I began the semester as a teacher moving into a new role as a graduate student. I had experience in the K-12 world, as a teacher, a leader and tech enthusiast. My participation in
social networks and the connections I cultivated through that participation enabled me to think, develop and grow as a teacher, affording me the opportunity to share that knowledge with my own local community, resulting in an increase of technology enhanced learning at our high school. This was my frame of reference. As I began this research, I was asking:
- In what ways can we create social networks in online spaces for teachers to learn together?
- How can the technology support these environments to maximize teacher collaboration?
- In what ways could this help teachers create their own personal networks and then translate these ideas to students?
I thought a lot about the technology and the connections between teacher and student learning. I wanted to understand the ways in which I could replicate my own experience so others could be energized in similar ways. I was thinking about ways to help teachers engage in this practice. In short, I was thinking more about how to use technology to help teachers and develop programs, concerned more with the structure and the technology than anything else.
But, my thinking has changed. As I began my research, I realized that there were many theories that I had never been introduced to.
Social network theory being the first that really began to shape my thinking about the idea of networks. In meeting with Dr.Ken Frank and Dr. Yong
Zhao I began to think less about the individual characteristics of teacher involved in the networks and started to think about it from an organizational perspective. In
social network analysis the focus is placed on the nodes and the ties. Nodes being the individuals within the network and the ties being the relationships between them. In addition, social network analysis can be used to measure social capital.
Social capital refers to the value the individuals get from the network. In this manner we can use social network analysis to study the social capital of organizations. Connecting this to my prior experience was the beginning of the shift. I started to view the impact of my involvement in social networks as having a rippling effect, not just changing the way I was learning, but influencing those around me as well. Both Frank and
Zhao encouraged me to continue to look further into this area as they both indicated that there has been little research about online social networks and the impact on social capital within schools.
In moving forward we read Communities of Practice by Wegner, 1998, in one of my other courses. Up to this point I was using social networks and communities of practice interchangeably. As we began to discuss the intricate aspects of communities of practice found in Wenger, I began to see a difference.
- “A community of practice involves, thus, much more than the technical knowledge or skill associated with undertaking some task. Members are involved in a set of relationships over time (Lave and Wenger 1991: 98) and communities develop around things that matter to people (Wenger 1998). The fact that they are organizing around some particular area of knowledge and activity gives members a sense of joint enterprise and identity. For a community of practice to function it needs to generate and appropriate a shared repertoire of ideas, commitments and memories. It also needs to develop various resources such as tools, documents, routines, vocabulary and symbols that in some way carry the accumulated knowledge of the community.”
The difference between communities of practice and social networks seem to be that social networks are a model of a community of practice and understanding communities of practice through Lave and Wenger’s work allowed me to a better understanding interaction between people in the network. Theory of community of practice and theory of social networks, when layered help to more clearly define the structure and name the phenomena that occur within.
This lead me to dig deeper, looking for the answer to this question: What are the characteristics of local communities of practice that can be brought to the online world to help engage teachers in meaningful collaboration and discourse? In reading Ann Lieberman’s work and drawing on my own experience, I connected the model of teacher networks found in the National Writing Project. She states, “Teachers become members of a community where they are valued as partners and colleagues, participants in an ongoing effort to better the learning process for themselves and their students. It was apparent from our observations and interviews that the support teachers had found and continued to enjoy int he NWP had renewed their excitement about teaching, contributing significantly to their connection to their students and to their effectiveness as classroom teachers.” My thinking about the ways in which social networks are constructed, communities of practice are formed and the principles of the National Writing Project all combined to make me think outside my individual experience and consider different ways of approaching the research questions initially outlined at the beginning of the semester.
With that in mind, as the semester comes to a close, and I consider the work of
Schlager (2009) and Lieberman (2009) and their emphatic proclaim of the importance of the development and incorporation of
emerging technologies into the
professional development practices I am empowered to continue to explore this area of interest. In addition, they both outline the power of teacher networks to impact school reform. If change is going to occur, it will be from the
bottom-up, but have philosophical support from the
top-down. More research on new methodologies for online teacher professional development is necessary. Chris Dede from Harvard University, 2009, states there is a lack of empirical research on teacher online professional development. Dede suggest we should develop new approaches to online teacher professional development research. He proposes a “blended” empirical research model that provides answers to questions about design as well as an explanation of why it works so well. The 40 identified empirical studies in the Harvard study provide “powerful evidence that empirical research has been underfunded to a serious degree.”
As I think about what I can contribute to this field of research, my questions are evolving.
1. What motivates people to become a part of these communities?
2. What types of information do they share and how does that impact teaching and learning?
- Hew and Hara (2007) completed an empirical study of the types of knowledge that is shared in online communities. They categorized the types of information shared and identified activities teachers engaged in. They also looked at what hindered and motivated teacher participation. They identified key factors, but also determined more research was needed.
3. In addition, I am interested in the development of new conceptual frameworks to analyze online communities. There is an abundance of data that needs to be collected and analyzed in new and different ways. (Schlager, 2009; Dede 2009) Mathematical models are one way to interpret social network models, but more qualitative research is needed if we are to understand the development of meaningful relationships among members of a community as well as the motivation behind participation and the knowledge they share.
Punya’s question still resonates as I reflect back on the last 16 weeks. I now have a richer perspective in which to frame my research questions. I continue to look forward and continue this conversation, curious as to what other shifts will occur and how it will all be reorganized within my own mind.
