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Online teaching communities & networks

The two classes that I am taking this summer are overlapping nicely this week. Here we are discussing community and professional learning networks and in my change management course, I am tasked with analyzing a change in my own organization. Any time there is a change in my organization that usually involves professional development for teachers but the current pandemic has meant that we may be relying on digital networks as professional development for the foreseeable future. So what will online professional development look like for teachers and what do current communities and networks offer?

One of the articles this week discussed teacher communities online and informal learning, the article spanned twenty years of research and had some interesting information. Formally organized teacher learning communities are online using MOOCs, various LMSs, email lists, blogs, etc. There was a multitude of tools used but the research showed that no matter the tool the teachers experienced an exchange of information and ideas, collegial support, and emotional engagement and reflection. The barriers that teachers experienced were time and scheduling synchronous activities. The informal communities provided the same opportunities for teachers to share ideas and have emotional and professional support but in a less structured environment, but the barriers that the researchers noticed in informal learning networks was that it relied on key individuals to coordinate and that teachers felt it encroached on their free time if they could not access it at school. 

Further research led me to an article discussing effective professional development for teachers. This article outlined seven essential things that professional development must provide in order to be effective: 

  1. Is content focused 
  2. Incorporates active learning utilizing adult learning theory 
  3. Supports collaboration, typically in job-embedded contexts 
  4. Uses models and modeling of effective practice 
  5. Provides coaching and expert support 
  6. Offers opportunities for feedback and reflection 
  7. Is of sustained duration
I definitely believe that it is possible to offer all of these in online professional networks for teachers, both in formal and informal settings. For our community norms project, I have joined a Reddit community for teachers and a Facebook group specific for Florida teachers. I am now involved daily in informal learning by using Reddit and Facebook. It has only been three days and I have already learned about new online tools and resources to use next year teaching digitally. Much like the research found I have also found a support network for emotional and professional growth, opportunities for feedback from other veteran teachers, and opportunities to reflect on my own classroom practices. 

I think that moving forward these groups are going to be essential but that it would also behoove school districts to read through the research and invest in asynchronous formal professional development for teachers. 

References:

Lantz-Andersson, A., Lundin, M., & Selwyn, N. (2018). Twenty years of online teacher communities: A systematic review of formally-organized and informally-developed professional learning groups. Teaching and Teacher Education, 75, 302–315. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2018.07.008







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