La transmisión del nombre comercial

Nussbaumer (2012) reviewed the applications of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) in educational research. Activity Theory is described by Daniels, Cole and Wertsch (2007:2) as “a subsequent close relative” of CHAT so that Nussbaumer’s article is relevant. She notes that

Of the 1577 articles retrieved, 21 articles were found to actually use CHAT theoretical constructs such as the unit of analysis, mediation, and

internalization/externalization of learning implying some difficulty with the inherent complexity of the theory.

Nussbaumer (2012:37) The complexity of Activity Theory perhaps accounts for its use as a model, as in this thesis, in which selected parts of an activity system become the focus of enquiry. For example, Ellis and McNicholl’s (2015) study of ITE in the UK concentrates primarily on the division of labour between schools and universities at a time when the role of universities in ITE is under threat.

Douglas’ (2012) research, as already mentioned, used the theory as a “descriptive heuristic” for trainees, mentors and tutors to discuss training a preservice teacher as the object of activity of a single activity system, with its own rules and tools. One effect of this approach, possibly increased by the timing of the project towards the end of the PGCE course, appears to have been the relaxation of existing roles in supporting or critiquing trainees or the pressure on mentors to act as a role model.

Tsui and Law’s (2007:1292) research regarded teacher education as the shared object of two separate activity systems and looked at lesson study as a mediating tool “brokered by university tutors” to explore the advice given to trainee teachers. Their article also offers insights from an ITE programme with a different pattern of relationships between school and university. They describe the Hong Kong University’s advisory role in relation to the school, rather than the English “idealisation” of school, as noted by Jackson and Burch (2015), and the Hong Kong placement is much shorter than the minimum 120 days of school experience required in the UK.

FIGURE 4INTERACTING ACTIVITY SYSTEMS (ENGESTRÖM,2001:136)

In one of Engeström’s (2001:136) examples, the left triangle was apparently the life of the patient and Object 1 was a specific patient visiting a doctor. The right triangle appeared to be the healthcare system and Object 2 was the patient, seen as an example of a particular disease category. Object 3 was where Objects 1 and 2 overlapped. Here the collaboratively constructed understanding of the patient’s life and care needs was achieved during the “Boundary crossing laboratory”, a meeting of health care professionals and family members involved in treating the patient.

In Tsui and Law’s (2007) study, a ‘lesson study’ programme was introduced as an additional activity for trainees, their tutors and mentors to address contradictions in the previous pattern of giving feedback after tutor observations. As part of this process, the trainee, mentor and tutor discussed a lesson which they had jointly planned for the trainee to teach. The left triangle was the activity system of mentoring a trainee in school and the right hand triangle was the university tutor’s ‘supervision’ of the trainee. The primary goal of mentoring was for the trainee to teach competently and cover the require curriculum content and developing the trainee more holistically was of secondary importance. The primary goal of supervision was to “help the trainee relate theory to practice in the classroom” and the trainee’s learning had priority over that of the students. Here the boundary crossing was by and within the trainees as they tried to reconcile the expectations of both mentor and tutor, with resulting frustration and anxiety. This was addressed by introducing collaboration between mentors and tutors, seen as a boundary zone. Significantly, the learning of both student and trainee was discussed in the new activity system of lesson study, with a focus on the lesson itself, not the trainee’s progress.

In ITE at Macadamia, one triangle in figure 5 would be teacher education, with Object 1 the professional development of the trainee. The other would be the partner school with the education of the students as Object 1. Object 2 in each case could be an individual lesson in which both the trainee and the students increase their respective understandings and the progress of both trainee and students is assessed. Object 3 is a collaboratively constructed body of knowledge or set of competences. I suggest that the comparison between the classroom interventions which form part of my research and the usual pattern within ITE, as in Figure 14 on page 105, provides two illustrations of interacting activity systems.

The use of lesson study, as described by Tsui and Law (2007) is compatible with Ellis and McNicholl’s (2015) suggested transformation of teacher education through ‘knot- working’ (Engeström, 2007b) in which a number of organisations collaborate to solve “socially complex and challenging problems” (Ellis and McNicholl, 2015:135). Although Engeström (2004:12) demonstrates the potential of co-configuration work for “mutual learning from interactions between the parties involved in the configuration actions”, he notes the amount of time and levels of commitment required from all parties in this collaborative work.

2.6.2. Boundary crossing within the Initial Teacher Education partnership –