Teaching and technology: what research shows you need to do

One of the unintended consequences of remote schooling during the coronavirus pandemic has been the leaps made in different uses of technologies, says Dr Fiona Aubrey-Smith

Whilst much has been written about the different ways that different schools have used technologies, as a school leader you will have also seen a range of different approaches within your school. One of the opportunities ahead now is to unpick the variance across the school – to understand why different teachers do different things with the same technologies. I have recently published a doctoral thesis which unpacks the relationship between teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and their uses of technologies in their teaching and learning practices. Here are some of my headline findings, and what they might mean in your school.

Rooted in beliefs

Teachers who talk about their awareness of the importance of technology in children’s lives do not, necessarily, then incorporate technology meaningfully into their teaching practices – but this difference is not about their relationship with the technology itself; it’s about what they believe teaching and learning should look like, and what they perceive technology offers, or threatens, in relation to this.

Teachers’ use of technology amplifies their existing pedagogical beliefs; in other words, whilst our practices may change when we use technology, our pedagogical beliefs do not. This is important because the language and behaviours adopted by a teacher and their learners may not change even when technology is used – which sometimes conflicts with the intentions of adopting the technology.

Using technologies can act as a catalyst for supporting children’s wider learning needs, but this stems from the teacher’s pedagogical beliefs, not the technology. It is important for school leaders to be aware that schools will have staff with a range of different pedagogical beliefs, even within a culture which has one overarching school ethos.

Teachers working within the same school, supporting the same vision and ethos, and using the same classroom resources – including technologies – can have different pedagogical beliefs – even if it might not look that way on the surface. Therefore, teachers using what appears to be the same technologies in their teaching practices can be enacting very different pedagogical approaches.

Therefore, technologies cannot be thought of objectively (transferrable across classes or lessons). Their use is socially constructed (class/lesson/teacher dependent). This is an important point to bear in mind when thinking about ‘rolling out projects’ or ‘sharing best practice’.

Translating school vision

Due to teachers enacting different pedagogical approaches, or framing their pedagogical beliefs differently, learners will experience learning differently even when engaging with ‘the same’ technologies’ processes or resources. Therefore, learners may not be experiencing, in practice, what the school vision intends them to experience. This is really important to consider when cascading policy or practice across a school or trust.

Most guidance around the use of technology in teaching practices emphasises the importance of focusing on ‘how’ it is used; however, most guidance does not clearly define what ‘how’ means and, inadvertently, diverts attention back onto how the ‘what’ is used. If you want to understand how technology use is experienced by teachers and learners, and what difference it is making, you need to look at their behaviours, language and relationships – not the technology.

The impact will be seen in how those involved conceive the idea of what it means to be a teacher, or what it means to be a learner. 

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These findings are taken from Aubrey-Smith, F., (2020) An exploration of the relationship between teachers’ pedagogical stance and the use of ICT in their classroom practice. EdD Thesis. Full text available through ResearchGate. If your school or trust would like to be involved in further research which builds upon the findings above, please contact Dr Fiona Aubrey-Smith ([email protected])