Participatory Design Research in Building Community through Telecollaboration Project July 3, 2013 Alain Breuleux, Ph.D. McGill University, Canada Gyeong Mi Heo, Ph.D. CEFRIO, Canada ISCAR C-US 2013

Agenda  Design-based research for innovative educational environment  Case : Building Community through TeleCollaboration  Describe participatory design as improvement

Introduction: BCT Project  Building Community through Telecollaboration (BCT) project is a province-wide initiative with educators and administrators from English school boards across Quebec.  A goal of the BCT Project is “to encourage, facilitate and support collaboration among students, teachers and educational leaders to enhance learning across the community.”  BCT Website:

Purposes of this presentation  To present design research and participatory design as an innovative combination of research approaches.

Theoretical Framework  A collaborative design-based enterprise Brown (1992); Collins (1992); Design-based research collective, (2003)  A focus on teacher knowledge Cochran-Smith & Lytle (1999); Lieberman & Miller (2001); Shulman (1986)  Fostering a culture of sharing Becker & Riel (2000); Louis (2008)

Design Research  An emerging educational research paradigm  To create and extend knowledge about developing, enacting, and sustaining innovative learning environments ( Design-based research collective, 2003, p. 5 ).  Characteristics: Interventionist / Iterative / Process- oriented / Utility-oriented / Theory-oriented (van den Akker et al., 2006, p. 4)

Participatory Design Research  Participatory design (Schuler & Namioka, 1993) originated from the industry sectors in Scandinavian countries.  The objective of the participatory design is “the inclusion of the users / participants in the design and implementation of any new technology (Silva & Breuleux, 1994)

Research Question and Context  How do we facilitate communication and collaboration in a professional learning network for developing teacher professional practice and enhancing student learning?  Project context and Participants:  About 50 teachers from 11 schools across all nine English school boards in Quebec in  BCT teachers attend four F2F meetings per year and communicate and collaborate with each other through diverse ICT tools to develop collaborative classroom projects with their students.

Building Community through Telecollaboration (BCTN) teachers from 9 School boards Design research (Iterative process) Researchers Consultants teachers from 9 School boards 2 school boards teachers/SB Researchers Consultants Cycle lead teachers Participatory design Research (Lead teachers) Participatory design Research (Two school board- based PLNs) Researchers Consultants SB1 Lead Team SB2 Lead Team Phase 1 ( ) Phase 2 ( ) Phase 3 ( ) Listserv Live Classroom BCT Blog & Wiki BCT SAKAI portal Live Classroom BCT Website BCT Website & SB1: SB portal & Wiki SB2: SB Website Zenlive Participants Characteristics Leadership team ICT tools

F2F meeting II - Encouraging using the SAKAI portal - Developing collaborative projects: Cycle group planning F2F meeting III - Developing collaborative projects: Cycle group discussion - Web 2.0 hands-on sessions F2F meeting IV - Sharing and celebrating BCT project and collaborative classroom projects F2F meeting I - Introduction to BCT project - Self-reflection - Group guidelines - Sharing stories F2F meeting II - Introduction to the process of building collaborative projects - Cycle group discussion - Web 2.0 hands-on sessions F2F meeting III - Modeling of a classroom practice - Cycle group discussion F2F meeting IV - Sharing and celebrating BCT project and collaborative classroom projects - Reviewing and reflection Year 1 ( ): Potential – To introduce and incubate the BCT community with potential facilitators in cycle groups and cultivate social relationships between the BCT teachers. Year 2 ( ): Coalescing – To develop shared visions and goals of the BCT community as well as individuals and cultivate a culture of reflecting and sharing practice among the BCT teachers. F2F meeting I - Introduction to BCT project: Goals, Objectives, Themes, & BCT SAKAI portal - Building cycle groups

Implications of Participatory Design Research (I)  Away from strict reliance on “knowledge-for-practice”  Inclusion of “knowledge-in-practice” into the conversations  Better opportunities for “knowledge-of-practice” to emerge through intentional investigation and interpretation by teachers and others in the leadership team

Implications of Participatory Design Research (II)

Implications of Participatory Design Research (III)  An “interpretive community” (Fish, 1980)  Interpreting “emerging practice”  Intersection of Teaching, Reflection, and Participatory design  Emerging practice is the object of interpretive conversations  The object of design conversation in an iterative process

Conclusions  Design-based research with increased and more structured participation  Applied to one instance of innovative educational development  Applicable in other contexts