Discerning F2F Success in Blended Learning for Teacher Development with Activity Theory
Main Article Content
Keywords
activity theory, blended learning, English language teaching, professional development
Abstract
A recurring complaint about the failure of professional development workshops in Asian ELT usually occurs as a result of ignoring the teacher's voice. Therefore, the chief aim of this study was to minimize this increasing divide by providing an opportunity to be heard. One hundred and thirty four High School teacher participants, while attending a professional development workshop in the North of Thailand, shared their insights on face-to-face (F2F) aspects in blended learning. Based on Activity Theory, a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, and bite-sized journals gathered the opinions, and reflections of the participants. Then the data was, first, categorized and analyzed using framework analysis. Second, the outcomes, using the guiding principles of the second-generation human activity system model (Engstrom 1999), identified the tensions, and contradictions. The findings provide pertinent implications for secondary school contexts' with similar backgrounds, regarding F2F interactions, and identify suggestions for improving the F2F interactions beyond the confines of a classroom meeting.
References
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Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language (A. Kozulin, Ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bliss, C. A., & Lawrence, B. (2009). From posts to patterns: A metric to characterize discussion board activity in online courses. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 13(2), 15-32
Borko, H., Whitcomb, J. A., & Byrnes, K. (2008). Genres of research in teacher education. In M. Cochran-Smith, S. Felman-Nemser & D. J. McIntyre (Eds.), Handbook of research on teacher education (3rd ed., pp. 1017-1049). New York: Routledge.
Brook, C. & Oliver, R. (2007). The learning community development model: A lens for exploring community development in online settings. In C. Montgomerie & J. Seale (Eds.), Proceedings of ED-MEDIA 2007--World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications (pp. 1744-1753). Vancouver, Canada: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved from https:// www.learntechlib.org/p/25608/.
Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Council of Europe. (2001). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Ege Larsen, J. L. (2012). Teacher and student perspectives on a blended learning intensive English program writing course. IOWA State University. Graduate Theses and Dissertations. Paper 12375. Retrieved from http://bit. ly/1zyNqLi
Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Orienta-Konsultit, Helsinki.
Engestrom, Y. (1999). Innovative learning in work teams: Analyzing cycles of knowledge creation in practice. In Y. Engestrom, R. Miettinen and R.-L. Punamaki (eds.) Perspectives on Activity Theory. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, (pp. 377-404).
Garrison, D. R. (2011). E-Learning in the 21st century: A framework for research and practice (2nd ed.). London, U.K: Routledge, Taylor and Francis
Garrison, D. & Vaughan, N. (2008). Blended learning in higher education: Framework, principles, and guidelines. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.
Gorsky, P., Caspi, A., Antonovsky, A., Blau, I., & Mansur, A. (2010). The relationship between academic discipline and dialogic behavior in open university course forums. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 11(2), 49-72.
Karasavvidis, I. (2009). Activity theory as a conceptual framework for understanding teacher approaches to Information and Communication Technologies. Journal of Computers & Education, 53(2), 436-444. doi>10.1016/j. compedu.2009.03.003
Maxwell, D. (2015, November 01). Educational inequality remains rife in Thailand despite promised reforms. Retrieved from https://asiancorrespondent. com/2015/03/educational-inequality-thailand/
Mizell, H. (2010). Why professional development matters. Learning Forward. Retrieved from https://learningforward.org/advancing/whypdmatters.cfm
Ross, J. D. (2011). Online professional development: design, deliver, succeed! Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes (M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman, Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language (A. Kozulin, Ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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Published
Dec 24, 2018
Article Details
How to Cite
Prakash, L. K., & Maretha, A. L. (2018). Discerning F2F Success in Blended Learning for Teacher Development with Activity Theory. AsTEN Journal of Teacher Education, 3. https://doi.org/10.56278/asten.v3i.1018
Section
Research Article