University teaching staff as learners of the pedagogical use of ICT

Abstract

The aim of the article is to increase the understanding of how university teachers think about pedagogy in web-based teaching. The orientation to pedagogy that teachers have in their instruction is evident from their thoughts about student learning. The focus of this study is on the pedagogy that the teachers displayed in their collegial interaction during a web-based staff training course. The objective of this course was to enhance the teachers’ pedagogical skills in their web-based teaching. The qualitative data consisting of the teachers’ web-based discussions provides insight into their conceptions of what constitutes good teaching and learning. These conceptions can be understood in light of the theoretical model of meaningful learning (Jonassen, 1995). Furthermore, deepening a teacher’s understanding by taking the learner’s position appears to be a powerful tool in understanding the prerequisites for the successful use of information and communication technology (ICT) in teaching. The results show that teachers were more focused on how to facilitate student collaboration in their web-based teaching and less on how to contextualise the content or how to facilitate the transferability of the content taught into other contexts and situations. The teachers’ own experiences of what it means to be a learner in a web-based environment may be an essential learning experience through which they realise that when teaching in web-based environments, it is necessary that every choice they make be justifiable in terms of pedagogy.