Technology & knowledge: An exploration of teachers' conceptions of subject-area knowledge practices and technology integration

This paper explores teachers' understanding of subject-area knowledge practices (e.g. curriculum, goals, and pedagogy of a subject area, etc.) and technology integration, through the use of Legitimation Code Theory. Drawing on a major study of a technological initiative in all state secondary schools in New South Wales, Australia, this paper illustratively uses one dimension of LCT to explore the organising principles underlying the key subjects of Mathematics and English, in relation to teachers' perceptions of technology use in learning and teaching. Analysis suggests a 'code clash' with Mathematics and a 'code match' with English might help explain their different patterns of integration of ICTs. The research is novel and innovative in both its use of theory and combining the separate fields of educational technology and sociology of knowledge. Keywords area, subject, conceptions, teachers, exploration, knowledge, technology, practices, integration Disciplines Education | Social and Behavioral Sciences Publication Details Howard, S. K. & Maton, K. (2013). Technology & knowledge: An exploration of teachers' conceptions of subject-area knowledge practices and technology integration. AERA 2013 SIG-Computer and Internet Applications in Education (pp. 1-8). San Francisco, USA: AERA. This conference paper is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/sspapers/646 From the AERA Online Paper Repository http://www.aera. net/repository Paper Title Technology and Knowledge: An Exploration of Teachers’ Conceptions of Subject-Area Knowledge Practices and Technology Integration Sarah Katherine Howard, University of Wollongong; Karl Maton, The University of Sydney Author(s) Teachers and Technology: New Answers to Old Questions Session Title Paper Session Type 5/1/2013 Presentation Date San Francisco, California Presentation Location Teacher Knowledge (cultural/content/pedagogical), Teaching Context, Technology Descriptors Mixed Method Methodology SIG-Computer and Internet Applications in Education Unit Each presenter retains copyright on the full-text paper. Repository users should follow legal and ethical practices in their use of repository material; permission to reuse material must be sought from the presenter, who owns copyright. Users should be aware of the . Citation of a paper in the repository should take the following form: [Authors. ] ([Year, Date of Presentation]). [Paper Title. ] Paper presented at the [Year] annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Retrieved [Retrieval Date], from the AERA Online Paper Repository. AERA Code of Ethics AERA 2013 SIG-Computer and Internet Applications in Education 1 Technology & knowledge: An exploration of teachers’ conceptions of subject-area knowledge practices and technology integration Sarah K. Howard University of Wollongong sahoward@uow.edu.au Karl Maton University of Sydney karl.maton@sydney.edu.au Abstract This paper explores teachers’ understanding of subject-area knowledge practices (e.g. curriculum, goals, and pedagogy of a subject area, etc.) and technology integration, through the use of Legitimation Code Theory. Drawing on a major study of a technological initiative in all state secondary schools in New South Wales, Australia, this paper illustratively uses one dimension of LCT to explore the organising principles underlying the key subjects of Mathematics and English, in relation to teachers’ perceptions of technology use in learning and teaching. Analysis suggests a ‘code clash’ with Mathematics and a ‘code match’ with English might help explain their different patterns of integration of ICTs. The research is novel and innovative in both its use of theory and combining the separate fields of educational technology and sociology of knowledge.This paper explores teachers’ understanding of subject-area knowledge practices (e.g. curriculum, goals, and pedagogy of a subject area, etc.) and technology integration, through the use of Legitimation Code Theory. Drawing on a major study of a technological initiative in all state secondary schools in New South Wales, Australia, this paper illustratively uses one dimension of LCT to explore the organising principles underlying the key subjects of Mathematics and English, in relation to teachers’ perceptions of technology use in learning and teaching. Analysis suggests a ‘code clash’ with Mathematics and a ‘code match’ with English might help explain their different patterns of integration of ICTs. The research is novel and innovative in both its use of theory and combining the separate fields of educational technology and sociology of knowledge. Keywords: teachers’ knowledge, technology integration, sociology of knowledge, social realism Purpose A central focus of educational technology research is the integration of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in classroom practices and across the curriculum. Typically, to