DIYLab as a Way for Student Teachers to Understand a Learning Process

Abstract

The authors introduce their experiences gained in the EU project Do It Yourself in Education: Expanding digital literacy to foster student agency and collaborative learning (DIYLAB). The project was aimed to design an educational procedure based on DIY philosophy with a student-centred and heuristic approach to learning focused on digital literacy development and later to verify it in teaching practice in primary and secondary schools and HEIs in Finland, Spain and the Czech Republic. In the Czech Republic the project DIYLAB was realized as a teaching approach in initial teacher education with Bachelor and MA degrees for ICT, Biology, Primary Education and Art Education student teachers. DIYLab activities represented occasions for student teachers to bring interesting problems related to their study programmes and also their after-school interests. An integral part of DIYLab activities was problem visualisation using digital technology; visual, film, animation, etc. served as a basis for assessing both pupils’ digital competence and their problem-solving capability. The DIYLab have influenced student teachers’ pedagogical thinking of how to develop pupils’ digital literacy and to assess digital literacy development as a process and not as a digital artefact. Following the project, the DIYLab approach is being included in future Bachelor and MA level initial teacher education with the aim to teach student teachers (1) to design DIY activities for digital literacy development supported inter-disciplinary relations in school education, and (2) to use digital technology to oversee and assess learning as a process.