The Role of Educational Technology in Third Space Practicum
Kathy Jordan and Jennifer Elsden-Clifton
RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Keywords: Educational Technologies, Third Space Theory, Practicum, Theory Practice Divide.
Abstract: There are increasing calls to improve the quality of Teacher Education by creating closer links between
universities and schools that will address the theory practice divide. In response, the School of Education at
RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria redesigned its first year program, core courses and practicum to
align with the conceptualisation of Third Space. This article draws upon data from a larger research project;
however, the focus of this paper is to examine how educational technologies assisted in the development of
a Third Space practicum. A post-evaluation survey was completed by pre-service teachers who participated
in the redesigned course and practicum. This paper will argue that educational technology played an
important role in the Third Space practicum as it fostered collaboration, shared knowledge among
stakeholders and created expanded learning opportunities. It also highlighted the importance of relationships
in the Third Space experience.
1 INTRODUCTION
“They’ve had too much emphasis on theory and not
enough time in the classroom” Christopher Pyne,
Education Minister (The Age, 28 September, 2013).
Teacher Education has long been challenged to
conceptualise the connection between university-
based coursework and the teacher practicum and
support prospective teachers to develop theories and
practical skills for teaching (Grossman et al., 2009).
A number of approaches have been implemented to
reconceptualise relationships including; establishing
professional development schools, teaching courses
in schools, having practising teachers teach in
universities, and creating assessments that bridge
theory and practice. Such approaches support the
adoption of ‘realistic teacher education’ proposed by
Korthagen and Kessels (1999) in which theory and
practice is interconnected through a reorganised
curriculum (Zeichner, 2010). Yet, as noted by
numerous researchers, “though scholars of teacher
education periodically revise the relationship
between theory and practice, teacher education
programs struggle to redesign programmatic
structures and pedagogy to acknowledge and build
on the integrated nature of theory and practice as
well as the potentially deep interplay between
coursework and field placements" (Grossman et al
2009, p. 276). Darling-Hammond (2006) suggests
the need for models of teacher education
underpinned with stronger relationships with schools
“that press for mutual transformations of teaching
and learning to teach” (p. 3).
The notion of forming partnerships between
schools and teacher education providers has long
been advocated on the grounds that this will enable
greater connection between the coursework
delivered by providers, and the practice experience
at school sites, moving towards a shared
responsibility for teacher education. Indeed, it was
one of the key recommendations in the Top of the
Class Report (2007), and the report by the Victorian
Council of Deans of Education (Ure, Gough and
Newton, 2009). Newly implemented national
accreditation processes for teacher education in
Australia, around the provision of the practicum,
stipulate that enduring school partnerships should be
established in order to help facilitate the provision of
practice in schools (AITSL, 2009). While the
adoption of partnerships as a condition of teacher
education in Australia has been promoted (AITSL,
2009), research has shown that partnerships are
difficult to realise. Considerable time and resources
need to be outlaid and even when partnerships are
formed, there can still be a disconnect between what
is taught at the university and what is learned on site
in schools. This paper adds to the growing body of
research around the theory/practice divide in teacher
education. It explores the potential of partnerships
and the tensions between universities and schools.
This paper documents how one university
253
Jordan K. and Elsden-Clifton J..
The Role of Educational Technology in Third Space Practicum.
DOI: 10.5220/0005435402530259
In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2015), pages 253-259
ISBN: 978-989-758-107-6
Copyright
c
2015 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)
formed partnerships with 14 schools and
reconceptualised the practicum experience to align
with a Third Space epistemology; where universities
and schools share responsibility for course content
and delivery. This paper begins by outlining the
literature around practicum, teacher education and
the tension between the theory practice divide. It
progresses to discuss the theory of Third Space and
how it has informed the methodology. Results of
the survey data about the teaching and learning
design features are analysed. The paper concludes
by addressing how educational technologies assisted
in the development of this Third Space.
