Sails and scaffolds: Pre-service engagement in digital pedagogy

Sails and scaffolds: Pre-service engagement in digital pedagogy

Margaret Lloyd

Queensland University of Technology

mm.lloyd@qut.edu.au

Jennifer Duncan-Howell

Queensland University of Technology

j.duncanhowell@qut.edu.au

Shaun Nykvist

Queensland University of Technology

s.nykvist@qut.edu.au

One of the challenges facing contemporary teacher education is in how to model appropriate and effective practice in digital pedagogy. This paper reports on an online curriculum project involving 142 pre-service teachers, 477 children and 18 teachers from 16 schools across Australia. The project, Land Yachts, was conducted through the Oz-Teachernet in Term 3, 2007. Its aim was for participants to build small wind-powered vehicles from recycled materials and “race” these on a specified day. Participants, both children and pre-service teachers, worked in collaborative teams, contributed to a blog, posted images and details of their designs to a shared online space. The focus of this paper is on our attempt to scaffold the engagement of pre-service teachers and will, through a post hoc analysis, draw conclusions about the technical, pedagogical and human scaffolds employed. Two broad descriptors emerged, that is, how pre-service teachers used these to support their own learning and that of others. While representing only a relatively informal and small-scale trial in immersing pre-service teachers in digital pedagogy, the project described in this paper has yielded promising results.

Key words: digital pedagogy, scaffolding, online learning, pre-service teacher education, collaboration

Introduction

Learning does not happen in a vacuum. It must be scaffolded. When learning moves online – into an environment that represents the sterility of a vacuum – then the need for scaffolding is heightened. When teaching moves online, relationships between students and teachers change in interesting and irrevocable ways and a new pedagogy – one with few extant models to follow - emerges. The 2007 online curriculum project described in this paper, Land Yachts, was designed by the Oz-Teachernet¹ as an enactment of an emergent digital pedagogy and an antidote to the restricting e-learning interactions referred to as “point, click and play” (Brown, 2006).

In the Faculty of Education at QUT, a decision was made to include pre-service teachers in the project as peripheral participants so that their own understandings of the agency of information and communication technologies (ICT) in design and technology could be developed.  Our intention was to scaffold their learning about teaching in new spaces as well as learning about “working technologically.” This paper reports on the Land Yachts project from the perspective of the participating pre-service teachers with a focus on the differing forms of scaffolding which were either designed into or which emerged through the project. 

This paper will be presented in five sections. The first will introduce the Land Yachts project and thus describe the research setting. The second provides an overview of scaffolding in relation to online environments while the third details the technical, human and pedagogical scaffolds used in this project. The fourth section presents findings from a post hoc analysis of pre-service teacher participation paying particular attention to the scaffolding of their own learning and the learning of others. In the fifth and final section, we contend that this immersive and scaffolded approach can be used to model digital pedagogy and professional collaboration in pre-service teacher education.

Land Yachts

The Land Yachts project involved 142 pre-service students, 477 primary school students and 18 classroom teachers from locations as diverse as Far North Queensland and Western Australia.  The ostensible goal of the project was the collaborative building of small wind-powered vehicles from recycled materials.  The “real” goals were to:

1. make effective use of the Web 2.0 tools built into the revamped oz-Teachernet website (released April 1, 2007);
2. enact distributed constructionist principles of learning (after Resnick, 1996) and notions of “hard fun” (after Papert, n.d) on which the oz-Teachernet is built;
3. encourage technological problem-solving through real-world design processes;
4. encourage the development of ICT literacy defined as the ability of individuals to use ICT appropriately to access, manage, integrate and evaluate information, develop new understandings, and communicate with others in order to participate effectively in society (MCEETYA, 2005); and,
5. facilitate active collaboration between students, teachers and the oz-Teachernet group.

Formally involving pre-service teachers added the operational goal of modelling digital pedagogy and affording the opportunity to interact with children in authentic dialogue. In this, they assumed multiple roles: participant, mentor and critical observer.

