformation. (Walshaw & Anthony, 2008)

Engeström (1999): Activity system of participation- teachers working with resources

Subject: teacher, in the collective of teachers

Community: teacher in professional dev community

Division of labour: all are working with particular resources/textbook, but on different topic areas/tasks

Rules: particular pedagogic practices (e.g. IBL)

Instruments: resources, e.g. textbook/s

Object: working with particular resources to develop particular practices

Where is the ‘boundary’? Learning at the ‘boundary’?

The framework/definition for analysis is based on socio-cultural theory, in particular Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), which is anchored in works of Vygotsky, Leontiev and Cole &Engeström (e.g. Williams & Wake 2007). Moreover, I draw on ‘third generation’ activity theory developments that refer to ‘boundaries’, ‘boundary crossing’ and ‘boundary zones’ (e.g. Engeström 1987; Tuomi- Gröhn & Engeström 2003). Boundaries are said to exist between activity systems (Engeström 1987) and learning is perceived to ‘happen’ at the boundaries of social practice and between such systems.

Akkerman& Bakker (2011) define boundaries as “socio-cultural differences leading to discontinuity in action or interaction” (p.133)

Boundaries as ‘spaces’ or ‘sources’ for learning (and not obstacles for learning)

Wenger (2000) describes the potential learning at boundaries as follows: “There is something disquieting, humbling at times, yet exciting and attractive about such close encounters with the unknown, with the mystery of ‘otherness’: a chance to explore the edge of competence, learn something entirely new, revisit your little truths, and perhaps expand your horizon.” (p.233)

Cross-cultural/international research and activities enhance learning -> ‘learning by comparing’ becomes ‘learning at the boundary’ or vice versa

In a literature review of 182 studies on boundary crossing and boundary objects, Akkerman& Bakker (2011) found four types of learning at the boundary: •  identification; •  coordination; •  reflection; and •  transformation. Some or all of these may be apparent in ‘boundary’ studies, where ‘re-sources’ become ‘boundary objects’.

When boundaries are crossed by objects, these are called boundary objects.

Star & Griesemer (1989) coined this term (in their study of scientists developing a natural history museum) and they defined boundary objects as objects that “… both inhabit several intersecting worlds and satisfy the informational requirements of each of them. … (they are) both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and the constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites. They are weakly structured in common sense, and become strongly structured in individual site use. These objects may be abstract or concrete. They have different meanings in different social worlds but their structure is common enough to more than one world to make them recognizable, a means of translation.” (p.393)

Conclusions

If we set the ‘resource’ and the work with the ‘resource’ at the centre, that is the activity is our unit of analysis, -> we can identify different ‘collaborative/cooperative’ aspects that the ‘resource’ affords, that is the resource as object of collaboration of the teacher documentation system (e.g. linking teacher & pupil & parents; or teacher working in a community of practice -> Sesamath; see Gueudet, Pepin & Trouche 2013 & 2014) -> the resource as internationally collaborative aspect of teacher documentation work (e.g. EU PRIMAS) -> the textbook/resource as ‘boundary object’ (CHAT) between policy and practice (see Pepin IJME 2013, under review)

Conclusions

-> ‘boundaries’ are not obstacles but sources for learning -> particular ‘re-sources’ become ‘boundary objects’, and as such are likely to connect the interested communities (e.g. policy makers, teachers) and by doing so allows them to communicate across each others’ boundary, or ‘mind’ and manage the boundary together.

Thank you for listening!