Working in Wonderland: Teachers’ Reactions to Innovative Learning Environments
type: CreativeWork
description: Economic, political, social, and technological developments are putting pressure on educational systems to undertake major changes. Schools in New Zealand, Australia and abroad are being pushed to transition from traditional models of teaching and learning to Innovative Learning Environments (ILEs). For this change to occur, many classroom teachers will need to adapt how, where and what they teach, which is likely to generate a range of reactions from teachers. A qualitative three-school case study approach was employed to capture the complex connections between school leaders' understandings of ILEs, teachers' understandings of ILEs, and teachers' reactions to expectations to engage in innovative practices. The study also investigated forms of support that mitigated teachers' perceptions of risk and enabled them to work collaboratively in ILEs. The three New Zealand primary schools selected for this research had already begun to invest in a shift from traditional practices and environments to ILEs prior to agreeing to participate. The research design involved two separate data collection and analysis phases. Questionnaire data obtained from 73 teachers in the initial phase provided a description of teachers' understandings of ILEs, innovative practices they had implemented, and the forms of support they had received. The data were used for phase two sampling purposes and provided the basis for the sequential phase. Eighteen teachers and four school leaders participated in phase two. The sequential phase included semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, participant blogs, teachers' daily records, and publicly available school documentation. Data obtained from this phase provided an understanding of how teachers had developed their perceptions of ILEs and why they reacted the way they did to expectations to engage in innovative practices. The data were analysed using an inductive and deductive thematic approach and coded using NVivo. The depth of teachers'…
abstract: Economic, political, social, and technological developments are putting pressure on educational systems to undertake major changes. Schools in New Zealand, Australia and abroad are being pushed to transition from traditional models of teaching and learning to Innovative Learning Environments (ILEs). For this change to occur, many classroom teachers will need to adapt how, where and what they teach, which is likely to generate a range of reactions from teachers. A qualitative three-school case study approach was employed to capture the complex connections between school leaders' understandings of ILEs, teachers' understandings of ILEs, and teachers' reactions to expectations to engage in innovative practices. The study also investigated forms of support that mitigated teachers' perceptions of risk and enabled them to work collaboratively in ILEs. The three New Zealand primary schools selected for this research had already begun to invest in a shift from traditional practices and environments to ILEs prior to agreeing to participate. The research design involved two separate data collection and analysis phases. Questionnaire data obtained from 73 teachers in the initial phase provided a description of teachers' understandings of ILEs, innovative practices they had implemented, and the forms of support they had received. The data were used for phase two sampling purposes and provided the basis for the sequential phase. Eighteen teachers and four school leaders participated in phase two. The sequential phase included semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, participant blogs, teachers' daily records, and publicly available school documentation. Data obtained from this phase provided an understanding of how teachers had developed their perceptions of ILEs and why they reacted the way they did to expectations to engage in innovative practices. The data were analysed using an inductive and deductive thematic approach and coded using NVivo. The depth of teachers'…
author: Jones, Tamara
license: https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm
date published: 2018
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:04:34Z
provider: University of Auckland
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: ResearchSpace@Auckland

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/2292/43649