Cultivating student teachers' capability for collaborative problem-solving in curriculum and assessment planning through communities of inquiry

This paper reports preliminary findings from the evaluation of an ongoing TDG project, which employs group-based curriculum and assessment design tasks to assist student teachers in solving problems arising from classroom scenarios. By involving students in small-group tasks and whole-class discussions during face-to-face online Zoom lessons, course lecturers seek to build communities of inquiry to support student teachers’ learning. Communities of inquiry are online or blended learning communities that support student learning via three forms of presences: (a) teaching presence (appropriate pedagogical design and implementation), (b) social presence (supportive social interactions), and (c) cognitive presence (student learning activities oriented to higher-order thinking) (Garrison, 2016). Specifically, this TDG involves four classes of BEd students in Semester 2 of 2020-2021 and two classes of PGDE students in Semester 1 of 2021-2022 (~ 40 students per class). Students in each class are required to select four out of eight design tasks (four on curriculum design and four others on assessment design) to complete, then elicit a partner group’s feedback for improvement before sharing their design to the whole class. Preliminary findings from classroom observation during Semester 2 of 2020-2021 showed that student teachers were able to solve authentic problems of curriculum and assessment design tasks, exchange their feedback with partner peer groups, and confidently sharing their designs during whole-class discussions. Implications for blended and online learning practice and research in higher education are discussed. Copyright © 2021 International Conference on Learning and Teaching.