Teaching Novice Teachers to Enhance Learning in the Hybrid University

Abstract

Hybrid learning spaces are often associated with ‘blended’ education and defined by the presence of a mediating technology. In this paper, we shift the focus from technology to practice in the search for a relationist perspective that understands hybrid space as emerging from a sociomaterial assemblage. In this perspective, learning and teaching involve blurred boundaries and spatiotemporal configurations in a context of radical uncertainty. The paper presents a qualitative study of an ongoing project called Teknosofikum, a course/concept for the professional development of novice higher-education teachers in Denmark. The project addresses the complexity of distributed learning in (post-)pandemic hybrid spaces and times. It aims at generating imaginative pedagogies through the use of technology while also nurturing ontological aspects of the teaching profession. The paper presents and discusses data from the first iteration, which included co-designed processes of prototype content development and a mini-trial with seven course participants. Two key findings about teacher professional development emerge from the study. The first is the need to focus on multiple and situated teaching activities, providing a bridge between learning theories and educational practices. The second is the importance of knowing-in-practice, rather than acquiring knowledge, to create space for imagination in teaching with technologies and face up to the dynamic evolution of higher education.

The Postdigital Learning Spaces of Higher Education

“…Like Gourlay ( 2021 ), Dewa Wardak, Carmen Vallis and Peter Bryant (2021) recognise the need to look beyond human interests and concerns when conceptualising space, as they draw on Actor Network Theory to elucidate the complex interaction of digital and non-digital entities that construct educational environments. Sociomaterial perspectives also inform the discussions of learning space, and its relationship with digital technologies, in the studies presented by Boys ( 2021 ), Goodyear ( 2021 ) and Pischetola ( 2021 ). A sociomaterial sensibility discourages us from conceptually reducing a learning space to its physical dimensions and contents, or to immediately over-emphasise teaching and learning practices.…”

“…Our openness to the interpretation of learning space within this Special Issue has been rewarded with articles that explore the relationship between educational environments and technologies through questions around accessibility and inequality (Boys 2021 ), engagement and presence (Raes 2021 ), the blurring of spatial boundaries (Wardak et al 2021 ), pedagogical innovation (Green 2021 ; Pischetola 2021 ; Wilson 2021 ) and soundscaping (Ahern 2021 ), as well as more overtly theoretical approaches to how we think about educational environments and their practices (Goodyear 2021 ; Gourlay 2021 ).…”

“…Hybridity is also explored in our Special Issue by Pischetola ( 2021 ), this time in the context of professional development among higher education teachers in Denmark. Pischetola reports on the early findings of a study that aims to generate imaginative pedagogies that tap into the potentialities of digital technologies, while at the same time nurturing ontological aspects of the teaching profession.…”

“…These experiences, according to Pischetola ( 2021 ), will surely have impacted on teachers’ professional identities, as well as their everyday practices. The willingness of teachers to embrace new spatial and pedagogical formations during Covid-19, while at the same time exploring how to further exploit the potentialities of digital resources, echoes Goodyear’s ( 2021 ) view of pandemic experiences having punctured the notion that teachers are reluctant to change and resistant to technology.…”

Re-imagining Digital Technology in Education through Critical and Neo-materialist Insights

“…In this paper, we argue that a critical-materialist approach to educational technologies is needed in order to develop counter-narratives and expand the imagination about the future of education (Pischetola, 2021), beyond the interests of the private IT sector.…”