Fourteenth International Conference on e-Learning & Innovative Pedagogies

Abstract

This paper presents partial findings from a larger mixed methods study that explored high school biology teachers’ pedagogical approaches to using collaborative digital textbooks (cDTB) in face-to-face, online, and hybrid learning environments during the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite a growing body of literature on cDTB and other forms of electronic textbooks, most researchers have used quantitative methods to understand users’ implementation of and satisfaction with this technology in higher education settings. Largely absent from the literature are accounts of how cDTB are employed as pedagogical tools in general and their use in secondary schools more specifically. Conducted within the framework of cultural-historical activity theory, the project captured evidence of expansive learning cycles with regard to the teachers’ use of the cDTB as classes moved from one learning environment to another. Data collection was conducted over a ten-month period that spanned two school years; data were generated through close- and open-ended questionnaires, document analyses, observation, and learning analytics. The findings presented in this paper suggest that technical competence and content knowledge and do not guarantee pedagogical prowess with education technologies, even those that teachers have used for years, as was the case in this study. The paper argues that there is an urgent need for improved pre-service and in-service teacher training to develop pedagogical practices that support not only the use of cDTB and their associated tools but also other forms of both static and dynamic academic electronic texts that are frequently used with learners across subject areas and age groups.