Interactive education: teaching and learningin the information ageR. Sutherland�, S. Robertson� & P. Johnw�Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol, UK

wFaculty of Education, University of Plymouth, UK

Introduction and background

In 1999, the Economic and Social Research Council

(ESRC) in the UK launched the Teaching and

Learning Research Programme, in response to con-

cerns about the impact of educational research on

educational practice.1 This is a major programme of

research with the objective of supporting the teaching

and learning community to improve the achievement

of learners across a wide range of contexts, by provid-

ing evidence from high-quality research and ensuring

its impact on practice. The programme recognises the

complexities of teaching and learning and intends to

build on the achievements of both the teaching and the

research communities. Collaboration between re-

searchers and practitioners is central to the programme

together with a commitment to transform research

findings into practical action that has a wide impact.

This special section derives from the work of one of

the ESRC Teaching and Learning Programme pro-

jects, InterActive Education: Teaching and Learning

in the Information Age (http://www.interactiveeducation.

ac.uk), whose overall aim is to investigate the ways in

which new technologies can be used in educational

settings to enhance learning. The project was pre-

dicated on two assumptions: first that teachers are

central to learning in schools and that much of pre-

vious research on the use of information and com-

munications technology (ICT) for learning has

underemphasised this crucial role (Sutherland & Ba-

lacheff, 1999); second that ICT should be incorporated

into a designed learning situation as appropriate, with

attention being paid to the whole classroom context

including classroom talk, work on paper and other

technologies that are usually available to a teacher.

The project centred around the design and evalua-

tion of teaching and learning initiatives within the

areas of English, geography, history, mathematics,

modern foreign languages, music and science. This

work was organised around subject design teams

(SDTs) that consisted of partnerships between tea-

chers, teacher educators and researchers, who devel-

oped subject design initiatives (SDIs) that addressed

key learning areas within their subject domain. These

design initiatives were informed in an iterative way by

theory, research-based evidence, teachers’ craft

knowledge and the research team’s expertise. Also,

the research was structured around five interwoven

strands: teaching and learning; management and pol-

icy; subject cultures; professional development; and

learners’ out-of-school uses of new technologies.

The research was framed by a socio-cultural theory

of learning, which suggests that the mental functioning

of an individual has its origins in social life (Wertsch

1991). This position stresses the crucial role that

communication through language and other semiotic

systems plays in learning and points to the importance

of creating classroom environments that support the

communication and exchange of ideas. From the

outset of the project, we were aware that a socio-cul-

tural perspective might not be adequate to theorise the

ways in which explicit and implicit policy initiatives

shape the possibilities for using ICT in the classroom.

As a result, we drew on a series of frameworks within

the policy-making and policy-shaping domain.

Methodological approach

Our view is that methodology should be viewed as a

process of human construction of generalisations as

opposed to a ‘toolbox’ of ready-made methods.

It entails mutually linked components of general as-sumptions about the world at large (axioms), specificconstructed theories of the given target area, under-

Correspondence: R. Sutherland, Graduate School of Education,

University of Bristol, 35 Berkeley Square, Bristol BS8 1JA, UK.

Email: ros.sutherland@bristol.ac.uk

1For more information on this programme, see http://www.tlrp.org

410 r Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2004 Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 20, pp410–412

SPECIAL SECTIONGuest Editorial

standing of pertinent phenomena, and finally, ways ofconstructing specific methods to transform some as-pects of the phenomena into purposefully derived data.Data are always constructed – or better – derived fromphenomena on the basis of the investigator’s reasoning(Valsiner 2000, p. 63).

This implies that members of the research team have

to interrogate their own assumptions and constructed

theories, and considerable attention was given to the

relationship between analytical categories and data

collection. Within this context, the specific research

methods being used are multi-layered operating at a

macro-, meso- and micro-level within schools. In

particular, the research teams are developing expertise

in digital video as a research tool and integrating the

use of both qualitative and quantitative data into the

research process. In order to capture the dynamic in-

teraction between teacher and students, a video cam-

era is placed in the corner of the classroom and left to

record without interference. The video data are then

viewed in real time and passages identified for more

detailed analysis using categories, that are developed

from both theory and data. In order to explore the

learning dimension of what students have been doing,

we develop conjectures from our analysis and play

back critical episodes of video data. The video- and

computer- based textual record is therefore both a

source of data and a stimulus for reflective discussion

with teachers.