2 THEORY PRACTICE DIVIDE
IN TEACHER EDUCATION
For well over twenty years, most reports into pre-
service teacher education in Australia typically refer
to the need to improve the quality of initial teacher
education programs, with consistent concerns about
the lack of connection between theory and practice
(Ure et al., 2009). The Top of the Class report from
the inquiry into teacher education by the House of
Representatives Standing Committee on Education
and Vocational Training (2007), argued that at the
root of this interconnection was the “current
distribution of responsibilities in teacher education”
(p.2), whereby theoretical components are typically
taught on campus by faculty and the teaching
practicum undertaken on site in schools by
practising teachers. These concerns are not confined
to Australia. In the United States, this concern has
been identified as the “central problem that has
plagued teacher education” (Zeichner, 2010, p. 89),
and Darling-Hammond (2006) describes it as the
‘Achilles heel’ of teacher education.
The teaching practicum is seen as an essential
part of becoming a teacher. It is generally
acknowledged as vital for the development of
practical skills in teaching and as a foundation of
quality teacher education (Ure et al., 2009). Yet,
how the practicum should be designed and
implemented, and the role that schools play, is a site
of contestation between pre-service teachers, teacher
mentors, schools, governments and universities.
Grove (2008) suggests that a number of issues
impact on the practicum, including the expectations
of schools, the quality of teacher mentoring and the
pre-service teachers’ scope to apply learning in the
school context. Zeichner (2010), in his often-cited
paper, is critical of the way universities approach the
practicum. Drawing on his own extensive
experience, he suggests that the teacher practicum is
often conceived as an administrative task rather than
one around the learning needs of the pre-service
teacher. This is a sentiment echoed by Darling-
Hammond (2010), who comments that:
Often, the clinical side of teacher education
has been fairly haphazard, depending on the
idiosyncrasies of loosely selected placements
with little guidance about what happens in
them and little connection to university work
(p. 11).
Zeichner (2010) comments that university staff have
few incentives to be involved in the teacher
practicum and that often it is outsourced to graduates
or retired teachers. Universities, he argues, typically
have very little involvement in the details of the
practicum, leaving these to be worked out between
pre-service teachers and teacher mentors. Zeichner
(2010) also suggests that there are issues around the
role of the teacher mentor in the practicum; mentors
he argues receive very little acknowledgement of
their efforts for supervising pre-service teachers and
little monetary reward. Another problem with the
practicum he suggests is that schools and mentors
know very little about what happens at the university
and in the coursework, and university educators
have little knowledge of what happens in schools.
With strong literature support for greater
partnerships, the School of Education at RMIT
sought to redesign their first year program to
explicitly address Zeichner’s (2010) concerns above
(explained in more detail in later sections), and to be
more aligned with the notion of Third Space.
3 THEORETICAL LENS:
THIRD SPACE THEORY
While there is general acknowledgment by policy
makers, academics, researchers and practitioners
alike, that more could be and should be done to
encourage a greater interconnection between theory
and practice in teacher education, the reasons for this
lack of connection are complex and there is no one
solution. Zeichner (2010) suggests that creating a
hybrid or Third Space could have possibilities for
bridging the boundaries between these two spaces.
To Zeichner, Third Space rejects binaries and the
notions of practitioner and academic,
knowledge/theory and practice, and integrates or
weaves them, so that an either/or perspective is
transformed into a both/also view. He explores
CSEDU2015-7thInternationalConferenceonComputerSupportedEducation
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various examples including: bringing teachers into
university courses; bringing representations of
teacher practice into coursework, including mediated
instruction where part of a course is taught on site in
schools, or having hybrid educators where a course
is taught both at the university and on site; and/or
incorporating knowledge from communities (Taylor,
Klein, Abrams, 2014). In such spaces responsibility
for teacher education could be shared as boundaries
between practicing teachers and university
academics are blurred and there are more open lines
of communication and shared understanding
(McDonough, 2014). This paper reports on a pilot
program that created such a Third Space in an
attempt to achieve this aim.
Third Space theory is essentially used to explore
and understand the spaces ‘in between’ two or more
discourses, conceptualisations or binaries (Bhabha,
1994). Soja (1996) explains this through a triad
where Firstspace refers to the material spaces,
Secondspace encompasses mental spaces (Danaher
et al., 2003) and Thirdspace then becomes a space
where “everything comes together” (Soja, 1996, p.
