Connecting, Collaborating, Continuing to Learn

In this study of online teacher community called INDISCHOOL in Korea, the researchers examined online postings from the community and conducted interviews.  12 factors were identified as a resulte of this study.  8 supporting factors and 4 factors that were inhibiting. The factors were further categorized into three areas; internal, external and outcome factors.

Existing professional development models don’t meet teacher needs. Often there is not follow up to the one or two day workshops and no time allotted for implementation or discussion of practice.  Often there is a disconnect between what teacher need to learn, what they want to learn and what the school district offers.

Distributed Cognition: knowledge is distributed across people and tools, resulting in collective knowledge which is greater than the sum of individual knowledge. (Johnson 2001; Putnam & Borko, 2000; Salmon, 1993)

Wegner (1998) claims that communities of practice cannot be designed, they are self-organizing depending on the needs of the users.  This could describe the current phenomena of online social networks and their popularity in the educational community.  Traditionally teachers are not afforded the opportunity to engage in discussion, sharing, or learning based on individual preference and need.  Typical professional development models are most offen top-down in nature with the needs of the group taking preference over the needs of the individual. Online communities of practice and online professional development opportunities allow teachers to engage in practice based on their needs, learning styles and areas of interest.

Sustainability: communities need members who are committed and motivated in order to thrive.  Common goals, vision, shared interests and trust are all factors that contribute to the growth and sustainability of a community of practice.  While the vast amount of research lies ahead of us, there is substantial theory (Schalger et. al, 2009; Barab & MaKinster, 2003; Dube,Bourhis & Jacob, 2005; Zhao & Rop, 2002) that the factors that contribute to the growth and development of communities of practices in physical locations will, if replicated in an appropriate manner, contribute to the growth and development of communities of practice that are established online and in virtual worlds.

Methodology:

Single case study; intention is to identify factors influencing the sustainable nature of the online community; wanted to explore this from the teachers’ perspective rather than understand the community as a whole.

Three sets of data were collected; interview transcriptions, archived web postings, and researcher’s observation notes.

Findings

Two categories: Support and Hindrance; divided within each into three subgroups, internal, external and outcomes.

Supporting factors: Internal: Having autonomy, having a sense of ownership, acknowledging values of participation

Supporting factors: External: Providing online and offline interaction, providing an easy way to use tech systems

Supporting factors: Outcomes: helping novice teachers become confident educators, assisting in overcoming teacher isolation, meeting teachers individual needs

Hinderance factors: Internal: Teachers’ lack of confidence, previous negative experience in online communities,

Hinderance factors:External: Lack of technological support, discouraging teacher’s active learning

This study left me with some questions:

As a result in the increase of technological knowledge and expertise, would the hinderance-external factor of lack of technological support be reduced?

How do we create environments for active participation?  Discouraging teachers’ active learning was a hinderance-outcome factor.  Information sharing is a wonderful aspect of the internet. Downside is that some teachers will not actively share, they will just “steal”.  We need to understand what motivates teachers to participate actively, finding a balance between give and take.  My initial thoughts are that that type of outcome exists in current physical environments and for that matter, in most organizations.  There are always people who do more, share more, engage more often, etc.  This may be a factor we just have to accept, all the while working to increase participation for those that might just be apprehensive in trying new things.