Introduction and Problem definition
March 2013, the Dutch government was the host of a group of international experts in the field of professional development of teachers and teaching. This International Summit on the Teaching Profession has arisen in response to the report Preparing Teachers and Developing School Leaders for the 21st Century, Lessons from around the world” (Schleicher, 2012). In this report OECD describes a new kind of students. Students who “need to be capable not only of constantly adapting but also of constantly learning and growing, of positioning themselves and repositioning themselves in a fast changing world”. May 2010 -even before the OECD published its report- the European Commission approved the Digital Agenda of Europe specifying seven priority areas to be developed. Next to a serial other fields of interest these agreements encourage teachers to modernize their teaching methods through digital technologies and update their ICT skills (Loureiro, Messias, & Barbas, 2012). These international agreements have led to national recommendations on the professionalism and life long learning of teachers in Dutch Higher Education (Veerman, 2010).
A series of events within the Higher Education of the Netherlands accelerated the implementation of these recommendations. The boards of the various Colleges made performance agreements for their employees. These performance agreements had to do with the professionalism of the teachers and attending a formal and informal process of lifelong learning. With regard to lifelong learning Phoenix (2002 in Helterbran, 2005) writes: “Learning itself could and should be a life affirming and enhancing process which contributes to the individual’s overall quality of life” A person who is a lifelong learner, loves to learn to fulfil his own needs. He is self-directed, reflective and feels involved in what he learns regardless his personal or social situation (Barth, 2005). Lifelong learning can be defined as a self-directed mix of formal and informal education (Helterbran, 2005). This shows the relationship with entrepreneurial learners. Entrepreneurial behaviour includes a number of features such as self-directing and motivation.
Personal entrepreneurial can be defined as a two dimensional construct (Drent 2005). The first dimension is the extent to which educators use their professional network to support their (digital) skills. The second dimension concerns the initiatives of the educator for a self-directed search for more information about innovative applications.
Personal entrepreneurial is related with attitudes toward ICT and having ICT skills. Attitudes toward ICT are related with the personal standards of the educator about “good teaching”. Many variables are of influence whether or not the teacher will use ICT for their own professional development (Maskit, 2011). The Integrated Model of Behaviour Prediction. This model is a model of behaviour that is a synthesis of the Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein & Yzer, 2003) which models beliefs about particular outcomes and someone’s approval regarding the behavioural as antecedents and intentions, and behaviour as consequences of attitude and subjective norm constructs, and the Theory of planned behaviour (Azjen, 1995), which models perceived control over behavioural performances as an additional behavioural determinant next to attitude and subjective norms.
The IMBP is further supplemented with skills and environmental barriers. This model describes the variables that determine the behaviour. In addition to the skills that someone has, the environment also determines the behavioural constraints. These are called the environmental constraints. Further this model indicates intention as a function of three types of perception. First, the attitude towards the behaviour determines if the behaviour is or is not executed. This means the value someone gives to a particular behaviour. In addition, the social pressure that one experiences for displaying the behaviour is of interest in this model. This is the expected support of the immediate environment but it is also the extent to which the environment performs the behaviour itself. In the model “Perceived norms” refers to this influence. Finally the model points out self-efficacy as a determinant of behaviour. This refers to the degree to which someone feels himself capable to exhibit behaviour. This is not the same as competent. Self-efficacy refers more to the subjective feeling that someone has. These determinants are the results of outcome beliefs and their evaluation, normative beliefs and motivation to comply and efficacy beliefs. Finally, in this model attention is also paid to background variables such as age, gender and highest level of educational. All of these determinants are of interest for this study and will be described in more detail in the following part of this framework
