Designing a CALL course in teacher training: focus on design research

Prof. dr. Jozef Colpaert

Lyon, April 27th 2010

Background Vice-chairman of the Institute for Education

and Information Sciences (IOIW) Director R&D Linguapolis Language Institute Editor CALL Journal (Taylor & Francis) CALL R&D projects since 1986 Organizer biennial Antwerp CALL Research

Conferences Father of five children

WiAOC 2009

Teacher education at UA Within Institute for Education and Information Sciences

(IOIW) All disciplines represented (avg. 400 students) Theoretical component / practical component / on- the-job New 2-year masters

Courses: ICT & language learning Design of multimedia environments Instructional Design* Educational Technology*

CALL & teacher education Challenges:

Students’ attitude & expectations In-service training Technology evolves quickly Enough theory/findings available?

My goal: Turn students into creative, reflecting, self-

evaluating and research-aware teachers

Research ? Research on CALL in teacher education

How to ? Which methodology ? How do we learn more / faster ?

My approach: Engineering approach

“turn your daily work into research” Integrate research in my course

Integration of research Students:

contribute to knowledge corpus of the course (wiki & team teaching)

contribute to literature surveys on specific topics (theoretical validation)

participate in data gathering are confronted with current projects (cases) or give

feedback on project proposals participate in empirical validation of my hypotheses:

design a language learning environment of their choice

re-design my course

My research Technology as Support System Educational Engineering as Research Method Distributed Learning as Design Model Personal Goals as Design Concepts

Technology as support system Design the language learning/teaching

environment first ! LLE = ecology of all interacting actors and

factors geared toward realizing goals of learners and teachers

The role of technology is to contribute to this goal, to create powerful LLEs more efficiently and effectively

Design of technology is derived from design of LLE

Consequence for CALL evaluation

EE as research method Builds hypotheses on theory and practice Staged, cyclic, lifecycle approach Holistic, comprehensive Focuses on design processes Current research: how to measure effect?

Different form Action Research treatment/analysis

Educational engineering

Analysis

Development

Implementation

Evaluation

conceptualization

specification

prototyping

Design

TheoryTechnology

DL as Design Model Distributed Learning (DL) is a conceptual and

methodological framework for designing and evaluating effective learning environments.

LS (learning situation) = what is LE (learning environment) = what can/should be

created

currently in phase of theoretical and empirical validation

DL as Design Model Analysis: identify factors amenable to

improvement Design:

Conceptualisation: identify goals for the learning environment

Specification: Architecture Pedagogy Content Technology

Development, Implementation, Evaluation

PG as design concepts Practical goals as hypothetical compromise

between personal and pedagogical goals Pedagogical goals:

Curricula, programmes, textbooks .... Clearly formulated, easy to identify But: one can adopt the best possible pedagogical

approach, if personal goals are not respected ... Personal goals:

Difficult to detect, to elicit Detection: through focus groups, interviews ...

Personal goals Step 1: detection through identification of

negative feeling Questions: what disturbs/irritates ... while

learning/teaching Answer: aspect x, aspect y Analysis:

I feel bored, alienated, overcommitted, stressed, anxious, alone, useless, not respected, undervalued, not competent, underpaid, …

I’d rather go out, play soccer, do research, write a paper, submit project proposals ...

Personal goals Step 2: reformulation of negative feelings in

positive assertive (but often hidden) will

I want to feel valued, competent, respected, ... I want to spend my time in the most efficient way I want to make quick carreer moves

Personas Pedagogical goals are the same for students

and teachers Formulation of a limited number of

archetypes based on a clustering of personal goals

Type A = Jan Type B = Maaike Type C = Pol

Formulate axes for representation of the population

Practical goals Key to conceptualisation Hypothetical compromise between often

conflicting pedagogical and personal goals Synthesis: difficult exercise

Focus on: acceptance commensurate effort

The UA learning environment

min

max

max

maxcompetence

autonomy

rela

ted

ness

Examples Examples

Evaluation Evaluation:

Initial problems with student satisfaction better explain purpose of my design

Thank you ! XIV International CALL Research Conference

Motivation and beyond (18-20 August 2010 ) www.antwerpcall.be

LINGUAPOLIS Summer School: A Toolbox for Design-Based Research (22-27 August 2010).

Article: Jozef COLPAERT. 2010. Elicitation of language learners’ personal goals as design concepts, Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, in print.