Elaborating and refining the design principles

The last formative evaluation if the IP Language ePlay MakerSpace, evaluated the design, enactment and process of the ePlay MakerSpace according to the global design principles developed in Chapter 2. The intention of this final formative evaluation, is to refine and elaborate the global design principles with to inform the design of Iteration 2 for Foundation Phase educators.

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GDP1) The ePlay MakerSpace inculcation processes and enabling conditions transforms disposition by capacitating teachers to create and innovate with emerging technologies.

The ePlay MakerSpace process developed teachers’ dispositions to create and innovate, as was indicated by the increased creativity measured for the IP Language teachers.

Particularly teachers’ originality scores increased more than their fluency and flexibility scores. This was correlated to the way in which teachers at School K for example, generated novel solutions to address challenges within their context and transformative integrated ETs at classroom and whole-school level. However, not all teachers’ creativity measures

increased significantly during the ePlay MakerSpace, and some even decreased, such as IPL21. However, as was argued, the evidence from teachers such as IPL17 and IPL21’s

examples, suggest that transformation of dispositions occurred as evident in these teachers’ increased capacity to innovate practical solutions. This emphasis is included in the refining of the GDP as:

Refined 1gDP1) The ePlay MakerSpace processes and enabling conditions develop teachers’ capacity to create and/or innovate with emerging technologies to transform dispositions.

GDP2) The ePlay MakerSpace inculcation processes and enabling conditions transforms disposition leading to the restructuring of beliefs, practices and perceptions since the dispositions that formed these are transformed.

In the last session of Day 3 of the ePlay MakerSpace, the majority of teachers self-diagnosed their pedagogic orientation, and identified their goal position on the TCF. Interview data and informal feedback was used to ascertain whether teachers’ pedagogic beliefs, practices or perceptions had changed.

While many teachers identified Quadrant C as their goal position on the TCF, only IPL15 deliberately set goals and managed her change process to achieve this. Other teachers implemented change at their class and schools. Analysing their interview data, it appears that their change journeys were more implicit and less directed, with teachers moving from Quadrant A to D (IPL06, IPL221, IPL22 and IPL23), or from a low position in Quadrant A to a

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slightly higher position (IPL05 and IPL17). Regardless of their movement on the TCF, whether intentional or not, change occurred. IPL15’s case most significantly indicates epistemological evolution, while the teachers at School A effected change with the school system, which impacted learners across the Intermediate Phase. In both cases, change was affected to practices, beliefs and/or perceptions, whether in the individual or in the school’s culture or collective habitus, leading to the refinement of the GDP as:

Refined 1gDP2) The ePlay MakerSpace process and enabling conditions can restructure individual and collective beliefs, practices and/or perceptions by transforming dispositions that formed these.

GDP3) The ePlay MakerSpace creates the enabling conditions to support teachers’ entry into the liminal zone to transform teachers’ dispositions.

The morning of Day 2 of the ePlay MakerSpace, started with a group reflection session in which many teachers commented on the discomfort they experienced during Day 1. At lunchtime on Day 2, these negative feelings had dissipated and teachers increasingly became energized, to such an extent that on Day 3, many commented that they would spend the rest of their holiday playing with the new tools. As much as possible as facilitator, I worked to carry the weight of change for teachers, but as this was the first time that I had facilitated teachers’ entry into the liminal zone, I was also not fully prepared for the depth and heavy weight this would incur. While I expected some negative feelings, and prepared to manage this, my own frustration at the challenges posed by the venue, computers and internet connectivity, added to the mixture of teachers’ emotions, contributing the weight of change in the space. Despite this, the evidence presented described teachers’ crossing of the threshold into the liminal zone where the transformation of dispositions could take place. Once back at school, teachers transformatively integrated ETs and effected different forms change. Thus, rather than as the GDP states, that teachers enter the liminal zone to transform dispositions, the GPD is rephrased:

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Refined 1gDP3) The ePlay MakerSpace creates the enabling conditions and carries the weight of change to support teachers’ entry into the liminal zone where the

transformation of dispositions can occur.

