The end of the textbook and the beginning of teaching? Tradeoffs in designing on-line support for K-12 teachers

Etan Cohen*, Adam Lefstein, Gideon Dishon

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Scholars and educators have puzzled for decades about how to provide K-12 teachers with the resources necessary to support and improve teaching. New information and communication technologies have opened up infinitely more possibilities, setting the stage for a renewed discussion about what teaching entails and how best to support it. In this conceptual article, we propose a theoretical framework to understand how on-line resources can support K-12 teaching, and apply this framework to three on-line platforms. Our analysis highlights several design tradeoffs that reflect deeper tensions surrounding teaching and the teaching profession, and that direct our attention to (1) teacher agency, (2) the required expertise and effort, (3) teacher community, (4) and the desired degree of oversight. These tradeoffs imply that designers should go beyond attending to technological tools, and engage also with fundamental questions concerning the nature of teaching and the teaching profession.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2483-2502
Number of pages20
JournalEducation and Information Technologies
Volume29
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2023.

Keywords

  • Epistemic communities
  • Teacher community
  • Teacher knowledge
  • Teaching resources
  • Technological affordances

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