The Land Yachts project was conducted over six weeks in Term 3, 2007. The children were grouped in teams (n=143) and each built a land yacht following a given set of guidelines. Their teachers (n=18) were actively involved in the online interaction and, through a project email list, formed their own support network. The pre-service teachers (n=142) were also grouped into teams (n=48) but had only two weeks to participate in a semester where attention was given to a range of Technology KLA activities. Each team entered the results of their trials and uploaded photos and videos to a secure interactive website developed within the oz-Teachernet domain. A blog (web log) attached to each participating team’s page was used to record progress as well as accepting comments from others. A “race day” was nominated as a culminating point in the project.  The project was not competitive and all participants received a certificate.

Scaffolding

Scaffolding for online teaching and learning is embedded in the technical, pedagogical and human aspects of design and practice. The technical scaffolds include the robustness of the technology, the intuitiveness of the interface and the affordances for communication and collaboration embedded in the tools provided for user interaction. The pedagogical scaffolds mimic the way a teacher would structure and support learning in a classroom. The human scaffolds are arguably more critical than in face-to-face environments because of the potential for isolation and disengagement of the online learner. The valency is for broadcasting rather than communicating and for the retrieval rather than the creation of content. A constructivist digital pedagogy can be encouraged through the establishment of appropriate guidelines and underpinned by empathetic technical, pedagogical and human scaffolds.

Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976) initially defined scaffolding as the “process that enables a child or novice to solve a problem, carry out a task or achieve a goal which would be beyond … unassisted efforts” (p. 90). Scaffolds guide and cue thinking (Vygotsky, 1978) and when scaffolded, a learner is not only able to accomplish a task at a higher level but may also internalise strategies for future transfer.

Wells (1999) identified three critical features of scaffolding: (i) the essentially dialogic nature of the discourse in which knowledge is co-constructed; (ii) the significance of an activity in which knowing is embedded; and (iii) the role of artefacts that mediate knowing. The characteristics of asynchronous online environments held to scaffold learning are the:

·         independence of time and space said to counter the temporal and spatial constraints inhibiting collaboration (Anderson & Elloumi, 2004).

·         “wait-time” which “allow[s] learners control … [and] opportunities for reflective learning and processing information” (Angeli, Bonk & Hara, 1998).

·         thoughtful reflection inherent in the composition of postings (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1996; Tu & Corry, 2003).

·         interactivity which allows participants to (a) reflect on their own perspectives (Harasim, 1993); (b) express their ideas (Angeli, Bonk & Hara, 1998); and (c) learn from the content of the interaction (Henri, 1992).

Scaffolding participation and communication in the Land Yachts project was an integral part of the design from the beginning and was ranked of equal importance to technical considerations. In the design and conduct of this project, the pedagogy preceded and dominated the technology.

Scaffolding the scaffolding

The scaffolds in the Land Yachts project were deliberately designed to support both teaching and learning (after Hirumi, 2002). It could be said that the scaffolding – in terms of the anticipated learning interactions - was itself purposefully scaffolded and were embedded in the technical, pedagogical and human aspects of design and practice of the project. Each was used to enact the project goals (Goals 1-5) previously listed in this paper.

Technical scaffolds

The technical scaffolds were evident in the interface design (see Figure 1). Teams were given a web page with space to name their yacht and their team, list team members, add time trials details, upload design notes and a plan, log their progress through a blog, accept and reply to comments by others, upload photos and a “race day” video. These elements, while collectively supporting learning in a determinist way, actually controlled how participants engaged with the project. The technical scaffolds were:

