Sage without a Stage: Expanding the Object of Teaching in a Web-Based, High-School Classroom
This paper reports on a study that uses cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) to make sense of e-teachers’ activity in a context of high-school distance education. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews with 13 e-teachers as well as seven management and support personnel in an orga...
Published in: | The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning |
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Main Authors: | , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | unknown |
Published: |
Athabasca University Press
2009
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v10i3.579 http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/viewFile/579/1266 http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/viewFile/579/1300 http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/viewFile/579/1284 |
Summary: | This paper reports on a study that uses cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) to make sense of e-teachers’ activity in a context of high-school distance education. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews with 13 e-teachers as well as seven management and support personnel in an organization responsible for the design and delivery of high-school distance education in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. As well, the authors conducted a second round of interviews with 12 of the 13 teachers. Findings revealed that the traditional metaphor of teacher as ‘sage on the stage’ ceased to have a reference point in the distributed online classroom. The e-teachers were widening the object of their activity to include less teacher-centered forms of learning that involved more student independence. |
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