Participatory Design Goes to School: Co-Teaching as a Form of Co-Design for Educational Technology

Title of the Paper

Participatory Design in Schools: Co-Teaching as a Co-Design Approach for Educational Technology

Bibliographic Information

• Field of Study: Educational Technology and Human-Computer Interaction Design
• Keywords: Educational Technology, Participatory Design, Co-Design, Co-Teaching, TPACK Model, Classroom Technology Integration, Learning Analytics, Long-Term Teacher Support, Science Education Design, Educational Innovation

Research Background and Issues

• Identified Problems or Challenges:

  • The potential benefits of educational technology in classrooms include enhancing student engagement, supporting more authentic learning experiences, and fostering higher-order thinking. However, its long-term integration remains a significant challenge.
  • Teachers' teaching beliefs, self-efficacy, and technical skills are considered major barriers to the effective integration of technology.
  • Traditional participatory design has limitations in integrating technology with existing classroom practices, particularly in addressing the complex interplay between teachers' beliefs and practices.

• Significance:

  • Successfully integrating technology into classrooms is a critical pathway to improving learning outcomes.
  • Researching how to enhance teachers' beliefs and teaching practices to better align technology with curriculum goals and student needs.

• Research Motivation and Related Work:

  • Using the TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) model as a framework to explore how technology can be integrated to enhance teaching processes.
  • Existing studies suggest that participatory design involving teachers can promote tool adoption, curriculum innovation, and technology integration. However, few studies analyze these processes from the perspective of long-term teacher support.

Solution

• Proposed Method or Solution:

  • The paper proposes "Co-Teaching" as a novel co-design practice method, where researchers and teachers collaborate in teaching activities to design and evaluate technology.
  • Through a two-year longitudinal co-teaching project, three digital tools were developed: a social digital orchestration tool, a learning analytics tool, and a stage lighting teaching agent.

• Innovations:

  • Introducing co-teaching as a method for designing, deploying, and evaluating educational technology.
  • Incorporating "co-generative dialogue" to establish knowledge exchange channels between teachers and researchers, addressing the disconnect between technology development and teaching needs in traditional participatory design.
  • Utilizing the TPACK model to analyze how co-teaching empowers teachers' technological knowledge (TK), technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK), and technological content knowledge (TCK).

• Implementation Steps and Key Techniques:

  • Scoping: Defining project goals by clarifying the vision and scope of the project for both teachers and researchers.
  • Planning and Design: Co-constructing lesson plans and developing initial prototypes of digital tools.
  • Implementation: Teachers and researchers co-teach, testing tools in real classrooms and iteratively refining their design.
  • Evaluation and Reflection: Analyzing teachers' beliefs and technology integration, and planning future teaching directions.

Research Outcomes

• Specific Outcomes:

  • Successfully developed three digital tools, including:
    1. Social Digital Orchestration Tool: Supports efficient coordination of classroom and student group tasks.
    2. Learning Analytics Tool: Provides analysis of student task engagement and file upload data, though it was not fully adopted due to conflicts with teachers' assessment beliefs.
    3. Lighting Teaching Agent: A hardware model enabling students to learn practical skills using professional lighting software, while simplifying teaching for instructors.

• Advantages:

  • Significant Improvement in Teachers' Technological Confidence: Co-teaching enabled teachers to experiment with new tools in the classroom, providing real-time support and feedback.
  • Enhanced Alignment of Tools with Classroom Realities: Long-term embedded practice and dynamic iteration ensured tools better met teachers' actual needs.
  • More Subject-Specific Educational Technology Design: Tools were better integrated into subject teaching practices based on teachers' expressed beliefs and classroom observations.

• Experimental and Evaluation Results:

  • Both students and teachers provided positive feedback on the social digital orchestration tool and the lighting teaching agent.
  • The project significantly enhanced teachers' TPACK knowledge structure, enabling them to independently envision new ways to use technology in their classrooms.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  • Limitations:
    • The project required significant time and human resources (e.g., long-term involvement of researchers).
    • The method's applicability to other disciplines and teacher groups remains to be validated.
    • The learning analytics tool requires more detailed design adjustments to better align with teachers' assessment needs.
  • Future Directions:
    • Explore applications of the co-teaching model in other fields and collaborate with more teachers.
    • Investigate how "teacher communities of practice" can expand the impact of co-teaching, making teacher support for technology integration more widespread.
    • Explore implementation models of co-teaching in low-resource settings and reduce resource demands to support more educational environments.

In summary, co-teaching as an innovative form of co-design practice not only strengthens the integration of educational technology with teaching practices but also provides a unique perspective for understanding the complexities of teaching beliefs and classroom dynamics. It significantly enhances teachers' technological knowledge, paving the way for long-term technology integration.