In addition, social and cognitive skills also affect personal entrepreneurial behaviour. How, when and if, teachers develop themselves is influenced by their own personal standards about what good education is. These standards are developed from their own personal experiences with education and from their experiences as a teacher. Most of the teachers first (who are part of my population) were employed in the profession they are teaching in. Within the Dutch Higher vocational education the teacher has to deal with two different types of skills and knowledge. The first series of skills relates to the knowledge, expertise and experience on the appeal of the bachelor where he or she teaches. In this study, it will be referred as craftsmanship. The second series of skills have to do with pedagogical knowledge, teaching skills, coaching and guidance skills and organizational and ICT skills that the teacher needs to organize his education efficient and effective. In this study, these skills marked as mastery (Zijlstra, Meerman, & Hooft, 2011). The teachers within the Dutch Higher Vocational Education where trained for the mastery through formal courses offered by the school. Some of the older teachers have never been trained in active forms of education and act on experience doing the same thing they always have been doing. The educators of Dutch Higher vocational were trained with and in constructivist principles during their training as a teacher. Constructivism is defined as “active construction of new knowledge based on a learner’s prior experience” (Piaget, 1972; Dewey, 1916; Bruner, 1990 in (Huang, 2002). Woolfolk (in Koohang, Riley, Smith, & Schreurs, 2009) decribes Constructivism as: “The key idea is that learners actively construct their own knowledge; the mind of the student mediates input form the outside world to determine what the student will learn. Learning is active mental work, not passive reception of teaching…"
Researches have been spending much attention to describe the critical success factors for the use of ICT. The critical success factors of education with ICT are within the technology itself, like reliability, quality and medium richness. But critical success factors are also within personality type of the teacher; like attitude, teaching style and control of technology, age and gender, basic skills and self-discipline (Tondeur, Hermans, Braak, & Valcke, 2008)(Voléry & Lord, 2000). The Organisation for Economic co-operation and Development (OECD) has investigated, among other things, the age of the educational personnel in the different sectors of education. 56.6% of the Dutch teachers in Higher vocational education comes by the age of 40 years and older (OECD, 2012). This means that most of the teachers are educated in the early 70th of the last century. Their first experience with education is likely education based on Behaviourism. In the past 30 years education has been developing into a new form, the 21st century education. In a way Behaviourism was the founder of several important issues of education. Programmed instruction (later computer based learning) was the base of self-directed and blended learning (Skinner). If educators actually use ICT to educate their students and them selves depends on their attitude and their beliefs associated with using ICT. Central in a process of change to ICT supported education, is the belief that technology should not replace the teacher but rather must be seen as a tool to assist the teacher. (Pedretti et al (1999) in Mumtaz, 2006). Tondeur et al (2008) analyzed the relationship between teachers’ educational beliefs and their approach to ICT use in their classroom. They found that attitudes, computer experience and computer training had rather low impact on the use of computers in the classroom. According to Tondeurs et al (2008) a teacher’s belief consists of a mix of generalisations, opnions, values and expectations. These mix determines teachers’ planning, decision-making and behaviour in the classroom, like the computer use in the classroom. Their study indicates that teachers with a constructivist beliefs and traditional beliefs show a higher and more divers computer use. Mosely & Higgins (1999, in Mumtaz, 2006) found in their research on characteristics of teachers that teachers who have positive attitudes towards ICT itself, are positive towards the use of ICT in the classroom. Teachers who see students as learners rather than recievers of instruction and believe technology uses are valuable, tend to stimulate student’s use of ICT while learning (Ottenbreit-Leftwich, Glazewski, Newby, & Ertmer, 2010, Niederhausen & Stoddart, 2001).
In 2003 Chambers et al examined the impact of certain personality types inclination to use technology. They used the Myers-Briggs Type indicator to examine the personality types. In their study they find that teachers with an intuitive personality were more receptive to use if ICT than teachers with a sensory personality. An intuitive personality has his focus on a free flow of ideas. He is more interested in possibilities and concepts and is not interested in details. In this study research on the personality types will be part of the baseline assessment.
In Dutch Higher vocational education a big gab is appearing between educators who can keep up with the changes and those who can’t and don’t. Educator often gets the opportunity to follow training and/or courses offered by the institution where he or she is employed. This is denoted by the term formal professionalism. In addition to this formal program, it is possible for educators to participate in courses through self-directed informal learning (Zijlstra & Meerman, 2011). This study focuses on the last form of professionalism with a focus on the use of Open educational resources. This form of education is based on Connectivism.
Connectivism is a theory of learning based on the premise that knowledge exists in the world rather than in the head of one individual
Principles of connectivism (Siemens, 2005)
The first possibility of lifelong learning is learning with peers in professional learning communities (Gallagher, Griffin, Ciuffetelli Parker, Kitchen, & Figg, 2011) (Siadaty, et al., 2012).
Becker & Riel (2000) found that teachers who regularly participate in professional interactions and activities beyond their classroom use different methods of teaching than teachers who have minimal contact with their peers or profession.