• team pages [Goals 1, 4, & 5] – the online environment was coded to automatically generate a new template page (Figure 1) for each team. We believed that this would add a sense of identity and heighten engagement. Links were added – in response to a request during the project – between the pages to allow the teacher/lecturer or students to quickly interact with other teams in their cohort.
• naming and listing [Goals 1 & 5] – while naming yachts and teams and listing participants could be seen as simply making entries to a database, it could more aptly be seen as relating to ownership and commitment. They also provided a necessary part of the duty of care and accountability needed in an environment involving children and “strangers.”
• recording trial data [Goal 2] – a dialog box requested details of when, how far, and how fast the land yacht travelled prior to the designated race day subliminally forcing participants to conduct trials. The trial data and optional comments were presented as a table so that participants could see at a glance if changes to design had impacted on effectiveness. This information was also intended to scaffold the blogs in guiding what participants might report to others and reducing the need for repetition. This afforded the ability to “work technologically” particularly in the iterative processes of testing and review.
• blog entries and comments [Goals 1-5] – the online environment allowed blogging in accordance with our commitment to the social construction of knowledge and distributed constructionism. The blogs and comments provided the main source of data for the findings presented in this paper.
• uploading of photos and videos [Goals 1, 3, 4 & 5] – to make the reporting of each team’s design process more engaging and comprehensive, digital photos were requested of the design at varying stages and a race day video. This afforded the embedding of ICT skills and fluency in keeping with national and state agendas for young people to become “technology smart” as they work within new networked learning communities (Department of Education and Training (WA), 2003, cited in Brown, 2006, p. 32).

Figure 1: Land Yachts template

The technical scaffolds allowed participants to interact with the set problem and with others participating in the project. Teachers, including those within the University, were assisted in this through the distribution of “how to” instruction sheets relating to uploading files, posting messages to the blog and entering details of the Land Yacht’s time trials. Further support was provided through the ongoing discussion on the teacher’s email list.

Pedagogical scaffolds

The pedagogical scaffolds enacted the five learning interaction attributes (or purposes) identified by Northrup (2001). These, annotated to explain how they relate to the Land Yachts project, are to:

1.      interact with content – with the content being user-generated thus adding authenticity to the set task;

2.      collaborate – with collaboration being both on- and off-line and enacting the notion of distributed constructionism identified as a goal of the project;

3.      converse – with the “conversation” making use of differing text and visual literacies;

4.      help monitor and to regulate learning (intrapersonal interaction) – with the blogs acting as a diagnostic tool for teachers (and others) and a model of pedagogical “voice” for pre-service teachers; and,

5.      support performance

a.       in meeting the ostensible goal of building the yacht - through replicating traditional problem-solving processes beginning in planning (design notes or scanned annotated plans), continuing through testing, and concluding with sharing and reporting on the outcome.

b.      in meeting the operational goal of modelling digital pedagogy and professional collaboration – through cognitive apprenticeship  (Collins, Brown & Newman, 1987).

Human scaffolds

The human scaffolds existed in the offline interactions where students were encouraged to solve their design problems. These were alluded to in the blogs and comments posted to the team pages. Human scaffolds were also evident in the online interactions between teachers, pre-service teachers and students. The discussion on the teachers’ email list also provided a “human” scaffold, particularly in relation to logistical issues and finalising the guidelines relating to online safety for students.

Together, the interdependent technical, pedagogical and human scaffolds supported participation and created a positive learning environment. In the following section, the focus is on the pre-service teachers participating in this project and how they responded to the scaffolds to support their own learning as well as, through their interaction, provided scaffolding for others.

Findings

The findings reported in this paper are drawn from a post hoc analysis of the blogs and comments posted by the pre-service teachers participating in the project. There were 48 web pages completed by the pre-service teams with the majority giving themselves original names such as Poor Man's Excuse for a Yacht, HMAS Slow Boat, and The Fighting Mongoose. As with the children participating in the project, the act of naming had the consequence of adding a sense of ownership and occasionally determined the final design of the yacht (see Lloyd & Duncan-Howell, 2008).

Two broad descriptors emerged from the open coding of the blogs showing evidence of pre-service teachers using technical, pedagogical and human scaffolds to (a) support their own learning and (b) support the learning of others. The advantage of using blogs as a data source lies in its being an accurate contemporaneous report of process or reflection. Being written allows the control and reflection previously noted as characteristics of asynchronous communication.

a.         Evidence of using the scaffolds to support own learning

An archetypal response, which showed evidence of scaffolds to support learning, was:

The Land Yacht activity was a fun and challenging design task. It required plenty of thought and trial and error. … We discovered that the sail had to be of lightweight material and of significant size in comparison to the base of the yacht. During construction, we had to test our yacht periodically to ensure it was working correctly. After this, we made changes to improve the design. These were sometimes not successful. However, it made us think deeply about the design features of our yacht. The yacht would sail a short distance then veer to the right. We thought this was due to the unstable sail and wheels. The distance the yacht moved was 1.3 metres and the time was 8 seconds. (Team 4)

This blog typifies the design process undertaken by all participants in the project and includes most of the message classifications that emerged from open coding of the total data set. These are:

1. description
2. hypothesis
3. trial and error
4. fun
5. “hard fun” or challenge
6. collaboration.