GDP4) The ePlay MakerSpace creates and nurtures autonomous and autotelic ePlay. GDP5) The ePlay MakerSpace process is inclusive. Players in the ePlay MakerSpace come

from diverse contexts and range in skill, competencies and the command of different kinds of knowledge.

The evidence presented indicates that teachers engaged in the ePlay MakerSpace and enacted transformative ET integration in an autonomously and self-directed manner, validating this GDP. The autotelic nature of the transformative ET integration is however ill- defined, and evidenced from the data, ‘self-directly’ is a more appropriate term.

Three teachers noted that the pace during the ePlay MakerSpace was too fast, and

suggested either extending the number of days or slowing the pace. The pace of their entry and crossing of the liminal zone, did not align with the learning pace of the ePlay

MakerSpace. Although the DP remains unchanged, these teachers’ comments however emphasize the need for greater sensitivity and support all participants, potentially providing additional facilitators or keeping group sizes smaller. Moreover, the analysis of GDP4 and GDP5 indicated that these two DPs could be amalgamated and refined as:

Refined 1gDP4) The ePlay MakerSpace assumes teachers are autonomous and self- directed, and is sensitive to and inclusive of the needs of all participants.

GDP6) The ePlay MakerSpace process models sophisticated applications and pedagogical possibilities of the transformative integration of emerging technologies that are chosen to be immediately applicable and relevant to teachers’ unique needs.

Evidence presented indicated that teachers found the course highly practical, relevant and that they could immediately implement what they had learnt. The high relevance of ETs, learning and the modelling of transformative ET integration, was evident in teachers’ inclusion of the modelled practices and tools in their IQMS evaluations, validating these

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tools are representing legitimate cultural capital. In view of this, GDP6 is confirmed and validated, and left unchanged, although it is renumbered as 1gDP5.

GDP7) The ePlay MakerSpace process provides opportunities for reflective learning.

The group and individual reflective sessions successfully supported teachers to articulate their learning and change, how they engaged in the process and experienced other’s learning. Many of the IP Language ePlay MakerSpace reflective sessions were however not recorded in Edmodo, but were included as informal shared whole-group reflective sessions. The lack of evidence to indicate the reflective journey, placed emphasis on key reflective moments such as the course reflections, and not losing reflection in the journey. In future iterations, such reflections should ideally be recorded in the online space, before this is shared in the whole-group, to document the reflective journey. In addition, based on the formative evaluation results for participation, most teachers scored lower for engagement in reflection. Following O’Sullivan’s (2002) findings, GDP7 is thus refined to include the emphasis on scaffolding to support participants in learning to reflect at the same time as reflecting on learning.

Refined 1gDP6) The ePlay MakerSpace process systematically scaffolds and provides opportunities for reflective learning.

GDP8) The ePlay MakerSpace process provides opportunities for professional learning.

The professional learning included in the IP Language ePlay MakerSpace was well received. However, the use of Anderson’s Model for Interaction appeared to cause some challenges when teachers were required to apply it in their lesson plans. Similarly, while teachers could verbalize pedagogical rationale for including HOTS and 21st _{century skills in their lesson}

plans, in the presentation of their lesson plans, many continued drawing on lower order thinking skills of remembering, understanding and applying. This suggests that rather than a wide overview, professional learning should be more directed and encourage deep and meaningful learning (Anderson, 2004b), and should be more carefully scaffolded. GDP8 is thus rephrased:

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Refined 1gDP7) The ePlay MakerSpace process systematically scaffolds and provides directed opportunities for professional learning.

GDP9) The ePlay MakerSpace process provides opportunities for active learning.

