部落格為中介行為之教師發展

Abstract

教師發展之研究已由強調教師對課程內容的知識轉為注重教師個人經驗和實際教學中之社會因素（如師生關係，學校社群）。近年來，隨著社交網絡的廣泛使用，最受歡迎的社交網絡工具之一 -- 部落格，廣被第二語言教師使用於教學紀錄與意見交流(Ferdig, 2007)。雖然探索教師部落格的研究逐漸增加，鮮少研究嘗試由社會文化角度檢視此項議題。 本研究針對兩位英文老師，吳與林，探討他們的部落格行為和教師發展間的關係。研究問題有三個，包括：（1）什麼因素影響這兩位教師部落格過程中的行為，（2）部落格如何促進兩名教師的教師發展，以及（3）這兩位老師如何看待他們的部落格經驗。研究資料由參與者的部落格文章，訪談與線上觀察中取得，其部落格文章依據六項具實證基礎的教師學習實踐方式編碼（一：自傳、二：批判探索、三：社群互動、四：教學實踐學習、五：專家之聲、六：長期參與專業工作）。這六個方式為Darling-Hammond和Hammerness (2005) 所提出，並於其後由Luehmann(2008)架構，以探索教師透過部落格學習並發展的有效方式。而根據分析人類行為複雜性的框架，活動理論（Engestrom, 1987, 1999），訪談和線上觀察資料將藉由歸類出個人活動系統下的因素進行分析，即「個體」、「欲達成之目標」、「達成目標之媒介」、「個體存在之社群」、「社群內之規則」、「以及個體與他人間的權力關係」。 研究結果指出，即使有著不同的個人背景和經驗，吳與林在個人與人際方面都受益於部落格行為。一方面，紀錄之餘，書寫過程亦提供兩位教師表露情感的機會，增強了個人的反思。另一方面，撰寫部落格過程中，吳與林都張貼大量社群互動相關文章，兩名教師也表示網路社群特別在提供支持和建議部分扮演重要角色。此外，吳與林都認為部落格是個有助於他們教師發展的工具，並對該經驗持正面的態度。 本研究顯示，部落格為一對觀察教師複雜省思行為具有高度潛力的工具。此外，溝通以及與其他人在網絡社區的連結有助教師更新思路，同時協助他們不斷提升自我。因此，對教師教育而言，應用部落格優勢於教師發展是一個很可能的新方向。對於教育應用的建議，本研究建議教師培訓機構與學校應嘗試邀請教師創立自己的部落格，同時支持教師間的連結以建立教師網路社群。

Research on teacher development has undergone a shift from an emphasis on teachers’ content knowledge to attention to teachers’ personal experience and social factors situated in their teaching practice (e.g. student-teacher relationship, school communities). In recent years, with the widespread use of social networking, blogs, one of the most popular social networking applications has been popular for L2 teachers to record their teaching and exchange ideas with other teachers (Ferdig, 2007). While an increasing amount of research has explored teacher blogs, little has been done to examine this issue from sociocultural aspects. This study targets two English teachers, Wu and Lin, and investigates the relationship between their blogging and teacher development. Three research questions are addressed, including (1) what factors affect the two teachers’ operations in the blogging process, (2) how blogging may mediate the two teachers’ development, and (3) how the two teachers perceive the blogging experiences. Data are collected from the participants’ blog entries, interviews, and online observations. The blog entries are coded according to the six empirically grounded learning practices, Auto-Biography (P1), Critical Inquiry (P2), Community Interaction (P3), Study of Practice (P4), Expert Voice (P5), Long-Term Engagement in Professional Work (P6). The six practices were recognized by Darling-Hammond and Hammerness (2005) and later framed by Luehmann (2008) to explore the practices which are effective for teacher learning and development through blogging. Drawing on Activity theory (Engestrom, 1987, 1999), which is an analytical framework to map out the complexity of human behaviors, interviews and online observation data are analyzed by sorting out the factors underlying individuals’ activity systems, namely individuals’ agency, goals to be achieved, mediated artifacts to achieve the goals, the communities where individuals are situated, rules embedded in communities, and the relationship between individuals and others. Findings of this study reveal that, while with different personal background and experiences, Wu and Lin both benefited from blogging not only intrapersonally but also interpersonally. On the one hand, in addition to recording, the process of writing offered the two teachers an opportunity to express feelings and enhanced their personal reflection. On the other hand, during the blogging process, Wu and Lin posted a large amount of entries related to community interaction. The two teachers reported that the online community especially played a significant role in providing support and suggestions. Moreover, Wu and Lin both perceive blogs functioning as a beneficial tool for their development and hold a positive attitude toward the experiences. The present study indicates that a blog is a high potential tool to observe the complicated reflecting process of teachers. Additionally, communication as well as connection with others in the online community are helpful to refresh teachers’ thoughts and assist them to continuously improve themselves. Thus, taking the advantages of blogs in teacher development is possibly to be a new direction for teacher education. For pedagogical implications, it is suggested that teacher training programs and school should not only try to invite teachers to launch their own blogs but also support links among teachers to build online teacher communities.