56), bringing Firstspace and Secondspace together,
but also extending beyond these spaces to intermesh
the binaries that characterise the spaces. Third Space
theory is used as a methodology in a variety of
disciplines and for different purposes. For example,
it has been used to illustrate issues from colonisation
(Bhabha, 1994) and religion (Khan, 2000), to
language and literacy (Gutiérrez et al., 1997). Within
educational contexts, Moje, et al. (2004) used Third
Space theory to examine the in-between everyday
literacies (home, community, peer group) with the
literacies used within a schooling context. In their
influential paper, they summarised the three main
ways that theorists have conceptualised Third Space:
as a bridge; navigational space; and a transformative
space of cultural, social and epistemological change.
The theoretical underpinning of Third Space
influenced the way in which we positioned the
partnerships between schools and the university,
conceptualised the roles of stakeholders in addition
to guiding the design features of the course
Orientation to Teaching in which the practicum was
imbedded. This course has several design features
that were specifically used to support the
development of a Third Space and addressed
previous concerns by Zeichner (2010):
1. Course requirements and expectations were
made explicit. Pre-service teachers undertook
pre-practicum workshops to orientate them to
the course.
2. Course content was blended; delivery was
online (via an open Google Site) and face-to-
face at university and in schools.
3. Course content (workshops) was delivered
intensively on site in partner schools by school-
based tutors.
4. Course content written by practising teachers
and university staff connected theory with
practice, was practical, and gave structured
support to learning.
5. Course content made use of print media and
Web 2.0 technologies including podcasts and
social media platforms (e.g. Facebook).
6. Pre-service teachers were supported in partner
schools by being placed with a ‘buddy’, in
groups and supervised by a Teacher Mentor.
Attention now turns to the specific use of
technologies in the course design, namely the use of
a Google Site as the online platform and the
embedded use of other Web 2.0 technologies.
Ensuring that the course content was accessible to
all parties - practising teachers in partner schools,
the university faculty; and pre-service teachers - was
initially a challenge given that schools and
universities have their own preferred platforms
which with restricted access for authorised users
only. After some deliberation and experimentation
(firewalls in schools etc.) a Google Site was selected
as it would enable open access (all course materials
could be shared) and anywhere/anytime access
across operating systems. Google Sites became the
principal means for practicing teachers and
university staff to communicate with one another
about course requirements and expectations, to share
information about their own practices and specific
course materials. The Google Site designed for this
course included:
• Checklists to support learning (a self-assessment
tool using Google forms that pre-service teachers
used to demonstrate they had completed all
necessary tasks before attending tutorials)
• Podcasts to support consistency in assessment
practices (e.g. assessment advice to ensure a
consistent message across all partner schools)
• Online course materials accessible at all times
(administration, course guides, assessment
criteria sheets)
• Flipped learning activities (tasks specifically
designed to engage learners and teach core
content prior to attending the class/workshop,
including viewing and analysing YouTube
videos, viewing podcasts and simulations, and
completing audits of practice). The concept of a
TheRoleofEducationalTechnologyinThirdSpacePracticum
255
flipped-classroom, in its simplest form, involves
moving key content and concepts outside the
tutorials/lecture time, to allow for more
classroom time for “active learning, including
application of content in the form of case studies,
discussions, or simulation experiences” (See and
Conry, 2014, p. 585).
3.1 Methodology
This small-scale pilot study was conducted by the
School of Education at RMIT University, one of a
number of initial teacher education providers in
Victoria, Australia. In the past, our teacher education
programs separated the theory and practicum
components. Each year, the School organises over
2000 practicum placements in approximately 450
primary schools, 100 secondary schools and 450
early childhood settings. In 2014, the School
introduced a new model of practicum into the
Bachelor of Education (Primary) program for first
and second years. This study focuses on the
practicum course Orientation to Teaching and the
technologies appropriated to design, deliver and
support the development of a Third Space practicum
in which theory and practice were bridged. This
course was delivered in Semester 1, 2014, to first
year pre-service teachers on site in a number of
primary schools. The cohort of pre-service teachers
(270 students), were predominantly preparing to be
generalist primary school teachers, although some
were specialising in Early Childhood Education and
in Disability Studies. The majority are female
(86%), range in age from 18 to 39 years of age
(mean age of 21), and were Australian-born (89.3%)
with English as their language spoken at home
(81.3%).
