Learning Pathways Between University, School and Working Life When Student Teachers Use Digital Multimodal Logbooks to Cross Boundaries

This study aims to provide insight into the learning processes that take place when vocational student teachers work with multimodal digital logbooks at the campus and between school and placement. The study will highlight vocational student teachers’ experiences of using logbooks between university and practicum as well as between school and pupils’ practicum. It will also highlight how student teachers learn when working with logbooks. The data consist of transcripts from eight interviews with vocational student teachers about their experiences of working with a digital, multimodal course logbook in their placement course and 19 essays about working with digital, and sometimes multimodal, logbooks between secondary school and practicum. A thematic analysis was conducted based on the key concepts in a previously developed model (Kilbrink et.al., 2021) to find out how student teachers experience the use of digital multimodal logbooks and their own learning processes during it. The analyses also show that both kinds of logbooks worked well for the students as a means of both advancing and showing their professional development. There are as many learning examples as there are essays, and the student teachers learn from failure as well as success. When the Identification model is applied to the data, pedagogical aims seem to play a greater role than the choice of digital technology. In addition, how the technology is used becomes a crucial factor for which level of communication is reached. By using the Identification model to analyse vocational student teachers’ experiences of using digital, multimodal logbooks as boundary objects between university and practicum as students and between school and practicum as teachers, as well as their experienced learning processes in relation to the use of the logbooks, the study provides insight into some of the learning processes that take place across learning institutions and practicums.