Mobilising teacher education: a study of a professional learning community

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of a community of university educators that investigated the introduction of mobile technologies into their learning and teaching. The study was conducted by a subgroup of that community. Given the ubiquity of mobile devices, members of the community felt we needed to develop expertise in mobile learning so that we could incorporate it into our teaching. We studied our own learning, supported by a critical friend who evaluated the community's functioning and activities, providing valuable feedback. Activities of this group were informed by and focused on: development of awareness of the potential of mobile devices for learning; construction of action plans within the community; and implementation of these plans. They also included investigating best practice approaches by interviewing experts in the field, exploring the literature on mobile learning and then initiating and testing some mobile learning pedagogies in the context of our own teacher education subjects. The community met regularly to discuss emerging issues and applications. The paper shares some of the findings gained from studying the community, and discusses the challenges and constraints that were experienced. We conclude with recommendations for professional learning communities aiming to learn about technology-mediated teaching practices.

Designing an Educator Toolkit for the Mobile Learning Age

“…Schuck, Aubusson, Kearney & Burden, 2013). This paper describes the design and development of a mobile learning toolkit for teacher educators and teachers that endeavours to galvanise these efforts to stimulate widespread, pedagogically sound m-learning practices in teacher education and ultimately in schools.…”

The development of teacher autonomy in collaborative lesson preparation: A multiple-case study of EFL teachers in China

“…As previous studies have generally focused on how collaborative activities are organized to accommodate various cultural and institutional conditions, it is still unclear what impact these activities have on teachers with diverse demands for professional development, for example, the needs of novice teachers and more experienced teachers may be strikingly different although they work in the same setting (Schuck, Aubusson, Kearney, & Burden, 2013). It is therefore worthwhile for researchers to further investigate how the diversity of teachers' needs affects the way teacher collaboration influences teacher development.…”

Mobile Devices for Tertiary Study – Philosophy Meets Pragmatics for Remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women

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