Academic summaries

Task 1: Academic Summaries

How can we use narratives in interactive learning environments? 

Maarten Dolk and Jaap den Hertog (2008) first comments on MILE, a multimedia environment. Then, it addresses narratives in general and in teacher education which goes along with the next point that is the display of design/developmental research. Finally, the authors illustrate a curriculum design framework to construct meaning through narratives.

MILE is a computer based learning environment for future primary school teachers. It contains a database of real classroom teaching, especially a video database available for investigation as well as a search engine which allows learners to select abstracts, fragments and discussions.

According to Gudmundsdottir and Mason, (as cited in Dolk and den Hertog, 2008) narratives are an account of a situation containing affective, practical and theoretical descriptions of the observation of that situation and of the events and actions in the situation while an educational narrative is more than a story about an incident as it is integral to communication among educators and contributes to the growth of educational knowledge.  Moreover, the authors suggest that constructing narratives from learning experiences will help teachers to reflect on those experiences by transcending the apparent dichotomy between theory and practice. The design research method adopted by Dolk and den Hertog is based on Edelson’s (2002)  view of the method. He claims that it provides a productive perspective for theory development as well as applicable research products, the results are useful and researchers are involved in the improvement of education. They also believe that it is driven by a cyclic process of thought experiments and education experiments that is at the heart of educational design. It argues that “student teachers construct their understanding of teaching not only through personal practical experience, but also through sharing and discussing their constructions with their peers” (Dolk and den Hertog, 2008, p.228 )

Dolk and den Hertog (2008) developed an approach to working with multimedia cases and to constructing mathematical and didactical meaning and a repertoire in the MILE environment. This approach consists of observing, sharing and discussing observations, analyzing, reflecting, developing narrative knowledge and expanding the personal repertoire and generalizing the situation into a didactic for teacher education.

To conclude, the article proposes the multimedia environment to stimulate prospective teachers to write narratives of their observations and interpretations. This project aims at taking narratives as the first step to start a discussion about understanding teaching, constructing educational meaning rethinking classroom behavior and expanding classroom repertoire.

 

References

Dolk, M & den Hertog, J. (2008). Narratives in teacher education, Interactive Learning Environments, 16:3, 215-229, DOI: 10.1080/10494820802113970