Formal and non-formal digital practices: institutionalizing transactional learning spaces in a media classroom

Abstract

This article examines how a classroom procedure known as PGE (Plan/Go-through/Evaluate) group work aims at integrating formal and non-formal media experiences and practices into classroom-based media learning. The study displays, on the one hand, how PGE group work emerged and was institutionally embedded in a media course. On the other hand, the study displays how students in this media course negotiated with their teachers by drawing on out-of-school media experiences and production practices in the process of planning classroom work. Empirically, the study draws on ethnographic observation of a vocational media studies course in the age range between 16 and 19 years at the upper secondary level in Norway. Video observations from several hours of PGE group work are analysed in order to document how students are involved in co-planning classroom work together with the course teachers. The analysis is based on cultural historical activity theory (CHAT). This theoretical position is applied in order to foreground tensions between formal institutional obligations and non-formal practices that surface in the classroom, and how an institutional measure such as PGE group work creates a transactional space for handling these differences.