A Companion to Research in Teacher Education

49.7 Designs for Co-configuration

Surveys of research as well as trends in teacher education point to the need to
examine emerging practices and how student teachers cope with complex situations
and challenges. Thus, gap spotting in the literature as well as well as problemati-
zation of certain issues amount to the rationale for the type of research outlined in
the present chapter. Both cases demonstrate how research can address
co-configuration; how professional practices involve collaboration between teacher
educators and student teachers and where student teachers through transformative
agency and their learning designs participate in co-designing the education they
also receive. The cases indicate how teaching designs can open up opportunities for
students’learning designs to unfold.
In Table49.1, we summarize the two cases in light of the conceptual framework
we have used in order to, despite risks of reductionism, model our approach:

Table 49.1 Overview of research aspects of the two cases

Case aspects Example 1: digital

exam

Example 2:

introduction to R&D

Research implications

Essence An exam as a teaching

design is transformed

into a learning design

as students face

challenges by

invoking a series of

stimuli 2 (video case,

literature and practice

experience)

An R&D approach as

a teaching design is

transformed into a

learning design as

students and

university teachers

collaborate by

invoking a series of

stimuli 2 (classroom

observations,

interviews andfield

notes)

Focus on how a

teaching design is

transformed into a

learning design

mediated by a series

of stimuli 2

Subjects Academic,

administrative and

technical staff

members design the

activity. Students are

testing technical

solution, and

interpreting and

reflecting on the video

case and writing the

exam papers

Academic staff

members design the

activity in cooperation

with students and

school teachers.

Students collect data,

analyze data and write

and present reports

together with

university teachers

Focus on

co-configuration of

work between

participants

(continued)

736 J.M. Vestøl and A. Lund