Experiences of stakeholders

Our project is grounded in socio-cultural theories that emphasize the significance of social and situated approaches to professional learning. We operate under the assumption that fostering social learning practices, such as co-creation of new practices and cultivating shared understanding through mentoring, can contribute to the adoption of innovative practices in educational settings. A key strategy in our project is utilizing mentoring as a valuable tool to support professionals in education, enabling them to critically reflect on their knowledge and skills and enhancing their effectiveness. As part of this mentoring process for integrating digital technologies into teaching, professionals engage in reciprocal relationships that foster an environment conducive to collaborative learning, knowledge sharing, and expertise exchange. We have incorporated the components of successful professional learning into our mentoring framework, which leverages the socio-cultural context and fosters collaboration among multi-stakeholder networks. This collaborative approach, integrating researchers and practitioners, synthesizes research-based knowledge with practical insights, promoting meaningful change and improvements in pedagogical practices.

Problem

Technologies are often not productively used in schools on larger scale (Ley et al., 2021) – teachers who have access to different technologies, use it to support existing teaching practices (Sheffield 2011), which tend to be designed to transfer knowledge.

Adaptation of innovative teaching practices is challenging for process (e.g. Webb and Cox 2004), which integrates the aspects leadership, collaboration, professional competence (Ilomäki & Lakkala, 2022).

Primary users

School leadership: Leaders

Teachers / teacher teams

Mentors

Mentoring activities

Initiative for development: Initiative for improvement from researchers, school teams or policy authorities

Anchoring Meetings: Meetings with school members to introduce the mentoring model and make agreements

Joint planning: Meetings about development process to reflect on development needs

Mapping needs: School teams reflect on the problems and development needs

Acquiring new perspectives: School teams and teachers collaborate on developing new understandings and practices

Development action: Teams and teachers carry out development activities with the help of chosen method(s)

Reflection: Schools and teachers reflect on their development process/learning

Determinants

Opportunities to be engaged in creating. sharing and validating new knowledge and practices

Teachers’ willingness to adopt new teaching and learning methods in own practice

Mentors willingness to implement School mentoring model supporting teachers and leaders to implement innovative practices

Short-term outcomes

Teachers manifest intention to adopt new teaching and learning methods learned (adaption)

Through mentoring activities, teachers and leaders are scaffolded to create new and implement new practices

Through mentoring activities, new practices are created, shared and validated in practice (maturation of the knowledge)

Through mentoring activities, new knowledge and understanding is developed, adapted and validated (appropriation)

Long-term outcomes

There is sharing culture and collaboration between teachers, leaders, and/or schools

School has the necessary infrastucture, teacher training and support systems

Teachers adopt digital technology in pedagogically meaningful ways

Students benefit from technology-enhanced learning

Impact

Enhance the collaboration between universities, schools, and industry partners and policy stakeholders to scale up the digital innovation on local, regional, and national level acros the countries

Changes in policy, national visions and goals to plan the policy measures (infrastucture, mentoring, interventions) to accelerate evidence-informed digital innovation in schools

More specifically, we aimed to investigate the extent to which teachers intend to adopt the practices they have learned through their participation in activities related to, or inspired by, the mentoring efforts. Additionally, we explored teachers’ perceived changes that both teachers and school leadership identified as a result of their involvement in these mentoring efforts.

Intended adaption

N=295

89% of the teachers reported their intention to use the new teaching methods and learning practices post-mentoring period.
78% of teachers expressed willingness to promote the new methods within their broader school community

83% of the teachers agreed that the new methods will influence their teaching
84% acknowledged the effectiveness of the novel methods

iHub4Schools provided mentoring for school teachers and leaders to create and implement new technology-enhanced teaching practices. This is how this experience was perceived:

"Teachers feel more comfortable with digital technology; they have started to use new apps; they know where to ask help; they collaborate more," (Finnish teacher)

"The most valuable experience is to learn by collaborating and sharing digital experiences and innovations...we need to constantly discuss and learn from each other." (Lithuanian teacher)

“Perhaps the fact that teachers started desiring more tablets to be freely used in classrooms, from one classroom to another, led to this newfound interest... Other teachers also became more interested, thanks to the mentoring." (Estonian teacher)

“After participating in this project in the school, the awareness about IT programs has been enhanced, it is used more frequently and actively in the teaching process, the lessons have become interesting and fun for the students.” (Georgian teacher)

iHub4Schools brought together digitally more experienced teachers and schools with those who are less experienced. This is how this experience was perceived:

"Those who already were familiar with these tools/programs shared their experiences with the schools involved in the project. I would say that the best teaching practices were shared, and it was very productive." (Georgian teacher)

iHub4Schools focused on mentoring the schools’ and teachers who are less interested in adoption of digital innovation. See how they experienced the mentoring experience:

“Great personal development. They (management) literally forced me into that digital accelerator project... I got environments/tools where I could just start building things. A life-changing experience." (Estonian teacher)

iHub4schools fostered the integration of teachers and schools outside of the mentoring settings to scale up digital innovation:

In addition, I share my resources and experience with other colleagues (not involved in the project) and help them choose interesting and customised (subject-wise) activities (Georgian teacher)

ihub4Schools promoted the changes in the organisation to improve the infrastructure:

“We didn't have an educational technologist before, but now we do. I've found this role incredibly beneficial…” (Estonian teacher)

Our school has invested substantially in computer equipment, equipping all methodological groups with sets of computers. (Lithuanian teacher)