Teacher professional Teacher professional learning in online community: learning in online community:

the experiences of the the experiences of the National Quality SchoolingNational Quality Schooling

Written by: Nicky Carr and Dianne P Chambers

Summarized by : Deborah Agurcia

IntroductionIntroduction

“If we build, will they come?” Are teachers ready to share ideas,

experiences in online communities of practice to enhance their professional learning?

IntroductionIntroduction

Educational authorities in many developed countries are funding the development of online environments that aim to facilitate teacher professional learning through collegial, reflective sharing of practice.

This article examines: The experience of teachers and school leaders who

participated in a pilot online learning.

It identifies factors that facilitated use of the online environment and factors that acted as a deterrent to use.

This article reports the experience of those who participated in the National Quality Schooling Framework Pilot Project.

The articles also identifies three key set conditions that deter teachers’ use of online communities as a model for professional learning.

Lack of familiarity and experience amongst teachers in using computer mediated communications tools as a part of regular practice.

A lack of perceived commonality of purpose, an underdeveloped culture of shared, critical reflection and practices.

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IntroductionIntroduction

Much literature suggest that an effective form of teachers learning is by engaging in reflective practices, sharing experiences with other teacher colleagues in an area of interest.

This encourages teachers to self- reflect and to support the risk taking and struggle entailed in practicing something new such as the emerging technology.

Information and Communications Information and Communications Technologies (ICT)Technologies (ICT)

Problem: The limitation of time

and access to peers in online communities appear to reduce the opportunities of reflective sharing amongst teachers in face to face setting.

Solution: ICT is claimed to

foster the conditions in which collegial, reflective, practice based learning can occur through online environments & related networks.

ICTICT It has been proposed that teacher learning can be

facilitated through communities of practice whose members communicate via computer mediated communications.

The development of online communities as a tool for teachers professional learning is an emerging feature in school education system.

Government funds are being used for the development of online professional learning.

Online CommunitiesOnline Communities

In the United Kingdom 36 online teacher communities had been developed under the umbrella of the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency.

This provided a platform for UK school teachers to discuss issues relating to the administration and leadership of UK government schools

Online CommunitiesOnline Communities

An issue was the fact that an education authority was creating these online communities rather than letting teachers start the community themselves.

Building an online community with the latest technology was not the main purpose but instead the organizational and cultural support that facilitated teacher participation.

Factors Influencing Participation in Factors Influencing Participation in Online CommunitiesOnline Communities

The online community helps teachers reflect, write opinions and join discussions, sharing different views on subjects.

The time independence of such tool is seen as one factor that facilitates participation. On the other hand time independence is that the participants must be highly motivated to make time to engage with the online community.

Location and other existing responsibilities affect the factors of participation in an online community.

Factors Influencing Participation in Factors Influencing Participation in Online CommunitiesOnline Communities

Textual language used in online environments tends to be better understood than verbal messages.

On the downside conveying meaning through text can act as a barrier to contributing to online discussions.

Face to Face interactions sometimes is better than discussing topics online. Conversations online lack many verbal clues and communication can be misunderstood.

Verbal clues and sound are considered by most very important in conversation.

Use of online community requires that members of that community have access to reliable networked computers and have the knowledge in using such tools.

Participation in online communities are done on the teachers own time and in addition to other responsibilities.

Teachers taking the time to better educate themselves and to learn from others is not valued as much as the traditional form of professional learning.

Characteristics of successful online Characteristics of successful online communitiescommunities

Communities in the online world take time to develop them.

Preece has described four stages of developing an online community

• Pre Birth• Early life• Maturity• Death

Birth, Early Life, and MaturityBirth, Early Life, and MaturityBirth: an online community requires a high

level of facilitation to generate a small level of activity by its members.

Early life: members use the community a bit more frequent until it reaches maturity.

At maturity the level of facilitation diminishes and the level of activity increases until a critical mass of activity supports a mature, successful and self sustaining community.

Death Death

Inadequate facilitation in the early stages or a withdraw of facilitation before a community has reached its critical mass could result in death of the community.

No tools… no users… lurkers..= death.Lurkers: members of a community that

don’t generate contributions to the online community.

Lurking is a normal behavior that a member can have while familiarizing themselves with how the online community works.

However, if the purpose of an online community is to generate new ideas, then having a high portion of lurkers may undermine the development of the community.

Characteristics of successful online Characteristics of successful online communitiescommunities

A high level of use defines a successful online community A well defined domain of interest..

Effective online communities should provide operational, intellectual and affective support to their members through conversations.

Operational support: practical classroom strategies, activities, and techniques.

Intellectual support: refers to new perspectives, ideas and inspirations.

Affective support: emotional support and compassion.

