Student assistants in Future Classroom Labs moving between figured worlds and becoming a resource for developing professional digital competence in teacher education

Abstract

This article examines student teachers employed as student assistants in initial teacher education (ITE) in Future Classroom Labs (FCL) in Norway, and aims to explore their participation in different figured worlds as students and student assistants respectively, but also what ITE could potentially gain from employing such student assistants. The data gathered are 15 qualitative interviews with student assistants and FCL managers in ITE. The study takes an activity-theoretical and cultural psychological approach to their situated learning, and their navigation through and between the different figured worlds in which they take part. The study shows that student assistants, understandably, enter the job with a student perspective, but that they, over the course of their employment in the FCL, develop a new perspective (a development perspective), giving them a unique, dual perspective as both student and teacher educator. The study suggests that the student assistants can contribute to both overcoming the student-educator dichotomy and bridging elements of the theory-practice gap. The study also highlights how the third space of digital technology and the FCL could potentially blur the same dichotomy.Meanwhile, it shows some potential conflicts related to role confusion, if the responsibilities and expectations of students and educators are not clearly mapped and communicated. Yet overall, the study suggests potential with having student assistants in FCLs in ITE.