Technology Education Teacher Professional Learning: Enabling the Future

David Jeffery Ellis

doi:10.25918/thesis.519

Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in Australia is governed by national standards that require preservice teachers to engage with contemporary curriculum content. In technology education, evolving curricula demand that teachers continually update their content knowledge through professional learning. Little is known about how technology teachers navigate this process of content knowledge development and/or maintenance. This thesis investigates how technology teachers develop and maintain content knowledge in response to curriculum changes. It both uses and proposes an ecosystemic approach to professional learning, exploring how individual contexts shape teachers’ learning strategies. The study draws on Bronfenbrenner’s evolving ecological theory, Schwab’s concept of ‘commonplace’, Freire’s ‘curriculum as praxis’, and the TPACK framework to interpret data through an interpretivist paradigm. Data was collected across three phases using a mixed methods approach. The Phase 1 pilot study using a small sample of inservice teachers (n=11), revealed a preference for autonomous professional learning and highlighting the need for adaptive expertise in response to inevitable change. Phase 2 surveyed a broader sample (n=106) to confirm propositions developed from the pilot study about content knowledge deficits and obsolescence due to curriculum evolution. Technology teachers’ preferences for professional development (PD) strategies varied according to the temporal factor of teaching experience, with newer teachers favouring expert-led workshops and experienced teachers leaning toward informal, social learning. This was also supported by the Phase 3 sample from preservice teachers (n=26), who valued one-on-one interactions with experts and formal workshops that closely aligned with their experiences of formal ITE courses. The combined analysis of the phases provided a time horizon ranging from 0 through to 50 years teaching experience, revealing that technology teacher professional development strategy preferences shift toward more autonomous and connectivist learning approaches as teaching experience increases. Factors such as self-efficacy and adaptive expertise influence the differences between cross-sections of teaching experience. The Socioecological Learning Framework (SELF) was developed to guide technology teachers in planning effective professional learning. The framework integrates insights from experienced teachers in Phase 2 to support novice educators in identifying and addressing learning needs. The evaluation of SELF showed that 18.5% of participants found it very effective, and 40.7% moderately effective. While the study focused on content knowledge within technology education, its implications extend to all learning areas and teacher professional knowledge domains. The study recommends that ITE providers embed strategies for developing adaptive expertise in preservice teachers to support lifelong professional learning.

Technology Education Teacher Professional Learning: Enabling the Future

Files and links (1)

Metrics

Abstract

Details

Technology Education Teacher Professional Learning: Enabling the Future

Files and links (1)

Metrics

Abstract

Details

Southern Cross University Social media