Í greininni er fjallað um sjónarmið framhaldsskólakennara um hvað mótar störf þeirra sem tengjast námsmati og upplýsingatækni. Efniviðurinn er viðtöl við sex verkgreinakennara í ólíkum greinum og sex stærðfræðikennara í átta skólum tekin 2013 og 2014. Við greininguna var beitt tæki sem þróað var til að draga fram forsendur og sjónarmið kennaranna um hvað mótar starfshætti þeirra. Greiningartækið byggist á tveimur ásum sem annars vegar vísa til hvata til breytinga og hins vegar til eðlis breytinganna. Niðurstöður benda meðal annars til þess að þarna sé að verki samspil kerfislægra breytinga og breytinga að frumkvæði kennara, til dæmis virtist það vera svo að ef skóli stefndi að fjölbreyttara námsmati væri frumkvæði kennaranna meira á því sviði. Enn fremur kom í ljós að þótt vefkennslukerfi væri sett upp að frumkvæði skóla réð frumkvæði kennara því hvernig til tókst. Framhaldsskólakennarar hafa vald til að útfæra stefnu yfirvalda og skólastjórnenda en eru þó bundnir nærumhverfi.
The aim of the study was to understand how teachers in Icelandic upper secondary
schools describe forces influencing changes in their teaching practices. Specifically, what
they identify as the impetus for changes and how they frame them. The past decade has
seen a series of changes to the upper secondary school level in Iceland, through amendments
to legislation in 2008, the adoption of a new curriculum in 2011, and a recent
initiative to shorten the duration of the upper secondary school from four to three years.
These and other developments, such as the enrollment of an ever larger percentage of
cohorts and the increasing ubiquity of information technology, are likely to affect the
work of teachers. However, little is known as to how teachers view and frame the modifications
they make to their teaching practices. We analyzed interviews with six mathematics and six vocational teachers from eight
different upper secondary schools, conducted between late 2013 and late 2014. We
composed an analytical device consisting of two spectra: On the Y-spectrum we placed
reasons for change; with changes viewed as top-down at one end (e.g., educational authorities,
school policy) and changes seen as initiated by the teachers themselves on the
other. The X-spectrum reflects whether the teachers frame the changes as peripheral
(e.g., adjustments made to solve practical issues) or structural (e.g., reflecting pedagogical
beliefs or values), corresponding roughly to the processes described by Piaget (1954)
and Kolb (e.g., Kolb, Boyatzis, & Mainemelis, 2000) as assimilation and accommodation.
The analysis revealed that the changes referred to by the teachers fell into two main
categories: assessment and technology. Overall, the analysis revealed that the immediate
school environment, students, and school policy are perceived as the main motivators
for changes in assessment practices and the use of information technology. The results
also indicate interplay between school policy and teacher initiative, with one seemingly
influencing the other as teachers react to top-down directives. School policy seemed to
create the possibilities for changes (e.g., by adopting a course management system or
emphasizing formative assessment) but individual teachers determined the implementation
and level of involvement, sometimes to the extent of adopting the changes as their
own. This is concordance with prior research showing how the support and guidance
of school leaders encourages innovative behavior in teachers (Thurlings, Evers, & Vermeulen,
2015) and how changes are best implemented by a combination of top-down
and bottom-up processes (Fullan, 1994). The results also reveal how similar changes to
practices (e.g., in-class continuous assessment) can be framed in different terms as they
reflect fundamental shifts in some cases (e.g., reacting to an increasingly diverse student
population) but adaptive practices in others (e.g., to prevent students from copying assignments).
Indeed, the wishes and needs of students were often the cited reason for
changes, both peripheral and structural as found in previous research (e.g., Árný Helga
Reynisdóttir & Ingólfur Ásgeir Jóhannesson, 2013; Thurlings et al., 2015). The teachers
described both how increasing student diversity and the growing ubiquity of smartphones
had presented particular pedagogical challenges they were trying to solve. In
addition, the tradition of the field in question seemed important, as in the case of mathematics
which the respondents tend to describe as both conservative and resistant to
change. In many schools mathematics was taught by a group of teachers and the senior
faculty often determined whether changes were implemented or not, sometimes to the
frustration of junior teachers.
The main conclusion is that placing the views on these spectra illuminates the origin
and character of the changes. Generally, it was easier to categorize reasons for change
(Y-spectrum) than how the reasons were framed (X-spectrum), as it was often less clear
from the teachers’ comments how they framed the changes. It is recommended that
further studies embed references to the two spectra into the interview for clearer results.
This research is part of a larger research project aimed at understanding the development
of teaching practices and learning in upper secondary schools in Iceland, entitled
Upper Secondary School Practices.
