Challenges and responses: A Complex Dynamic Systems approach to exploring language teacher agency in a blended classroom
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Date
2022-04-12
Open Access Location
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Castledown Publishers
Rights
CC BY 4.0
Abstract
This is a qualitative examination of how a Chinese language teacher responded to challenges and developed her agency in a unique teaching and learning environment, termed as the blended classroom. The uniqueness of this classroom lies in its attendance by two cohorts of students at the same time – the face-to-face and the online groups. The online group joined the face-to-face group and the teacher via a synchronous online classroom called Blackboard Collaborate. Through analysing data from the teacher’s reflection, face-to-face and email interviews and the recordings of her blended class, this research unfolds a semester-long trajectory of her agency development in the blended classroom. Guided by the Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST), we conclude that teacher agency is a system composed of multi-layers of subsystems and it is a product of the constant interaction amongst these interconnected and interdependent subsystems, with certain subsystems playing a more dominant role than others at a given stage of one’s agency development. This finding led to our proposal of a framework of teacher agency system. This research advances our understanding of teacher agency as a system in the context of online and blended learning.
Description
Keywords
Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST), teacher agency, language teaching, blended learning, blended classroom
Citation
The JALT CALL Journal, 2022, 18 (1), pp. 54 - 82