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...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Elizabeth Murphy, Maria A. Rodriguez-Manzanares
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Athabasca University Press 2009
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doaj.org/article/80d071d9b3a3428f8c286a648551dc05
Description
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.