The second possibility for lifelong learning is, lifelong learning with the use of open educational resources like MOOC’s. Open educational resources are digitized educational resources that are freely available for use by educators and learners, without an accompanying need to pay royalties or license fees (West & Victor, 2011). Educators can re-use and modify materials of others in order to fit in their own teaching context and the individual learning styles and levels of their learners (Evertse, 2011). Open educational resources are “teaching, learning and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use, repurposing, reuse and redistribution by others with no limited restrictions. It includes full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software and any other tools materials or techniques used to support access to knowledge” (Atkins, Brown & Hammond, 2007)
Use of open educational resources has a few advantages namely:
Despite all the opportunities teachers have to professionalize themselves, it seems necessary to describe a top-down demand to the teachers to perform this professionalization. Many teachers professionalize themselves in their own field of profession (craftsmanship), but professionalism in educational field hasn’t got their attention. Why is this? On the other hand there is rather a large group of teachers who are educating themselves in the field of educational professionalization. They discuss in small groups potential new forms of education and dare to bring the innovations in their own education. What drives these teachers? Which trait do they have that they are busy with educational development, often in the evenings and weekends?
But teaching in the 21st century demands new, different skills. ICT is no longer a toy in the classroom but a tool, which is used to optimize education for the learners (Finsterwal, Wagner, Schober, Luftenegger, & Spiel, 2013).
The Partnership for 21st century skills (2009) developed a vision for learning known as the Framework for 21st century learning. It describes the skills, knowledge and expertise students must master to succeed in work and life. These are the same skills, knowledge and expertise, as educators should master, to make it possible to teach them to their students. P21describes learning and innovation skills like creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving, communication and collaboration and information, media and technology skills. To be able to navigate the complex life and work environment people should also have life and career skills like flexibility and adaptability, social and cross cultural skills, productivity and accountability, leadership and responsibility and initiative and self-direction
Teaching in the 21st centuryis different in many ways. Children are changed, the curriculum has to change if it isn’t already changed. The classroom itself has changed, it’s different physical and virtual. The tools teachers use are changed, smartboards, social media and use of software resources available for teachers to use in their classroom are more and more common tools in eduaction of children. As a matter of fact the hole world has changed. The world of the learners became bigger when the Internet arrived. Students became knowledge workers and don’t accept old school education. They are connected.
A series of events within the Higher Education of the Netherlands accelerated the implementation of these recommendations. The boards of the various Colleges made performance agreements for their employees. These performance agreements had to do with the professionalism of the teachers and attending a formal and informal process of lifelong learning. With regard to lifelong learning Phoenix (2002 in Helterbran, 2005) writes: “Learning itself could and should be a life affirming and enhancing process which contributes to the individual’s overall quality of life” A person who is a lifelong learner, loves to learn to fulfil his own needs. He is self-directed, reflective and feels involved in what he learns regardless his personal or social situation (Barth, 2005). Lifelong learning can be defined as a self-directed mix of formal and informal education (Helterbran, 2005). This shows the relationship with entrepreneurial learners. Entrepreneurial behaviour includes a number of features such as self-directing and motivation.
Personal entrepreneurial can be defined as a two dimensional construct (Drent 2005). The first dimension is the extent to which educators use their professional network to support their (digital) skills. The second dimension concerns the initiatives of the educator for a self-directed search for more information about innovative applications.
Personal entrepreneurial is related with attitudes toward ICT and having ICT skills. Attitudes toward ICT are related with the personal standards of the educator about “good teaching”. Many variables are of influence whether or not the teacher will use ICT for their own professional development (Maskit, 2011). The Integrated Model of Behaviour Prediction. This model is a model of behaviour that is a synthesis of the Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein & Yzer, 2003) which models beliefs about particular outcomes and someone’s approval regarding the behavioural as antecedents and intentions, and behaviour as consequences of attitude and subjective norm constructs, and the Theory of planned behaviour (Azjen, 1995), which models perceived control over behavioural performances as an additional behavioural determinant next to attitude and subjective norms.