The National Quality of Schooling The National Quality of Schooling Framework PilotFramework Pilot

The NQSF was designed as a resource to support schools in the implementation of school improvement projects.

It aims to support teacher learning and school innovations

Improve and demonstrate the quality of student learning outcomes.

Develop the capacity of schools to access and engage teachers in both real and virtual learning communities as part as the normal professional practice.

The studyThe study

Over 100 teachers from 46 schools participated in the NQSF Pilot Project.

It took 7 months for the study to be complete. It was broken down by sector, stage, geographical

diversity and socio- economic diversity. School selected received funds to support the

implementation of an agreed school project. During the project schools were expected to make

use of the NQSF online environment to support the project.

The studyThe study

The NQSF online environment comprised two main areas:

Information section: it contain resources and tools designed to support evidence based school improvement practices and processes.

Resources included research summaries, articles, teaching and learning ideas, methods to support school improvement and reporting template.

The StudyThe Study

Community Section: It build a sense of community practice. It fostered teachers in the exchange of ideas.

The main purpose was to provide a mechanism of support from one teacher to another.

In order to participate, the teacher was placed in several forms of training such as workshops, and telephone conferences in order to facilitate the transition of the online community.

The studyThe study The NQSF aimed to facilitate teacher professional

learning throughout the development of the online community of practice, a goal shared with many other online communities developed by education authorities and systems.

Members of this community were expected to use the computer mediated communication tool to actively share their teaching and school improvement experiences and practices. To establish a professional discourse that would support their own learning.

The FindingsThe Findings Level of Contribution: the level of contribution was

relatively low. The majority of discussions were initiated by NQSF participants rather than members of the NQSF team.

This meant that an effective community was yet to emerge, and that the lack of conversations initiated by participants was a factor acted to discourage further contribution. For example: teachers would post ideas or comments but with little or no response.

Although members did admit to visiting the online community from time to time. Demonstrating the high level of lurking.

The FindingsThe Findings Prioritizing limited time: Lack of time was the

reason cited by the research subjects. The main reason was that time was a real issue to

start using NQSF. Classroom teachers believed they had less control

over their time than those who were in leadership positions within schools.

There was little or direct support from the school. Individuals in leadership positions had more time

because they didn’t have teaching responsibilities.

The FindingsThe Findings Some teachers felt that many of their goals or

personal growth weren’t sufficient in online community.

Some teachers felt that going to an online community to get ideas was not needed. Their teacher responsibilities didn’t let them seek the extra help on the online community.

Teachers weren’t interested in what other schools were doing, unless there was a strong need to do so.

Some believed that there was no domain of interest among members.

The FindingsThe Findings Nature of contributions: Teachers were asking and

responding to request for general information about what schools were doing in a particular area of interest.

The lack of response for intellectual or affective domains discouraged some teachers from continuing to contribute.

Some teachers were hoping for a discussion, ideas or issues that they could relate.

Language barrier was another issue, teachers prefer face to face interactions.

Risk was another problem, some participants felt that they were sharing personal ideas with strangers.

The FindingsThe Findings The use of technology and the understanding of it

was a bit of a problem. Even communicating through email was new for

some teachers. Teachers don’t participate in the reflective process

such as leaders, because they reflect with students in a different way without placing themselves out there in the educational community like the leaders do.

The online community was in a pre-birth phase due to the lack of activity that occurred in the online community. This suggest that it takes more than a 6 to 7 month trial in order to see results.

Problems with the internet resulted in participants to get discouraged in using the online community.

Some teachers didn’t have full-time access to a computer like leaders did.

The design of the online community was too complex. It required 3 passwords to access the online community.

Once in the community it was much simpler to use.

ConclusionConclusion Overall, despite the fact that there were a few

errors or bumps here and there, this project was seen as a positive one.

Many believed that the use of online sources for teachers would be helpful for the educating community.

Many factors made an impact on the results of this study such as the limited time given to teachers to use the online community

Lack of communication between teachers Lack of familiarity and experience in using

computer mediated communications tools.

ConclusionConclusion Online communities developed by authorities lack

the participation. Its unclear who the intended audience is, and goals might not be shared by the participants.

Unlike communities that grow organically, they also don’t have much participation regardless of the need of other teachers it shows. The lack of time by teachers make these communities sink.

Until it’s a concrete cultural belief that online communities are helpful, then there aren’t going to be so many online resources.

ConclusionConclusion

Teachers need to interact with other teachers in order to loose the risk factor, to educate themselves in new practices. Schools need to give teacher assigned times in order for a teacher to go to these online communities.

Technology is emerging all the time, why not get the tools in your hands?

QuestionsQuestions

Question and Answer time!!!!