DIGITALLY CHANGING TEACHING PRACTICE ENVIRONMENTS: AN EXPLORATION OF CONCEPTS AND IMPLICATIONS

Abstract

This paper proposes using different concepts for guiding institutional practices in times of digitally changing professional teaching work environments. This paper draws upon our previous research and offers a first step of a framework, to understand and explore the new digital changes for professional teaching and learning practice, while engaging in online and virtual work and learning environments. Thereby focusing on the notion of a professional and the social implications of digital work technologies that are used for teaching and learning. The theoretical paper is structured around concepts we identified in our previous work and its potential of adopting them in the context of digital communities of professional practices. Addressing these objectives can hopefully help us to understand, what the effects of digital professional teaching work environments on teaching practice and for teacher’s professional responsibility are, their social effects in everyday teacher work and their practice related knowledge? What capabilities, features or skills are enabling teachers to do so and what guidelines can help them to cope with the current changes? And ultimately, how workplaces, schools and universities can benefit from these ideas? We focus on both human social factors and digital material factors as being inherent to professional teaching and learning practice. We hereby build upon concepts derived from socio-cultural and socio-material theories which are currently not commonly used in the same context, such as: communities of practice which is popular in socio-cultural learning theories whereby the understanding of human development relies on the social world; and extending the community of practice with materiality whereby human development also involves the material world. We contribute with this paper by suggesting that our framework, drawing on concepts of two different but related learning theories is useful for further research, such as on the institutional and individual response to digital change in teaching and learning practice. We believe that our theoretical informed conceptual approach enables to inform an increased professionality of teaching professionals in times of digital work change, activates thinking about different concepts, a change of mindset or at least provide the guidelines for an improved understanding among those involved in teaching practice.