Abstract:

This paper’s aim is to understand the agencement processes, where students and teachers in a Norwegian teacher education module in pedagogy, together explores concepts and contexts to develop student's competences and agency in becoming future teachers. This collaborative self-study explores a design for student-centered and student-initiated learning within Communities in Practice (CiP). Previous research has primarily focused on Communities of Practice. The shift from “of” to “in” signals a movement towards recognizing teachers, students and educators as representatives of a Practice in process, where the development of their teacher agencement and agency is the core of the community as established. The student’s experiences from their practicum are a valuable context for inquiry, explore and understand, but also as an asset in the process where the teacher students are actors in creating their own learning processes becoming teachers. Communities in Practice are learning communities where students and educators collaboratively create arrangements within teacher education. This approach enables teachers and students to create, employ and introduce new routes to engage in learning processes.

A vital point of interest is the educators' readiness to establish openness and flexibility in the practices of agencement or arrangements for facilitating learning, and to open the processes to admit the students to influence them. It involves incorporating teacher students' ideas and engagement into the continuous learning process, where both teacher students and educators participate in the learning design.

This paper is based on data from a collaborative and improvement-aimed self-study, based on students evaluation (six questions) of the module that require rich descriptions, and a red thread of products from students' portfolios assembling students' learning process: document studies of learning logs, essays, group abstracts and transcripts of an audio tape of students, a workshop group presentation collaborating with teacher trainers, as well as final exams. We are looking for evidence for better conditions for student participation and bringing in newness in the learning processes for deeper student engagement and learning.

The preliminary findings are that teacher students are likely to become engaged and open minded, when they are invited into the communities in practice, demonstrating a willingness to build on and exchange knowledge. Teacher students working within Communities in Practices bring their own starting points, share knowledge and competencies more readily, and show greater engagement and willingness to innovate new knowledge. Findings also suggest that this approach leads educators to adapt their design to expand students' roles in teaching design, making the students impact on the learning process even stronger.

Keywords:

Higher Education, teacher training, learning communities, student-centered, student-initiated, communities in practice, agencement.