Two further categories emerged from the data: (a) understanding of technology and design, and (b) curriculum concern or teacher practice. The following expands on these eight classifications. It should be noted that multiple codes were applied to the postings.

1.        Description

Over a third of blogs (n=16, 34.78%) included a simple description of the yacht without reference to process or underpinning principles. Examples included:

-   Our CD Pringle land yacht while it looked really cool did not perform well. The CD wheels need to be changed. (Madhouse, Figure 2)

Figure 2: The CD Pringle Land Yacht (Madhouse)

-   Let us start by telling you how good our sail was; made from Gladwrap and four pieces of balsa, it was ready to fly. However, we failed to design four wheels that turned on the surface of our runway. If we had a better runway or wheels, our yacht would have been the fastest. In trials our yacht flew 3 metres very slowly, but in testing it failed to deliver these results. (The Fail to Sail)

2.        Hypothesis

A number of blogs (n=15, 32.61%) hypothesised how modifications might improve their yacht’s performance, for example:

-   We used a plastic bag as the sail because it would attract the wind and it is lightweight but our land yacht didn’t move smoothly because the holes in the wheels (bottle lids) were too big for the sticks causing them to move around. Next time, we would make the holes smaller so they wouldn’t wobble and maybe have some spare wheels in case the holes split again. (Our Wonderful Yacht)

-   We investigated potential materials for our design. The materials had to be lightweight to reduce the friction of the yacht. We decided on using foam, plastics and wood. Our design was based on the available materials. Important considerations were the size of the wheels and the surface area of the sail. We had to build our own wheels due to lack of materials. The yacht weaved rather than travelling in a straight line and we attributed this to the positioning of the sail and the sturdiness of the wheels. To improve the vehicle for next time, we would alter the design of the axles to ensure the yacht moves in a straight line. (Billa Fungus, see Figure 3)

Figure 3: Billa Fungus (Billa Fungus)

3.             Trial and error

The majority of blogs (n=37, 80.43%) documented the trials and described their modifications (see Billa Fungus, Figure 3). A further example was:

·         Our first trial was the most successful. The yacht travelled 5 metres in 15 seconds (20cm/second). The front left-hand wheel had a problem and the yacht kept steering to the left and falling off the table. We put a chock of foam between the wheel and the straw to sort out the problem - but with no success. We thought if the yacht was placed on the floor, then it would give us a chance to see how far it would travel without falling off the edge of the table. However the direction of wind generated by the fan became a new constraint with the yacht predictably moving away from the reach of the fan.  (Polka Dot Yacht, see Figure 4)

Figure 4: Polka Dot Yacht

4.              Fun

While a sense of fun pervaded the blogs (see Madhouse and Fail to Sail), some (n=9, 19.57%) expressed this explicitly (see Team 4). The following, despite its sustained play on words, reveals a systematic and focussed design process:

The Eggonomic is made from an egg carton base and has thus provided the theme for our land yacht. It uses wind power to egg it along hence the vehicle is very eggonomical. Upon eggzamination it was clear that the lightweight structure, stability and lack of friction through the wheel movement achieved an eggcelent result. Although eggzhausted at the end of our task, we were eggstremely proud of our achievements. (The Eggonomic)

5.        “Hard fun” or challenge

Team 4 began by offering that the task was “fun and challenging” and a sense of achievement was noted in the comment that “we consider our design an engineering success!!!” (Blown Away). A less successful example was:

We tried hard, but ended up giving up. The wheels were not secure, too wobbly, and overall did not perform the function of movement. Materials were updated and tested several times. It is quite a difficult task for us uni students let alone a primary aged student. (The Two-Wheeled Yacht)

6.             Collaboration

Arguably the most critical pedagogical scaffold – underpinning the distributed constructionism on which the project was based - was collaboration. The organisation of participants into teams was one part of this scaffold thus encouraging face-to-face collaboration while the provision of blogs was its online equivalent. A simple measure of collaboration lies in the language of the postings made by pre-service teachers where the majority (n=43, 93.48%) used plural pronouns (we, us, our) to describe their design processes. Collaboration was also evident in the posted images (see Figures 4 and 5). Asking pre-service teachers to work in groups is contentious and fraught with problems, but, in this instance, genuine collaboration was noted.

