Between reconfiguration and stabilization: The relation between pedagogy and technology in in-service training and everyday practice in school

Research topic / aim
Promoting PDC for innovative learning practice and development of pupils’ 21st century skills has proved more complex than expected. In this paper we will analyse learning of PDC and 21st century skills across sites through the lense of the relation between digital technology and pedagogy.
In a follow-up research project (2018-2021) we follow in-service training of teachers in a development laboratory before, under, and after their training. The in-service training is part of a major municipal effort on connecting use of new technology with the development of new forms of teaching and learning.
The in-service training consists of four days of training. The first two days combines small lectures on 21century skills etc. and group work with innovation and design-exercises. The following two days the teachers are introduced to new educational technologies and are given the task to develop a lesson plan for implementation back in school. In this study we follow 2 teams of teachers.
The research questions pursued are:
· How does innovative teaching using digital technologies unfold when teachers are back at school after completing in-service training?
· What are the relationships between using new technologies and launching innovative teaching?

Theoretical framework
The paper is based on a socio-material theory framework, where materiality is understood as part of an intra-active process of creation (Hasse, 2015).Drawing on the conceptions of affordance and multistability, we analyse the practices that unfold when a concrete arrangement of social and material components establishes itself in school practice (Gibson, 1979; Ihde, 2008; Sørensen, 2009).

Methodology / research design
The follow-up research project is based on visual ethnography. In the process we have interviewed selected teachers before the training and follow them through participant observation under their training and in their subsequent implementation of the lesson plan. We have participated in two training courses in the development laboratory and followed 13 particular teachers.

Expected results / Findings
The instructional practice and the learning environments created by the two teams unfolded quite differently. When the first team carried through their lesson plan both technology and pedagogy reconfigured in unforeseen ways, and it was difficult for the teachers to keep focus on their planned learning goals. In the second instance the digital learning technology was instantiated in a quite instrumental way and both pedagogy and learning goals seemed relatively unaffected by the ideas of digital technologies as promoters of 21st learning skills. The paper will discuss these findings in the context of the role of technological literacy in PDC.

Bibliography
Gibson, J. J. (1979). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Houghton Mifflin.
Hasse, C. (2015). An Anthropology of Learning. On Nested Frictions in Cultural Ecologies. Dordrecht/Heidelberg/New York/London: Springer.
Ihde, D. (2008). The Designer Fallacy and Technological Imagination. I D. Ihde (red.), Ironic Technics. København: Automatic Press.
Sørensen, E, (2009). The Materiality of Learning. Technology and Knowledge in Educational Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.