Teachers’ course reflections on Day 3, reflect the success with which the active learning was implementing in the ePlay MakerSpace. Teachers listed the parts of the course that they enjoyed most as: G/Drive and Edmodo, G/Forms and Mindmapping, collocated to the verbs: use, download and creating, enjoyed, using and able. These words choices suggest that within the active learning, teachers appreciated and enjoyed the dynamic, emergent process of gaining capacities through the transmission of active practice towards mastery. The formative evaluation of teachers’ created artifacts indicated their inconsistent posting in Edmodo and their unfavourable first experience of G/Forms. A more carefully structured and scaffolded process is suggested to support teachers, especially those with low technical knowledge, when new tools are introduced. Therefore, a three-step Tool Introductory Process (TIP) was designed to introducing new tools in the ePlay MakerSpace (illustrated in Figure 15):

1. Playful Exposure: Educators complete a playful, light-hearted activity using the tool for the first time.

2. Task-Driven Use: Teachers use the tool in a structured, meaning-driven task related to their professional context. They explore and discover the affordances of the tool while the task is foregrounded and the tool made ‘invisible’. Teachers share links to their created artifacts in the online platform, where the facilitator encourages peer-feedback and reflection on the different ways in which teachers appropriated the affordances, potentially leading to teaching moments where teachers may elaborate or explain their learning journey, how they completed or inserted a certain aspect, or managed another. 3. Direct Application: Participants then use the tool to design an authentic application

thereof that would be immediately useful in their classroom contexts. Ideally, direct application occurs soon after task-driven use and is followed by a presentation of their

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work to the whole group where shared reflection can take place, limiting the time between first introduction and application in real-world contexts.

The three-step TIP structures and scaffolds the learning process to maximise teachers’ positive engagement with the tool through active learning from the first moment that they encounter it. GDP9 is rephrased as:

Refined 1gDP8) The ePlay MakerSpace process supports dynamic, emergent and active learning and introduces new tools using the tool introductory process.

GDP10) The ePlay MakerSpace process provides opportunities for relational learning.

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Relational learning was designed to foster different forms of interaction as structured by Anderson’s (2004) model. Additionally, the interactions were designed to be open, non- regulated or restricted as far as possible, to model Quadrant C-type pedagogies. When teachers worked on their group lesson plans, although online collaboration was modelled, only one group collaborated online, while the other groups continued working alongside each other with one teacher typing and the others sitting providing verbal comment. The relational learning and particularly the scaffolding of collaboration generally as well as online, needs more systematic scaffolding in future iterations.

Also, the language of Anderson’s model was problematic to describe the design of interaction, and thus the model was redesigned (see Figure 16). The GDP10 is rephrased:

Refined 1gDP9) The ePlay MakerSpace process systematically and explicitly introduces collaboration and provides opportunities for different forms of relational learning.

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GDP11) The ePlay MakerSpace process provides opportunities for transformational learning.

The inclusion of transformational learning prepared teachers to manage their own change journeys when they returned to school. The examples from School F, K and A, indicate that teachers in varying degrees, managed how they wanted to change in their classrooms or within their schools. However, on the last day, when teachers needed to self-diagnose their position on the TCF, teachers appeared confused and I got the impression they had

forgotten about the quadrants although it was introduced on Day 1. Therefore, the use of the TCF needs to be more systematically and explicitly scaffolded over the course of the three days.

Additionally, a design-epistemology requires a future-orientation to think the un-thought and un-experienced beyond current ways of thinking. During the session on Day 1, this epistemological move had to be included as teachers largely functioned in a problem- oriented space.

Furthermore, the schedule on Day 3 limited the time spent to develop the Roadmap for Change. This meant that the Postcard from 2026 activity was not conducted, and teachers were encouraged to complete it at home, which only IPL15 did. The postcard-activity forms a bridge to support teachers’ changed focus, from their current challenges and problems, to a solution-focused, future-orientation needed for innovation. Therefore, more time should be provided for the postcard-activity.

Lastly, when setting goals, teachers set vaguely articulated and poorly defined goals. In future iterations, the goal-setting activity should be more carefully scaffolded to support teachers in setting low-level, immediately achievable and contextually relevant goals. The GDP11 is rephrased:

Refined 1gDP10) The ePlay MakerSpace systematically and explicitly scaffolds transformational learning.

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The elaborations and refinements of the global design principles resulted in ten first- generation design principles (1gDPs) included in Figure 17. The 1gDPs guided the design of Iteration 2 for Foundation Phase teachers as reported in Chapter 5.