The IMBP is further supplemented with skills and environmental barriers. This model describes the variables that determine the behaviour. In addition to the skills that someone has, the environment also determines the behavioural constraints. These are called the environmental constraints. Further this model indicates intention as a function of three types of perception. First, the attitude towards the behaviour determines if the behaviour is or is not executed. This means the value someone gives to a particular behaviour. In addition, the social pressure that one experiences for displaying the behaviour is of interest in this model. This is the expected support of the immediate environment but it is also the extent to which the environment performs the behaviour itself. In the model “Perceived norms” refers to this influence. Finally the model points out self-efficacy as a determinant of behaviour. This refers to the degree to which someone feels himself capable to exhibit behaviour. This is not the same as competent. Self-efficacy refers more to the subjective feeling that someone has. These determinants are the results of outcome beliefs and their evaluation, normative beliefs and motivation to comply and efficacy beliefs. Finally, in this model attention is also paid to background variables such as age, gender and highest level of educational. All of these determinants are of interest for this study and will be described in more detail in the following part of this framework
In addition, social and cognitive skills also affect personal entrepreneurial behaviour. How, when and if, teachers develop themselves is influenced by their own personal standards about what good education is. These standards are developed from their own personal experiences with education and from their experiences as a teacher. Most of the teachers first (who are part of my population) were employed in the profession they are teaching in. Within the Dutch Higher vocational education the teacher has to deal with two different types of skills and knowledge. The first series of skills relates to the knowledge, expertise and experience on the appeal of the bachelor where he or she teaches. In this study, it will be referred as craftsmanship. The second series of skills have to do with pedagogical knowledge, teaching skills, coaching and guidance skills and organizational and ICT skills that the teacher needs to organize his education efficient and effective. In this study, these skills marked as mastery (Zijlstra, Meerman, & Hooft, 2011). The teachers within the Dutch Higher Vocational Education where trained for the mastery through formal courses offered by the school. Some of the older teachers have never been trained in active forms of education and act on experience doing the same thing they always have been doing. The educators of Dutch Higher vocational were trained with and in constructivist principles during their training as a teacher. Constructivism is defined as “active construction of new knowledge based on a learner’s prior experience” (Piaget, 1972; Dewey, 1916; Bruner, 1990 in (Huang, 2002). Woolfolk (in Koohang, Riley, Smith, & Schreurs, 2009) decribes Constructivism as: “The key idea is that learners actively construct their own knowledge; the mind of the student mediates input form the outside world to determine what the student will learn. Learning is active mental work, not passive reception of teaching…"
Researches have been spending much attention to describe the critical success factors for the use of ICT. The critical success factors of education with ICT are within the technology itself, like reliability, quality and medium richness. But critical success factors are also within personality type of the teacher; like attitude, teaching style and control of technology, age and gender, basic skills and self-discipline (Tondeur, Hermans, Braak, & Valcke, 2008)(Voléry & Lord, 2000). The Organisation for Economic co-operation and Development (OECD) has investigated, among other things, the age of the educational personnel in the different sectors of education. 56.6% of the Dutch teachers in Higher vocational education comes by the age of 40 years and older (OECD, 2012). This means that most of the teachers are educated in the early 70th of the last century. Their first experience with education is likely education based on Behaviourism. In the past 30 years education has been developing into a new form, the 21st century education. In a way Behaviourism was the founder of several important issues of education. Programmed instruction (later computer based learning) was the base of self-directed and blended learning (Skinner). If educators actually use ICT to educate their students and them selves depends on their attitude and their beliefs associated with using ICT. Central in a process of change to ICT supported education, is the belief that technology should not replace the teacher but rather must be seen as a tool to assist the teacher. (Pedretti et al (1999) in Mumtaz, 2006). Tondeur et al (2008) analyzed the relationship between teachers’ educational beliefs and their approach to ICT use in their classroom. They found that attitudes, computer experience and computer training had rather low impact on the use of computers in the classroom. According to Tondeurs et al (2008) a teacher’s belief consists of a mix of generalisations, opnions, values and expectations. These mix determines teachers’ planning, decision-making and behaviour in the classroom, like the computer use in the classroom. Their study indicates that teachers with a constructivist beliefs and traditional beliefs show a higher and more divers computer use. Mosely & Higgins (1999, in Mumtaz, 2006) found in their research on characteristics of teachers that teachers who have positive attitudes towards ICT itself, are positive towards the use of ICT in the classroom. Teachers who see students as learners rather than recievers of instruction and believe technology uses are valuable, tend to stimulate student’s use of ICT while learning (Ottenbreit-Leftwich, Glazewski, Newby, & Ertmer, 2010, Niederhausen & Stoddart, 2001).
