Expansive School Transformation in the SADC Region

1. Expansive School Transformation in the SADC Region Ritva Engeström Academic Research Fellow Academy of Finland/University of Helsinki Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning ritva.engestrom@helsinki.fi

2. The Universities of Botswana and Helsinki have entered into a five year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) during August 2007 with the intent to conduct joint research and developmental activities in enhancing ICT competence of teachers through innovative knowledge communities.

3. Objectives • Developmental Work Research (DWR) with the aim to empower educational experts (teachers, teacher educators, officers in the Ministry, and students) in Botswana to make their own plans how to integrate ICTs in their educational activities. • Planning, developing and implementing training to support educational transformation among teachers initially in ten secondary schools • Academic training of change agents for school and community transformation and new uses of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) • Application, adaptation and development of the Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and other research methodologies in the context of school and community transformation

4. Re-thinking Learning and Teaching(didactics of trainers’ training) • Learning by Expanding / Developmental Work Research • Knowledge Creation • Knowledge Building

5. WHAT ARE THE FUTURE-ORIENTED ACTIONS? • HOW TO INTERCONNECT RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT? • THE METHOD OF CHANGE LABORATORY? Unit of Analysis History • Zone of Proximal Development (ZOPED) • The method of Double Stimulation (Collective Reflection)

6. The Change Laboratory setting New solutions, new model for practice ”Mirror” of everyday practice (Historical and ongoing) Intermediate conceptual tools Future Present Past Activity system framework Researchers Practitioners

7. ACTIVITY SYSTEM GROUP P ICT IMPLEMENTS ICT SKILLS CHANGE LAB CHANGE OF MINDSET Instruments: tools and signs ICT INTERGRATION ACROSS THE CURRICILUM Object TEACHER/ STUDENT MANAGEMENT sense, meaning Subject Outcome CITIZENS WITH HIGH LEVELS OF ICT LITERACY Rules Community Division of labor • TIME TABLING (COMPUTER LABS) • B. TEACHING LOADS • C. OTHER COMPUTER REGULATIONS • D. POLICIES MINISTRIAL AND SCHOOL LEVEL COORDINATION (CDNE, DEPT SEC, SMT). PROVIDERS OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL PTA POLICY MAKERS MOE DEPARTMENTS e.g. TT&D AND DNFE

8. TASK 1 TASK 2 TASK 3 TASK 4 TASK 5 TASK N Giving the correct solution (and fixing the false ones) Same Procedure Model A: Surface properties of tasks vary; learning is focused on them SOLUTION 1 SOLUTION 2 SOLUTION 3 SOLUTION 4 SOLUTION 5 SOLUTION N Comparing, arguing and debating the solutions Same Complex Task Model B: Solution ideas and their justifications vary; learning is focused on principles of the task

9. Object-oriented Interagency interagency implies a capacity, among the teachers, researchers and other social actors to rapidly build relations and initiate collaboration in their learning process; this to be a way of functioning in the fluid inter-organizational and cross-cultural boundary zones where their diverse activity systems interact

10. THE ACTIVITY SYSTEM MODEL OF DEVELOPING ICT ENHANCED TEACHING AND LEARNING TOOLS: training workshops, CL, ICT platformWIKI and network OBJECT 10 pilot schools and Gov ICT policy SUBJECT: teachers, educ management, dom and intern project partners OUTCOME Expansive learning & instrumentalisation of ICT in schools–model solutions RULES: Local experimentation, open exchange of experiences, crossfunctional collaboration DIVISION OF LABOR: Projects/experiments, coordination of joint learning, research and documentation COMMUNITY: Atig,Wshopmembers, Source: Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit. (available online at: http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.htm)

11. INSTRUMENTATIONthe implementation and adjustment of the tool to the requirements of the local activityINSTRUMENTALISATIONthe development of the way of using the tool in the work activity

12. Expansive instrumentalisation means that the new technology is used to overcome the constraits and problems of current activity by expanding its object and purpose.The potentialities inherent in a new tool are used to meet societal needs that have not been met. In order to exploit fully the potentials of technical innovations in ICT, its collective and expansive instrumentalisation is needed.

13. The participants of the project are producing a special kind of learning. The collective nature of the subject comes into being from the integration of science with its social context. This integration calls for more opportunities to collaborate outside a disciplinary structure and to work with a wider array of expertise, including innovative forms of social organization. The project acts as setting consisting of co-construction processes between the individual practitioners and researchers – each one contributing with different types of expertise.

14. To make the collective subject requires consciously created conditions for co-construction (joint learning). Developmental work research is furnished with paradigmatic tools, such as the activity system model, the historical analysis of the inner contradictions, and systemic understanding of the expansive cycle.

15. From a semiotic and sense-making vantage point, the tools can be seen to function as a sign-creating anchor for contextualizing multiple practice-bound experiences by different practitioners, including the researchers. These tools are also designed for carrying out the open-ended learning process, the unity of the learning activity and the learning object.