Lesson-Planning Groupware for Teachers: Situated Participatory Design

Abstract

Collaboration allows teachers to interact with regularity, specificity, and depth in order to create new dynamics and understandings on teaching. Teachers orchestrate the central elements surrounding the goals that need to be achieved in the classroom performance, the objectives, and the purpose of the lesson plan. Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate the perceptions of teachers regarding the prototype of a collaborative system to support the sharing of knowledge and educational materials and interpersonal learning experiences. The current study uses design prototyping procedures and techniques to augment the manner in which these professionals approach lesson planning. Dialectically, this in-depth understanding, using multiple methods of participatory design, has guided us to evolve the design of a computational device to support professional lesson planning and to speculate future digital possibilities for this practice. Situated participatory design has made it possible for teachers to visualize themselves in possible future scenarios, using groupware as a tool that is able to support their collaborative classroom preparation practices.