Knowledge building for teacher education and professional development: The opportunity and challenges of innovation, Part 2

The article copy deposited in TSpace is limited to noncommercial distributions and personal use by others. AACE is the official publisher of this work and retains copyright over it.Innovation in teacher education may be the result of advances at the theoretical level, the design of new tools, pressure from a governmental agency, or genuine effort to improve practice. Moving beyond best practice1 is the thrust of the symposium that we suggest, one that is reflective of how teacher educators can take advantage of theoretical advances supported by new digital tools to better the learning environment that they create for and with student teachers. We ground our practice (teaching and research) in design experiments (Brown, 1992; Collins, 1992, 1999) conducted in school settings, and which combined knowledge and technology in innovative ways a decade ago (Bruer, 1993; Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1993; McGillis, 1994). More recent related research works are also considered, including DiSessa and Minstrell (1998), Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (1999), Blumenfeld, Fishman, Kracjik, and Marx (2000), Bereiter (2002), and Scardamalia and Bereiter (2003). In best instances, pre-service teacher education programs introduce student teachers to advances in the learning sciences by demonstrating coherence between theory and practice in the teacher educator’s classroom or during field placement. Coherence is important for creating an environment capable of providing powerful learning experiences to student teachers, ones likely to transform their beliefs about learning and teaching (Wideen, MayerSmith, and Moon, 1998). Bereiter and Scardamalia (2003) made an important breakthrough regarding teacher education and professional development with the following distinction between belief and design modes: “Critical questions for work in belief mode are “Is it true?” and “What is the evidence?” Critical questions in design mode concern what an idea is good for and how it could be improved.” They go on to point that “Formal education is conducted almost exclusively in belief mode, whereas design mode characterizes knowledge work in the outside world.” (p. 3) For years, the authors of this proposal have seized the opportunity provided by digital tools to enhance the learning environment of student teachers and school learners on and off campus (Brett, 2004; Laferrière, 2000; Lamon, Secules, Petrosino, Hackett, Bransford, and Goldman, 1996). They share the idea that technology use ought to trigger accommodation rather than assimilation (see Seidel and Perez, 1994). They take into account the fact that constructivist teachers are more inclined to use the Internet in their classrooms (Becker and Riel,1999). They focus on online discourse, but are well aware of the limits identified by Blanton, Moorman, and Trathen (1998). And they see shortcomings in communities of practice, on-site and on-line, whose members are not intentionally targeting the transformation of their own practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991) for the knowledge age.Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 200