From personalised to participative learning

A key result of the project is that high levels of student

engagement are normally associated with the use of

ICT, whether in school or at home. Students can work

for extended periods of time investigating their own

questions and experimenting with ideas in an inter-

active and iterative way. We have seen this whether

students are investigating language and spelling, in-

vestigating the properties of quadrilaterals, developing

their own compositions in music or writing e-mails to

a German correspondent. This relates to the power and

potential of ICT for learning. However, there is a

creative tension inherent in this capability of ICT. We

have found that extended individual engagement can

lead to the construction of idiosyncratic knowledge

that is at odds with the intended learning. For example,

when a group of primary students were investigating

the properties of a parallelogram through interacting

with geometry software, they recorded the following:

It has four sides, they are like train tracks, they areparallel, it doesn’t have any right angles, it’s the colourturquoise, it can be a diamond.

All of these statements are correct, but some of them

are not appropriate within the context of school

mathematics.

Using digital video, we were able to capture class-

room processes of knowledge construction and are

beginning to understand the ways in which effective

teaching and learning with ICT involves finding ways

of building bridges between ‘individual and idiosyn-

cratic’ and ‘institutional’ knowledge. Making visible

the individual work of students through group work

and whole class work becomes even more important

when ICT is used in the classroom. This can involve

students presenting their work to a critical audience

with the teacher commenting and directing. Here, the

interactive whiteboard or a projected computer image

can be a powerful new tool. For example, when

Marnie Weeden worked with 13–14-year-old students

on learning about proof and geometry, she explicitly

built a process of sharing ongoing work into the

classroom activity. This impacted on learning and

knowledge building as these students explained:

The fact that we were sharing, put in a competitionelement into the investigation plus we were able tocompare what we had found out. It was a group effortso when a group found out about something anothergroup could continue from there.

It kinda made you work more because you knew youhad to show something at the end of it. If you don’thave to show it, what’s the point of working hard at it?

Constructivist views of learning have tended to as-

sume that it is possible to move seamlessly from in-

formal knowledge worlds into the more formal worlds

of school knowledge. We challenge this perspective.

We contend that students are unlikely to develop ideas

about mathematical proof from ideas of everyday

reasoning without the support of a teacher. We further

argue that students are unlikely to develop ideas about

the Italian Renaissance from their ideas about popular

culture without the support of a teacher. They are also

unlikely to develop ideas about the etymology of the

Teaching and learning in the information age 411

& Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2004 Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 20, pp410–412

English language from their everyday experiences of

speaking and writing English, without the support of a

teacher. What this suggests is that the teacher is cru-

cial in organising the social and cultural milieu of the

classroom so that students can begin to use the lan-

guage; practices and tools that are a central part of a

particular knowledge world. ICT alone cannot do this

and it is unlikely that students will be able to organise

for themselves the social networks that relate to learn-

ing about mathematical proof, the Italian Renaissance

and the etymology of the English language. And it is

even less likely that the more socially disadvantaged

students will be able to do this for themselves.

The papers in this section are illustrative of the

theoretical and methodological assumptions outlined

above. They also represent four out of the five research

strands that guide the research process. The profes-

sional development process is described and analysed

in the paper: ‘From Transaction to Transformation:

ICT, professional development and the formation of

communities of practice’. Drawing on a range of data,

the authors illustrate how interconnected micro-,

meso- and macro-communities evolved within the

project to create the settings for improved professional

growth. The paper ‘Transforming Teaching and

Learning: Embedding ICT into Everyday Classroom

Practices’ focuses on teaching and learning in the

classroom, highlighting the creative tensions inherent

in embedding ICT in subject-based learning. This

paper also emphasises the influence of young people’s

out-of-school uses of ICT on in-school learning, which

is discussed in more detail in the paper ‘Different

Worlds? A comparison of young people’s home and

school use of ICT’. Finally, drawing on three dimen-

sions of policy (mandate, capacity, governance) the

paper ‘You can’t not go with the technological flow,

can you? Constructing ICT and teaching and learning’

argues that recognising the nature of the effects of

policy and management on teaching and learning is

crucial to understanding the potential of ICT for en-

hancing learning.

The findings from the collection suggest that if

personalised learning becomes synonymous with in-

dividualised learning, then it is likely to limit the

knowledge creation of future generations of citizens.

On the other hand, if personalised learning becomes

linked to participation in communities of learning and

partnerships between teachers, parents and young

people, then we will be building a solid basis for

educating young people for the 21st century.

References

Sutherland R. & Balacheff N. (1999) Didactical complexity

of computational environments for the learning of

Mathematics. International Journal of Computers for

Mathematical Learning 4, 1–26.

Valsiner J. (2000) Culture and Human Development. Sage,

London.

Wertsch J. (1991) Voices of the Mind. A Sociocultural Ap-

proach to Mediated Action. Harvester, London.

412 R. Sutherland et al.

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