In 2003 Chambers et al examined the impact of certain personality types inclination to use technology. They used the Myers-Briggs Type indicator to examine the personality types. In their study they find that teachers with an intuitive personality were more receptive to use if ICT than teachers with a sensory personality. An intuitive personality has his focus on a free flow of ideas. He is more interested in possibilities and concepts and is not interested in details. In this study research on the personality types will be part of the baseline assessment.
In Dutch Higher vocational education a big gab is appearing between educators who can keep up with the changes and those who can’t and don’t. Educator often gets the opportunity to follow training and/or courses offered by the institution where he or she is employed. This is denoted by the term formal professionalism. In addition to this formal program, it is possible for educators to participate in courses through self-directed informal learning (Zijlstra & Meerman, 2011). This study focuses on the last form of professionalism with a focus on the use of Open educational resources. This form of education is based on Connectivism.
Connectivism is a theory of learning based on the premise that knowledge exists in the world rather than in the head of one individual
Principles of connectivism (Siemens, 2005)
- Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions
- Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources
- Learning may reside in non-human appliances
- Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently know
- Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning
- Ability to see connections between fields, ideas and concepts is a core skills
- Currency (accurate, up to date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities
- Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality.
The first possibility of lifelong learning is learning with peers in professional learning communities (Gallagher, Griffin, Ciuffetelli Parker, Kitchen, & Figg, 2011) (Siadaty, et al., 2012).
Becker & Riel (2000) found that teachers who regularly participate in professional interactions and activities beyond their classroom use different methods of teaching than teachers who have minimal contact with their peers or profession.
The second possibility for lifelong learning is, lifelong learning with the use of open educational resources like MOOC’s. Open educational resources are digitized educational resources that are freely available for use by educators and learners, without an accompanying need to pay royalties or license fees (West & Victor, 2011). Educators can re-use and modify materials of others in order to fit in their own teaching context and the individual learning styles and levels of their learners (Evertse, 2011). Open educational resources are “teaching, learning and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use, repurposing, reuse and redistribution by others with no limited restrictions. It includes full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software and any other tools materials or techniques used to support access to knowledge” (Atkins, Brown & Hammond, 2007)
Use of open educational resources has a few advantages namely:
- Education can be more efficient and flexible
- The use of open educational resources saves time for educators so they can deal with education and counselling process itself.
- Accessibility of the digitized material also creates the possibility of a much larger group than before receiving feedback, which is a good opportunity to further improvement of the learning material and adapt to the intended target groups.
- It creates an opportunity for Life-long flexible learning. (Boon, Bitter-Rijpkema, & Rutjens, 2012).
Despite all the opportunities teachers have to professionalize themselves, it seems necessary to describe a top-down demand to the teachers to perform this professionalization. Many teachers professionalize themselves in their own field of profession (craftsmanship), but professionalism in educational field hasn’t got their attention. Why is this? On the other hand there is rather a large group of teachers who are educating themselves in the field of educational professionalization. They discuss in small groups potential new forms of education and dare to bring the innovations in their own education. What drives these teachers? Which trait do they have that they are busy with educational development, often in the evenings and weekends?
But teaching in the 21st century demands new, different skills. ICT is no longer a toy in the classroom but a tool, which is used to optimize education for the learners (Finsterwal, Wagner, Schober, Luftenegger, & Spiel, 2013).
The Partnership for 21st century skills (2009) developed a vision for learning known as the Framework for 21st century learning. It describes the skills, knowledge and expertise students must master to succeed in work and life. These are the same skills, knowledge and expertise, as educators should master, to make it possible to teach them to their students. P21describes learning and innovation skills like creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving, communication and collaboration and information, media and technology skills. To be able to navigate the complex life and work environment people should also have life and career skills like flexibility and adaptability, social and cross cultural skills, productivity and accountability, leadership and responsibility and initiative and self-direction
Teaching in the 21st centuryis different in many ways. Children are changed, the curriculum has to change if it isn’t already changed. The classroom itself has changed, it’s different physical and virtual. The tools teachers use are changed, smartboards, social media and use of software resources available for teachers to use in their classroom are more and more common tools in eduaction of children. As a matter of fact the hole world has changed. The world of the learners became bigger when the Internet arrived. Students became knowledge workers and don’t accept old school education. They are connected.