do this, research in this area examines factors related to the use of ICTs, such as teachers’ beliefs, school cultural factors, access to resources, student engagement, etc (e.g. Law, Pelgrum, & Plomp, 2008; Lawless & Pellegrino, 2007). The aim is often to bring together these factors to create a composite ‘picture’ of technology integration at a school or in a district. These types of studies have done much to highlight the role of such issues, such as the degree of support from school leadership and access to technology resources, but thus far have overwhelmingly overlooked a key dimension of educational contexts: the nature of the subject areas into which technology is being integrated. The curricular contexts into which technology is integrated is neither homogeneous nor undifferentiated, especially after primary education, and so to understand differences in the AERA 2013 SIG-Computer and Internet Applications in Education 2 extent and form of integration of technology into classrooms requires an understanding of these differences in subject-area knowledge formations. This paper draws on an approach in the sociology of knowledge to explore the forms taken by educational knowledge of different subject areas in order to more fully understand the ways in which technology comes to integrated within them. Specifically, the proposed paper aims to contribute to bringing knowledge into the equation through examining teachers’ understandings of both different forms of technology and different subject areas, and bringing these into relation to shed light on differential technology integration. The discussion draws upon findings from a major empirical study of a governmental initiative to integrate technology into secondary schooling in the state of New South Wales in Australia, a part of the ‘Digital Education Revolution’ (DER) that is central to the federal government’s current educational policies. Background Much of the current educational research investigating technology integration aims to produce a ‘holistic’ view of contextual factors in order to understand influences on teachers’ uses of technology in the classroom. For example, Law, Pelgrum, and Pomp’s (2008) major ‘SITES 2006’ study presents a conceptual framework of technology integration which relates pedagogical practices and ICT use to: teachers’ characteristics; school factors; and factors external to the school. Each of these three areas of inquiry includes several sub-factors, such as pedagogical vision (in teachers’ characteristics), pedagogical support (in school factors). Though embracing a wide range of factors, this conceptual framework does not include the form taken by educational knowledge (such as whether it is cumulative or segmental, or its rules of sequencing and pacing), potential differences among subject areas, or teachers’ conceptions of knowledge practices in relation to technology integration. Educational knowledge is thus conspicuously missing from the picture. As a growing body of work in ‘social realist’ sociology of knowledge is showing, the forms taken by knowledge practices play a key role in a wide range of educational issues, from differential educational achievement of social groups to students’ subject choices (e.g. Maton & Moore, 2010). Social realist work shows that ‘different structurings of knowledge possess different affordances – they lend themselves more to certain forms of pedagogy, evaluation, identity, change over time, and so forth, than others’ (Maton, 2009, p. 55). The structuring of knowledge is, in other words, not neutral – different structurings have different effects for practices. Studies in this area suggest that different forms of knowledge may interact differently with different forms of educational technology. However, as yet, the role of structures of knowledge has been largely obscured in studies of the integration of technology into education (Howard & Maton, 2011). AERA 2013 SIG-Computer and Internet Applications in Education 3 Theoretical framework The underlying social realist theoretical framework of the research presented in this paper is Legitimation Code Theory (LCT; Maton, 2007, 2009). LCT focuses on the bases of achievement in educational contexts. To be successful, individuals’ practices and beliefs need to embody the dominant basis of achievement to be conceptualized as ‘legitimate. ’ The framework provides conceptual tools for analysing the features taken by knowledge practices. Specifically, this research focuses on the concept of Specialization, which is what makes someone or something different or special (Maton, 2007). Specialization highlights that practices, beliefs and knowledge claims are about or would be oriented towards something by someone. These claims set up both an epistemic relation (ER) to an object and a social relation to a subject (SR), respectively. These relations may be stronger or weaker, thus creating the four legitimation codes of specialization: Knowledge (ER+/SR-), Knower (ER-/SR+), Elite (ER+/SR+) and Relativist (