Flexible learning spaces as an arena for developing professional digital competence through small group collaboration

Abstract

Flexible technology-rich learning spaces such as Future Classroom Labs (FCL) have a large potential for developing teacher education (TE) students’ professional digital competence through engaging in authentic collaborative learning experiences with digital technology. However, there are limited reports on how students perceive and enact the affordances existing in such learning spaces. This paper reports on how one such FCL can facilitate collaborative learning among TE students. The paper poses two research questions: 1) How does the FCL as a learning space accommodate for collaborative learning? and 2) How do the artefacts promote or limit collaboration among students at the FCL? The data were collected through observations of four sessions of group work at the FCL, each having a different group of 15–16 first-year TE students. The results suggest that the FCL promoted collaborative work in terms of finding and building groups, monitoring, and resource-sharing across the small groups. However, students depended on external guidance from a teacher or student assistant to understand the technical sides of the artefacts, and their educational potential. Therefore, the implication is that in their first visits to FCLs, students need guidance to get started with the distinct tasks, and to master the various devices.