Teacher as change agent: Integrating informal learning into formal education
Ju Seong Lee (The Education University of Hong Kong)
With technological advancement and its growing affordances, coupled with the ongoing suspension of face-to-face classes, English learning beyond the classroom with technology has received increasing attention. The presenter calls it Informal Digital Learning of English (IDLE) or “self-directed English activities in informal digital settings, motivated by personal interests and undertaken independently without being assessed by a teacher” (Lee & Lee, 2021, p. 359). This talk highlights what new roles language teachers should play during the ongoing and post-pandemic teaching environment and how they, as change agents, can leverage the power of IDLE to complement the limitations of formal language education.
Teacher Identity, Teacher Agency and Teaching Competence in COVID-19 Turn
Lynde Tan (Western Sydney University, Australia)
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the pressing need for teachers to develop competence in harnessing digital technologies for teaching and learning. This urgency was exacerbated at the start of the pandemic when remote teaching was non-negotiable. At an unprecedented scale, online learning is accelerated and creates changes to teachers’ roles and their identities. To better understand how teachers enact professionalism in their practice, examining teacher agency is crucial. Its role in assisting teachers to transit through uncertain times to minimise educational disruptions not only demand respect from the public, but also necessitates further inquiry into teachers’ professional learning. This paper raises issues related to evolving teacher identities and teacher agency in the COVID-19 turn. It particularly points out the importance of making a distinction between content and education as teachers create their online presence in remote teaching. Given that teacher identity and agency are negotiated and constructed through relationships, social interactions and contextual factors, this paper uses the formative and design experiments approach as an example to discuss these two concepts. It offers this approach as a way of strengthening teacher identity and agency whilst developing teacher competence in integrating technology into teaching. The paper concludes with a discussion on future research agenda on teacher identity, teacher agency and teacher competence with the goal of creating positive social futures in the COVID-19 turn.
Teachers’ Adaptive Expertise and Autonomy for Resilient Teaching and Learning in the Face of COVID-19 Pandemic
Hyo-Jeong So (Ewha Womans University, South Korea)
With the full or partial closure of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, the main learning environment has shifted from physical schools to online learning environments. We have witnessed how teachers reacted to the unexpected changes such as teachers who adapted quickly to the new normal and also those who were faced with difficulties to make such a shift to online teaching. Then, what would explain the difference underlying teachers’ adaptive behaviors? In this presentation, I will discuss how the perspective of adaptive expertise and teacher autonomy can be employed to explain the development of teachers’ adaptive behaviors, especially resilient teaching and learning with technology. First, the development of adaptive expertise involves two dimensions: efficiency and innovation. The two dimensions are complementary but can be antagonistic. When teachers attempt new approaches, they may experience their practices being less efficient than previous approaches. For teachers to be adaptive experts, however, they need to develop dispositions to perceive such initial experiences, not as a failure but a valuable and productive process of learning. Second, teacher autonomy is a way to allow and engage teachers in situational experimentation with new ideas, free from the bound of institutional practices. During the recent pandemic, teachers given with a certain degree of autonomy showed adaptive behaviors to create resilient and flexible learning environments and also influenced learner autonomy. With that, I will present strategies concerning how teacher education and professional development programs can be reframed to foster teacher autonomy and to help teachers grow as adaptive experts. The strategies are a) to focus on doing with understanding where teachers are continuously exposed to better understand the complexity of teaching and learning with technology, and b) to develop creative thinking skills for innovative ideas to grow. These strategies will be illustrated with the examples found in the existing cases to elucidate the importance of teacher autonomy and adaptive expertise as sustainable elements to reframe teacher education in the ‘new normal’ of the ongoing pandemic.
Teachers Change Through the Development of Digital Comic as a Discipline Learning Media for Elementary Students in Pandemic and Post-Pademic Era
Prof. Andayani (Universitas Sebelas Maret, Indonesia)
Based on research results in 2018, 2019, and 2020, there was a significant degradation on elementary school students’ interest in learning character education using printed materials. Even from early 2020 until now, degradation on disciplinary behaviour gained the highest percentage. It was due to the world pandemic situation. This research was aimed to develop media to learn discipline in pandemic and post-pandemic era. This research was based on phenomenon occured during pandemic and post-pandemic era in which the elementary students’ disciplinary behaviour was uncontrol since they were learning from home. This research was a collaboration between elementary school teachers who designed the comic and private publishers. It was a synergy between the teachers’ need in publishing digital comics and publishers. Research program was done using RnD method. The result were: (1) collaboration between teachers and publisher produced discipline themed digital comic for elementary school students; (2) focus group discussion found out that digital comic was acceptable for the users; (3) applied test done for elementary school students in 12 provinces in Indonesia found out that digital comic was able to improve the students’ disciplinary behaviour. The impact of this research was improving the teachers’ quality in pandemic and post-pandemic era.