The Application Strategy Of The Concept Of “student As Co-creator”

The development of information technology makes the traditional classroom more open.Teachers' knowledge authority is accordingly challenged.The change from students-as-consumers to students-as-creators has been a predictable trend in the development of education.Students' participation in the creation of curriculums is a new kind of student-centered pedagogy.It provides a significant practical solution for the post-modern curriculum view.Existing studies have shown that the concept of students as co-creators can enhance students' active learning and reflective learning,and help improve curriculums to better satisfy students'needs.This concept can promote student-teacher partnership as well as the professional development of teachers.However,the application procedures of this concept in prior studies were not consistent.There are also few in-depth discussions on how to deal with the problems in the application process.This study aims to explore the application strategies of students as co-creators in a systematic perspective,and construct specific practice approaches,to promote the application of this concept in more educational contexts.In this study,students as co-creators is defined as an idea where teachers share appropriate curriculum power with their students,and invite students to participate in the curriculum designs,resources development,instructions,curriculum evaluations and instructional research.With the support and restrictions of agreed participation rules,teachers cooperate with their students to determine some or all curriculum factors together,including the curriculum objects,plans,contents,instructional design,implementation,evaluation and external support.The improvement of the curriculum and the student-teacher partnership will be gradually enhanced in the process,to improve students'learning experience and learning outcome.This study focused on the curriculum of Foundations of the Educational Technology Research Methods(Bilingual)that was taken by graduate students majored in Educational Technology at S normal university.The researcher adopted the design-based research method,and traced two sessions of the curriculum in fall 2014 and fall 2015.Application strategies of students as co-creators were iteratively designed,implemented,analyzed and revised in the process in order to solve three main research questions.Firstly,how do we determine students' empowerment according to specific educational contexts when applying the concept of students as co-creators?Secondly,what are the characteristics of different participation channels,what are the typical problems in each channel,and how do we solve these problems?Thirdly,how do we systematically organize and apply these channels to make students as co-creators optimally promote students' learning?In the two iterations of this study,the researcher collected a large amount of relevant data including audio recordings and minutes of regular course design team meetings,online communication records of course design team,questionnaire investigations of students,classroom observational notes,in-class video recordings,students' homework,and online communication records of the course QQ groups.Based on these data,the characteristics and effects of different participation channels were analyzed and compared in detail,to evaluate the concept application strategies.The researcher continuously revised the strategy model according to the instant feedback from the authentic contexts.This study aims to provide reliable practice approaches for the generalization of the students as co-creators concept.This study suggested that the essential objective of the students as co-creators concept is to promote students' learning through reshaping traditional pedagogical structure,enhancing students' reflective learning,promoting the student-teacher partnership,and improving the curriculums to satisfy students' needs.Based on the two iterations of the curriculum and existing research outcomes,this study concluded four principles of the application of students as co-creators strategy.First,the external and internal restriction factors should be considered thoroughly to select appropriate application level and scope.Second,matched and variety participation channels should be designed based on the application level and scope.Third,one or more participation channels should be organized to make different decisions according to the characteristics of specific problems and different channels.Fourth,application effectiveness and efficiency should be continuously monitored in the process,to dynamically increase and modify the design of channel scaffolds and participation contractions,construct co-creation based learning environments,and enhance students' learning.The key of applying the concept effectively is to construct a co-creation based learning environment.The typical obstacles in this process are the constraints from students' and teachers'traditional concepts,and the inattention of the feedback for students' suggestions and subsequent redesigns.Therefore,the potential influence of students' and teachers'traditional perceptions in synchronous and high-level empowerment participation channels should be focused.The prompt feedback and redesigns in asynchronous participation channels should also be monitored preferentially.In addition,the design of scaffoldings and contractions for high-level empowerment participation channels should be considered seriously,to balance the openness and systematicity of the curriculum.The application strategy model and relevant design principles generated in this study were expected to provide reliable practical guidelines for future potential users of the students as co-creators concept.