Who's got the power? Unpacking three typologies of teacher practice in one-to-one computing classrooms in Finland

Abstract

This study explores teachers' practice and aims to understand the complexity of and the difference between teacher-centred teaching and student-centred learning in the one-to-one computing classroom. Generally, prior research has examined moving from teacher-centred teaching to student-centred learning. Here, we scrutinise one-to-one computing practices in Grades 1–6 in Finland by analysing how power and control emerge from the way teachers organise the physical classroom and communicate in practice. We target variations in practical classroom orchestration as well as in how teachers reason about their practice. A mixed-method analysis was conducted in two phases, including 15 classroom observations and subsequent teacher interviews. First, a quantitative analysis displayed three clusters of ways teachers distributed power and control in their classroom orchestration. Second, the clusters were integrated in a qualitative analysis of the interviews. The findings show that the variations of teacher practice depended on their beliefs and higher-order learning goals related student autonomy in the use of material resources. It also showed a variation in the way teachers scaffolded students’ individual work and created collaborative learning opportunities. In the one-to-one computing classroom, this emerges from issues that teachers can control inside school regarding the use and organisation of material resources. However, another factor that made teachers adapt their practice was the integration of heterogeneous student groups into their classrooms.