7.             Understanding of technology and design principles

There was a Technology content component embedded in the Land Yachts project. That pre-service teachers understood and applied this to the building of their yachts was clear in the language of the blogs. There was frequent and accurate usage of scientific terms, explanation of concepts such as aerodynamics and momentum and a clear understanding of the properties of materials. The Eggonomic blog referred to structure, stability and friction while Billa Fungus noted the relationship between design elements.

8.             Evidence of curriculum concern or teacher practice

Of perhaps greater importance than content knowledge for pre-service teachers is Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) (Mishra & Koehler, 2006) where a bridge between student and teacher roles is crossed. Instances of where this task was seen as being more about curriculum than content were frequent and a clear example of this was where the Happy Sailors (Figure 5) organised their blog according to the phases of the Technology Practice cycle: Investigation, Ideation, Production and Evaluation (Figure 6).

Figure 5: The “Yeah Baby” (Happy Sailors)

The TP Cycle - Investigation Look at other students’ designs - Looked at images of land yachts in lectures - Recalled personal experiences. The TP Cycle – Ideation Looked at the materials we had to work with (considered strength, weight, friction, stability and surface area) - Then we drew a design. The TP Cycle – Production Allocated roles and responsibilities - Production was a cyclic process, where we created, tested and modified components of the land yacht - The base and sail had many forms throughout the process. The TP Cycle - Evaluation What worked? -Sail collected a lot of wind. - Lots of trial and error connecting the axle, with success in the end. - It went really fast and far. What didn't work? - It wobbled a bit when moving - The axle was too loose on the base. How would we improve it? - Should have used a cylinder axle instead of a chopstick - We could either attach smaller bottle tops to the axle near the base to prevent sideways movement or make the wheels turn and have a fixed axle.

Figure 6: The Happy Sailors Blog

The connection between curriculum and task was clear. The “Happy Sailors” – and others – had positioned the task as one of pedagogy before technology.

As noted, including pre-service teachers in the Land Yachts project allowed them to operate in an authentic space and, if they wished, to interact with the children participating in the project. The following section describes how some took the opportunity to scaffold the learning of others.

b.         Evidence of using the scaffolds to support the learning of others

It was suggested to the pre-service teachers that they “find groups with no or little comments and give them advice and/or positive feedback. The rest was up to them” (Christina Chalmers, personal communication, March 21, 2008). This was not for assessment nor was it a supervised activity. All were, however, encouraged to follow the children’s participation and observe how others interacted with them.

There was only one instance where a pre-service teacher - here called Rachel - posted a response to the previously cited Our Two-Wheeled Yacht’s blog:

I like the idea of just using 2 wheels because it means less surface contact, less friction, thus more chance for increased speed. Someone in my group had this ingenious idea of an axle-like design for the wheels. Put a skewer through the hole in a straw (make sure the straw is shorter than the skewer) and pierce bottletops onto the ends of the skewer (locks skewer into straw). Then if you tape the straw onto the underside of the yacht’s body, the wheels can move freely without becoming detached from the body. Try that for your wheels and add a third wheel and I bet yours could beat ours (but don't tell the others I told you so :P)

(Rachel, comment to Our Two-Wheeled Yacht)

Pre-service teachers also responded directly to the children participating in the project. Three –Jack, Lee and Derek - responded individually providing their full names and affiliation to the University. Others responded as teams rather than provide their names. Selected comments posted by pre-service teachers are presented in Table 1 with the school’s name replaced by an alias.

