Browsing by Subject "activity theory"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    MOOCs, openness and changing educator practices: an Activity Theory case study
    (10th International Conference on Networking Learning 2016, 2017-03-06) Czerniewicz, Laura; Glover, Michael; Deacon, Andrew; Walji, Sukaina
    The practices and perceptions of educators formed through the creation and running of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) provide a case study of how educators understandings of ‘openness’ change (Beetham et al 2012, p 3). We are interested in how educators engage with open education resources (OER) and openness as part of developing open online courses, and how this informs their practices and attitudes afterwards. Deepening understandings of these changes is important for informing strategies involving helping educators in adopting productive open educational practices. Our research question is how do educators’ practices change or not change when using - or not using - OER in and as a MOOC? We are interested in whether and why educators adopt open practices in their MOOCs. We employ an Activity Theory (AT) conceptual framework as a heuristic tool to track and thickly describe educators’ practices and perceptions. This frame enables us to locate educators’ practices - in a context of mediating nodes, i.e., tools/artefacts, rules, divisions of labour, and community – as they strive towards and consider their object. The object upon which the educators act is the development of a new interdisciplinary field. We focus on the role of two mediating artefacts introduced into the activity system, namely Creative Commons (CC) licenses and the ‘MOOC design’. We describe how the open aspect of these artefacts mediate and affect educator’s perceptions, attitudes and educational practices in the context of their object-directed activity system. We draw predominantly on semi-structured interviews with the MOOC lead educators and the MOOC learning designers. Interviews were conducted at two time intervals, before and after the MOOC has run. From this we craft two activity systems. We have categorised our findings according to Beetham et al’s dimensions of open practices. Further, two broad themes emerged from the data analysis. These are Affordances of the MOOC and Reflection on educational practices
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    The role of postgraduate students in co-authoring open educational resources to promote social inclusion: a case study at the University of Cape Town
    (Taylor & Francis, 2012) Hodgkinson-Williams, Cheryl; Paskevicius, Michael
    Like many universities worldwide, the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa has joined the open educational resources (OER) movement, making a selection of teaching and learning materials available through its OER directory, UCT OpenContent. However, persuading and then supporting busy academics to share their teaching materials as OER still remains a challenge. In this article, we report on an empirical study of how UCT postgraduate students have assisted in the process of reworking the academics' teaching materials as OER. Using the concept of contradictions (Engeström, 2001), we endeavor to surface the various disturbances or conflicts with which the postgraduate students had to engage to make OER socially inclusive, as well as Engeström's “layers of causality" (2011, p. 609) to explain postgraduate students' growing sense of agency as they experienced the OER development process as being socially inclusive.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    What happens when the university meets the community? Service learning boundary work and boundary workers
    (Taylor & Francis, 2011) McMillan, Janice
    This article explores service learning via the lens of activity theory. Through this lens, it is identified as a form of 'boundary work' in higher education, with educators identified as 'boundary workers'. Drawing on the data from a recent study, this paper analyses service learning as an often contradictory and tensionfilled practice. The 'expanded community' and 'dual but interrelated object' in the service learning activity system result in many tensions for students and community members alike. This in turn poses significant challenges for boundary workers, and ultimately for the university. The paper concludes by arguing that in order to encourage and value service learning, we need to acknowledge the (new and different) knowledge, values and skills required for playing the role of boundary worker in (boundary) practices such as this.