ATEE Spring Conference 2020-2021

This book collects some of the works presented at ATEE Florence Spring Conference 2020-2021. The Conference, originally planned for May 2020, was forcefully postponed due to the dramatic insurgence of the pandemic. Despite the difficulties in this period, the Organising Committee decided anyway to keep it, although online and more than one year later, not to disperse the huge work of authors, mainly teachers, who had to face one of the hardest challenges in the last decades, in a historic period where the promotion of social justice and equal opportunities – through digital technologies and beyond – is a key factor for democratic citizenship in our societies. The Organising Committee, the University of Florence, and ATEE wish to warmly thank all the authors for their commitment and understanding, which ensured the success of the Conference. We hope this book could be, not only a witness of these pandemic times, but a hopeful sign for an equal and inclusive education in all countries

Mobile Learning Among Students in a Private, Title I High School: A Phenomenological Study

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the perceived impact of using mobile learning to improve the academic achievements of low-income, private high school students. My Christian faith and emphasis on students’ educational development were strong contributors to the study’s purpose. The theory guiding this study was the technology acceptance model. This framework helped explore the perceived impact that mobile learning had among low-income, private high school students. The central question was: What is the lived experience of low-income, private high school students using mobile technology in class? Subquestions were used to explore the academic, personal, and social benefits of using mobile technology in the classroom with low-income, private high school students who accepted technology as a benefit for learning. Moustakas’ (1994) phenomenological research data collection method was used as a guide for gathering data from the lived experiences of low-income, private high school students. Data sources included interviews, focus groups, and photovoice. The data analysis created the study’s triangulation and thematic saturation. Four themes emerged from the data collected, and included reduce stress, need for creativity, benefit of mobile technology, and disadvantages of using mobile technology. The student participants addressed their displeasure about specific academic environments that they felt contributed to their lack of academic motivation. The participants explained mobile learning would create a student-engaged learning environment. However, teacher readiness, distraction, and cheating were the perceived disadvantages

Designing my learning: Establishing my practice as an educational broker

PhD ThesisVoices of external practitioners do not seem to occupy a central position in educational discourses except maybe in some rare cases when the enquiry has been led by a practitioner. Initially, I was oblivious to this underrepresentation of practitioner voice. I had questions regarding the validity of my practice as I had assumed that my non-teacher status coupled with my intersectional identities within race and gender influenced the marginality of my role in the education system. This thesis summarizes my journey that I have made from taking the outsider stance to that of an insider to reconceptualize my practice. I have moved from viewing my work on the outside, removing the self and marginalizing my role to that of acknowledging the ‘selves’ in the practice and looking inside by placing me in the center. The narrative that I provide is an ode to that tacit self which is no more a bystander but an active participant of my practice. Through my work I expand the knowledge on educational brokerage and the importance of context-aware and conscious brokers traversing diverse socio-cultural systems. I explore the role of ‘broker meta-awareness’, a form of knowledge of the self that supports brokers to become effective boundary crossers. I demonstrate the impact of such meta-awareness within educational brokerage mechanisms. Using self-study action research methodology, I facilitated three action research cycles in three schools in two countries, India and England. Analyzing the data from the three action research cycles helped me to envision my practice from ‘margins and marginality’ to ‘boundaries and centrality’. Shifting my perception from ‘marginality’ to ‘centrality’ was possible because I was able cross both imagined and real boundaries. Through a conscious brokerage approach I have been able to reconceptualize my practice and in the process have crafted a nuanced vocabulary to aid other educational brokers that could help them to revision their role and in turn their practice. At the start of my research I viewed digital technologies as an external instrument that I could use as a tool to tackle an issue. Through this research I have come to appreciate the role of digital technologies to reshape and establish my broker practice where technologies have acted as boundary objects supporting the diverse boundary-crossings that I have undertaken. Finally I would like to highlight the central role of personal agency within broker practice. Through my work I have been able to impact some of the social structures to ensure learning is more joined up. Along with ecological agency, high levels of personal agency was employed to facilitate meaningful brokerage processes. Through this thesis I present an explicit form of brokerage where brokers who have meta-awareness of their role are able to strengthen their practice across diverse socio-cultural domains and in the process are able to impact student learning and teacher practice