Table 1

Selected Comments to Children’s Blogs

School, State	Team, Yacht	Poster	Message
Acacia Primary, WA	Team 2, Sinker	Unnamed Team	We think your diagrams were fantastic! Very easy to read and great attention to detail.
Acacia Primary, WA	LBJ, Sea Dragon	Unnamed Team	Very original design!! We hope everything fits together and it runs well. Your diagram was very detailed and well organised.
Banksia Primary, Qld	Team 1, West Coast Custom	Jack, QUT	Your yacht looks very sleek and quite lightweight too.
Grevillea Primary, WA	The Dragons, Dragon Racer	Derek, QUT	Good luck on the race tomorrow! Your yacht looks great. I have a couple of ideas for you. Have you thought about using an axle for your wheels? You could put a straw though your yacht in place of the skewer then put the skewer through the straw. That way the straw is attached to the yacht and the axle (skewer moves freely in the straw). Also it might be worth experimenting with weight. Does the yacht travel further with a lighter or heavier mass? The momentum of a heavier (not too heavy) yacht might carry it further. Experiment by placing some scale weights on your yacht and test the results.
Wattle Beach Primary, Qld	Bro Town, Matilda	Lee, QUT	Your yacht looks fantastic! … Is your sail the most effective shape for catching the wind? Using a frame to put the material around might work a little better! Our yacht (The Copycat) had the same problem with wheel alignment. It started turning by itself after a short distance! I hope the race day goes well for you!
Grevillea Primary, WA	Just Hangin’, Flaming Dutchman	Lee, QUT	… Perhaps experimenting with weight could improve your yacht. As your yacht starts to move away from the fan, is its own weight carrying it? Or is it very light?  This might affect the overall distance.

The questions posed by Lee (to Just Hangin’) were answered through the blog creating a genuine interchange with the classroom teacher from Grevillea Primary. When asked what he thought what the children gained from the blog comments, “Lee” offered that:

…a fantastic idea. Kids would be excited at receiving constructive feedback from “strangers” and also at the fact that they are involved in a highly engaging ICT task (blogging, posting etc.). … Even if children’s problem-solving notes are not answered, this process allows them to develop critical questions, higher order thinking skills and overall, ICT skills. … it all comes down to practical, simple and realistic feedback that the children can use.

(Lee, personal communication, March 16, 2008)

The potential for engaging with children in authentic dialogue concerning a shared problem was real and exciting. It added a dimension of evaluation and reflection to the Technology component of the project as well as providing pre-service teachers with genuine immersion into digital pedagogy. What was most encouraging was the pedagogical “voice” shown by those pre-service teachers who voluntarily responded to participating children. The comments were invariably warm, authoritative and frequently enlivened by accounts of personal experience. They offered both human and pedagogical scaffolds in a potentially sterile environment.

Conclusion

While representing a relatively informal and small-scale trial in immersing pre-service teachers in digital pedagogy, the project described in this paper has yielded promising results. Its immersive and scaffolded approach can move peripheral participants into adept teachers in online spaces and engage them in professional collaboration. It might also provide the means through which pre-service teachers can, more ambitiously, become“capable of critically reading, actively mediating and sometimes outright disrupting what young people are learning through new digital technology” (Brown, 2006, p. 29).

The pre-service teachers’ responses were intriguing as some focused on process, others on science while others wrote of curriculum. What was achieved is embodied in Lee’s remark that:

… when providing feedback, I was thinking what I could ask that would help the children think critically rather than providing direct feedback about changes they needed to make. Critical questioning skills as a teacher are essential to develop. This project certainly helped me to practise that. It was also a lot of fun!

(Lee, personal communication, March 18, 2008)

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Footnote

1. The oz-Teachernet [http://www.oz-teachernet.edu.au] was established in 1995 to assist teachers using the Internet and to support professional development and curriculum design. It was the first of its kind in Australia and remains a valuable resource for practitioners both nationally and internationally. It is a non-profit self-funding community managed and maintained by academics within the Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology.

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to acknowledge the specialist open source programming and technical support given to this project to James Isseppi and Nathan Craike and the operational support provided to participants by Ken Garrad, Vinesh Chandra and Christina Chalmers.