Examining resources and re-sourcing as insights into teaching

Abstract

The rich set of papers in this issue of ZDM weaves together several distinctly important perspectives on the work of teaching. Guided by the introductory paper by Pepin et al. (2013), the reader is invited to consider an expanded theoretical framework underlying research on teachers’ interactions with resources. This expanded framework is accomplished through an empirically driven, theoretical integration of sorts, in which different theoretical perspectives are brought together to explain and interrogate a complex phenomenon. The first perspective focuses on the relationship at the center of teachers’ interactions with resources in their teaching. In my work (Remillard 2005), I have argued for taking participatory perspectives on teachers’ use of resources. This view emphasizes the interactive and transactional nature of this work, framing curriculum use as a dynamic and ongoing relationship between teachers and resources, a relationship shaped by both the teacher and characteristics of the resource. This perspective is embraced and extended by the notion of documentational genesis, a term offered by Gueudet and Trouche (2009) to describe teachers’ work with documents and the production of new documents that result from these activities. In addition to capturing the mutually shaping relationship between the teacher and tool, this theoretical perspective holds that documents are situated within schemes of usage assumed by the teacher. In other words, using resources necessarily involves re-sourcing them for one’s specific purpose and context. Gueudet and Trouche’s (2009) characterization of documentational genesis suggests that the process by which teachers and resources interact and produce new documents is an ongoing one. By looking at this process over time, we can see its cyclical nature in which documents are designed and re-designed. We can also see a connection to another theoretical perspective used to guide and examine many facets of instructional design. Design-based research as a methodology and theoretical stance on the work of teaching places central emphasis on the cycle of design, enactment, analysis, and re-design. Teaching is seen as a generative and responsive activity that goes through cycles of design, analysis, and refinement and from which theory is produced and refined (Design-Based Research Collective 2003). From this perspective, documentational genesis can be understood as an instance of design-based research. The documentational genesis (or participatory use) lens focuses on the teacher–tool interaction, whereas the design research lens places emphasis on the process of ongoing design and analysis. These perspectives allow us to theorize teacher–resource interactions at the level of the individual teacher. When these interactions are examined within their day-to-day contexts of schools and within communities of teachers, the collective possibilities for documentational work are uncovered. Lave and Wenger’s (1991) notion of communities of practice offers a framework for understanding the way professional communities of teachers work collectively on shared enterprises. In their introductory paper, Pepin et al. (2013) argue that documentational genesis often occurs within communities of practice and leads to collectively produced documents and shared learning. A number of papers in this collection illustrate different J. T. Remillard (&) University of Pennsylvania, 3700 Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA e-mail: janiner@gse.upenn.edu