A mixed methods approach was used to examine
the value of this alternate course design. A survey
instrument was produced to measure pre-service
teacher perceptions of the design features of this
course, using a four-point scale (a lot, some, a little,
not at all) and administered online via Qualtrics.
This survey and focus group data was collected from
42 (approximately 15%) pre-service teachers, who
had completed the course Orientation to Teaching,
and who volunteered to participate.
4 TEACHING AND LEARNING
DESIGN FEATURES
Survey data was analysed to reveal trends in pre-
service teachers’ perceptions of the design features
of the course. All quantitative responses were
aggregated across school/tutorial group and
examined for consistencies across themes and
responses that challenged the dominant theme/s. We
also examined the themes based on the research
aims of the study. In the first instance, this involved
analysing the features rated ‘a lot’ to reveal which
features were considered of most importance and
least importance.
Table 1: Pre-service teacher survey results on the design
features of the course Orientation to Teaching.
Course design feature:
A lot
%
Some
%
A
little
%
Not at
all
%
Teacher Mentor support 90 7 3 0
Practical focus 88 5 7 0
Structured support such
as success checklists
85 8 2 5
Connecting ideas from
class to real classrooms
81 12 7 0
Clear participant
expectations
73 20 7 0
Taught by a School-
b
ased
Tutor
71 17 10 2
Small group of pre-
service teachers at school
site
69 19 7 5
Access to materials ‘at
any time and place’
64 29 7 0
Clear learning
expectations
64 25 7 5
Podcasts 63 17 17 3
Placed with a buddy 59 17 7 17
Online materials 52 29 14 5
Pre-
p
lacement workshops
at university
52 33 10 5
Intensive mode 51 32 15 2
Workshops in schools 50 24 21 5
Connection to a textbook 38 27 33 2
As shown in Table 1, pre-service teachers
considered ‘Having Teacher Mentor support’, as the
most desired design feature of the course, with 90%
perceiving that it mattered ‘a lot’. The design
features of ‘Having a practical focus’ (88%),
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‘structured support’ through success checklists,
examples (85%) and connecting ideas between
universities and classrooms (81%) also rated highly.
This provides evidence that pre-service teachers
were able to bridge the theory and practice binary.
Features that mattered less to pre-service teachers
were ‘Connection to a textbook’ (38%), despite the
textbook being very practice orientated. Explicit
reference to educational technologies tended to rate
in the mid-range. For example, ‘Being able to access
materials ‘at any time and place (online)’ rated at
64%, although interestingly, no pre-service teacher
felt it didn’t matter at all. Similarly, ‘Being able to
access podcasts of lectures 'in review' and
assessment support’ (63%), and ‘Having online
materials’ (53%) also rated in the mid-range.
Of interest, while ‘Being able to connect ideas
from class to real classrooms’ (81%) was rated
highly, ‘Having workshops in schools’ was not,
(only 50% of pre-service teachers rated it mattering
‘a lot’). This finding is of interest as the workshops
on site were designed to be the space where
connections between theory and practice were made.
This raises the question, if not at the workshops,
where did pre-service teachers make these
connections that they rated so highly? Was it the real
classroom, in discussion with the Teacher Mentor or
informally with their peers? This would be an issue
worth unpacking in future research. There was also a
vast difference in how pre-service teachers valued
support. For example, ‘Having Teacher Mentor
support’ was rated highest at 90%, but the support
from peers ‘Being placed with a buddy’ (59%) and
being in a peer group (‘Being placed with a s
mall
group of pre-service at school site
’) (69%) was not
nearly so highly rated.
In the second instance, survey data was analysed
to gain a broader perspective of which features were
of greatest importance by adding together those
features rated as ‘a lot’ and ‘some’. Doing so reveals
a somewhat different trend. As shown in Figure 1,
‘Having Teacher Mentor support’ still rates highly,
as well as ‘Connecting ideas to real classroom’ and
‘Being placed with a small group of pre-service
teachers in one school site’. The main difference is
the role of educational technology. For instance,
being able to access materials ‘at any time and
place’ (online) is now the third most important
design (93%), see Figure 1. Structured supports such
as checklists (all online support) also increased in
importance (93%). The role of podcasts and online
material were ranked similarly in both tables.
Figure 1: Survey results combining the responses ‘a lot’
and ‘some’.
