Understanding emergent teaching and learning practices: iPad integration in Polish school

Abstract

The appearance of tablet technology in the classroom is considered an obvious modernisation milestone. In the last few years school professionals in Poland have made large investments in digitalisation, especially through one to one model (1:1), using digital devices such as tablets. Researches on tablet technology integration in school classrooms convince that digital technologies are closely related to the discourse of educational change. What really changes when digital technology is used in the classroom? This is a driving question for the present study. This research contributes knowledge and new insights into learning and teaching practices in two classrooms in a Polish primary school that were observed over a longer perspective of three school semesters. The design of teaching and learning with tablet technology was explored using the didactical design framework. This perspective focuses on both teachers’ practices and students’ learning activities in the classroom and how tablet technology is integrated into teaching and learning practices. Although the research project was performed on a small scale, it can be defined as one that documents the changes to learning and teaching practices happening in the traditional educational culture of the school under analysis. These changes were identified through the data collected by means of classroom video ethnography (63 teaching hours of recording) and follow-up interviews (18) with classroom’s teachers. The analysis resulted in three distinct maps of emergent teaching and learning practices and a series of conflicts and tensions teachers experience in their everyday tablet-mediated teaching practices. The findings point out that tablet technology integration needs the alignment of the classroom pedagogy - technology relationships.