Framing pedagogy, diminishing technology

Teachers experience of online learning software

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand the role played by cognitive framing in setting the parameters for teachers use of courseware. I use a small study of 10 teachers, emphasising two, to suggest that there are a number of ‘frames’ built up from previous teaching practice which influence the varieties of teachers’ engagement style used to approach ‘mixed medium’ teaching. The study shows that teachers who have mastered a set of basic skills in using Blackboard are in some instances content to remain guided by an ‘information transfer’ episteme; they are technologically adequate but passive, while other teachers who have relatively basic technological knowledge can produce truly ‘blended’ teaching using both face to face and online modes to the best value of their respective strengths. I argue that the explanation of this rest in the frames teachers use to understand what they are doing when engaging online.. One particular frame found in interviews also suggests that an immersion in understanding one’s own pedagogical practices produces more effective teaching online than does understanding technology. This has implications for teacher educators as well as for notions of pedagogy as resident in software.