This quantitative data is supported by the qualitative
data that emerged from the open-ended questions
posed in the survey. For many of the participants in
this pilot program, the online design feature of the
course had strong appeal, with many commenting on
how this enabled them to access the course content
with ease. It was typical for comments, for example
one student stated that the online material enabled
“quick and easy access to material that I needed”.
For some pre-service teachers this access allowed
for individual learning convenience as shown in this
comment, “the online concept of this course was
very important to me and a lot of my friends also
doing the course. It meant that we had access to the
information we needed where and when best suited
us.” For others it aided their study: “with working
and studying at the same time to have resources
online made it easier to organise my studying”.
Some referred specifically to how online access
eased assessment pressures: “Being able to access
the podcasts of lectures. This made doing the
assessment tasks a lot less stressful as I knew I could
refer back to the lecture if I thought I had heard
some information that would have been helpful.”
The use of educational technologies such as a
Google Sites meant there was a shared
understanding across all schools, tutorial groups at
different schools and a central point of reference. As
one student noted: “The next most important design
feature to me was the clear checklists of exactly
what we needed to do on the O2T website. They
made life a lot easier during placement”.
Having this shared expectation and open
communication between the first space of university
and the second space of schools, was an important
TheRoleofEducationalTechnologyinThirdSpacePracticum
257
aspect of a Third Space practicum. This was
highlighted by a pre-service teacher who said:
“having clear participant expectations (students,
mentors and tutors) as open communication and set
expectation are good guidelines so that you know
what is expected from you and you can measure and
reflect on your own performance as a teacher”. This
design feature was also significant for the pre-
service teachers to succeed within the practicum, as
noted:
… having clear participant expectations with
clear course learning and structured support
[was important]. These all worked together
for me as they provided me with the support I
needed during uni and placement. Being
aware of what was expected of myself
allowed me to perform at my best in both
settings and the knowledge of the course
material, pre-readings and structured
support allowed me to come prepared to both
uni and placement.
4.1 Third Space Practicum
The aim of this study was to research the
conceptualisation of Third Space theory as a way of
improving the theory practice divide. Further, to
investigate the role of educational technologies in
assisting the development of a Third Space
practicum. One of the themes that emerged from the
pre-service teachers’ comments was the explicit
bridge of the theory practice divide. For example,
one pre-service teacher commented, “I enjoyed
seeing how the theory we were taught was instantly
reflected in teaching practices. It allowed me to be
critically aware of how other teachers incorporated
or rejected the theories and set my own opinions
accordingly”. This sentiment was also reflected by
another pre-service teacher: “I found [being on site]
really cemented a lot of things that we've been
learning about and it was really eye-opening
experience and to see it working in the workshops
and to see it in the classroom. This is really, really
valuable”. A number also commented specifically
on the practical nature of the course design as
typified in the following comment:
The most important feature to me was the
practical focus. I was a bit lost in the course
before I went on placement. It was so good to
have practical situations to apply theory rather
than always working with hypothetical
situations. I think it is really important to have
placement early on for this reason.
5 CONCLUSIONS
We were drawn to the Third Space construct for
practicum as it enabled us to make visible the
connections between schools and universities. The
notion of a Third Space, as a hybrid space, offers
possibilities for teacher education where
traditionally there have been clear boundaries
between the space occupied by theory, often taught
on campus, and the space of practicum, taught on
site in schools. For a long time, this disconnect has
been seen as one of the main areas of concern for the
quality of teacher education programs. As
demonstrated through the comments of pre-service
teachers, the Third Space practicum has the potential
to bring together the theory and practice in
meaningful ways.
Pre-service teachers while on placement inhabit a
Third Space; they neither “belong” to the school, nor
are they “at” university, thus, they are in-between
these two spaces or in a Third Space. However,
through the design features within the Third Space
practicum, they were able to interweave,
university/school, theory/practice, face-to-face/
online and learner/teacher. The quantitative and
qualitative data showed that the role of relationships
with their Teacher Mentor, buddy and being placed
with a small group of pre-service teachers at school
site were also highly valued. By creating this Third
Space, we believe that there is the potential to
expand pre-service teacher knowledge, to give them
greater opportunities to examine practice in real
settings, to reflect on practice, and possibly provide
a transformative space where new learning can
occur.
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