Online Learning Networks for Pre-Service and Early Career Teachers

Online Learning Networks for Pre-Service and Early Career Teachers

Nick Kelly Marc Clarà Benjamin Kehrwald Patrick Alan Danaher Online Learning Networks for Pre- Service and Early Career Teachers

Nick Kelly Australian Digital Futures Institute University of Southern Queensland Toowoomba, Australia; and Science and Engineering Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia Benjamin Kehrwald Learning Academy Charles Sturt University Wagga Wagga, Australia Marc Clarà Department of Pedagogy and Psychology University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain Patrick Alan Danaher University of Southern Queensland Faculty of Business, Education, Law and Arts Toowoomba, Australia; and School of Education and the Arts, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, Australia ISBN 978-1-137-50301-5 ISBN 978-1-137-50302-2 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50302-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016939222 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd. London

For our significant others, and for what they teach us By spiritual I mean the diverse ways we answer the heart s longing to be connected with the largeness of life a longing that animates love and work, especially the work called teaching. Palmer, 2006, p. 2; emphasis in original In the information age, students must learn to navigate and evaluate an expanding network of information. Highly effective teachers model this process of information analysis and knowledge acquisition by continually learning through collaboration, professional development, and studying pedagogical techniques and best practices. Trust, 2012, p. 133

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We are very grateful to the following individuals and groups whose support has been indispensable to writing this book and conducting the education research projects on which it reports: The participants in the research projects analysed in the book Our fellow researchers in the research projects reported here Other researchers in the fields to which we seek to contribute in the book Mr Andrew James and Ms Eleanor Christie from Palgrave Macmillan for being unfailingly encouraging of the project The anonymous reviewer of the original book proposal Mr Leo Selvakumar Periyanayagam and his colleagues from SPi Global for their expert production of the book The Queensland College of Teachers for their invaluable ongoing support The Australian Data Archive ( https://www.ada.edu.au/ ) for storing some of the data reported in this book (record numbers 01155 and 01156), which can be accessed upon request The StepUp project (Project no. MS13-3184) funded through the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching ( http:// www.olt.gov.au/ ) The Australian Government Collaborative Research Networks Digital Futures project The Australian Research Council Connected Communities Linkage Project (LP140101062) vii

viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The University of Lleida, Spain, for funding support for Dr Marc Clarà s involvement in the book Our colleagues in our respective workplaces Our families and friends for helping to nourish and sustain us.

CONTENTS 1 Introduction 1 Introduction 1 The Book s Focus and Research Questions 2 An Outline of the Book 4 Conclusion 6 2 Supporting Teachers as a Wicked Problem 7 Introduction 7 The Greater Community of Teachers 8 Teacher Support: Getting the Measure of a Wicked Problem 10 Conclusion 15 3 Characterising Communities of Teachers 17 Introduction 17 Characterising Human Communities 19 Characterising Contemporary Teacher Communities 20 Face-to-Face Teacher Communities 20 Teacher Communities at a Physical Distance 21 Online and Blended Teacher Communities 22 Articulating The Greater Community of Teachers 23 Characterising Effective Teacher Communities 24 Conclusion 28 ix

x CONTENTS 4 Developing Teacher Knowledge and Reflection 31 Introduction 31 The Psychological Relation between Two Types of Knowing 34 Reflection as a Process to Develop and Transform Situational Representations 37 Conclusion 39 5 Presence, Identity, and Learning in Online Learning Communities 43 Introduction 43 Background 45 Online Learning Communities 45 Mediation and Presence 45 Social Presence and Technology-Mediated Social Processes 48 Social Identity 47 Social Presence and the Development of Relationships 48 Social Context 48 Online Communities, Interaction, and Learning 49 A Vignette: Social Processes within the Community 50 Social Presence and Social Identity 52 Social Context 53 The Development of Relationships and Social Capital 53 Towards Collaborative Reflection 54 Conclusion 54 6 Analysing the Learning Networks of Pre-Service and Early Career Teachers 57 Introduction 57 Networked Learning: Describing Design for Community 59 Techniques for Analysing Online Networks of Teachers 63 Types of Data 63 Using Data for Analysis 64 Informing Future Iterations of Design 65 Conclusion 66

CONTENTS xi 7 Developing a Learning Network for Pre-Service and Early Career Teachers 67 Introduction 67 The Goal of the Project and Its Theoretical Underpinnings 68 Phases of Design 68 Phase 1: Problem Framing 69 Phase 2: Participation Involvement in Problem Framing 72 Phase 3: Pilot Study (in Two Universities) 75 Phase 4: The Launch of TeachConnect (in Eight Universities) 77 Conclusion 81 8 Designing and Evaluating Online Networks of Teachers 83 Introduction 83 Design Principles for Learning Networks of Teachers: A Shopping List 84 Design Principles for Online Learning Networks of PSTs and ECTs 86 Set Design and Community 88 Set Design and Knowledge 88 Set Design and Presence 89 Social Design and Community 89 Social Design and Knowledge 90 Social Design and Presence 90 Epistemic Design and Community 91 Epistemic Design and Knowledge 91 Epistemic Design and Presence 92 Conclusion 92 9 Conclusions 93 Introduction 93 The Character and Criteria of Online Learning Networks for Supporting PSTs and ECTs 94 Nick Kelly 95 Marc Clarà 96 Benjamin Kehrwald 98 Patrick Alan Danaher 99

xii CONTENTS Some Answers to the Research Questions 100 Research Question 1: How Can We Improve Support for Teachers as They Negotiate the Pathways into the Profession? 101 Research Question 2: What Kinds of Connectedness Can Lead to Improved Support for PSTs and ECTs? 102 Conclusion: A Final Word (for the Moment!) 102 References 105 Index 127

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Nick Kelly is a Senior Research Fellow at the Science and Engineering Faculty at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia; and an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Digital Futures Institute at the Toowoomba campus of the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. His research looks at online learning communities, early career support for teachers, and the cognition of creativity. He co-leads the TeachConnect project aimed at increasing the professional support for preservice and early career teachers in Australia through an altruistic community a cross-institutional online community for mutual peer support. Marc Clarà is Serra Húnter Fellow in the Department of Pedagogy and Psychology at the University of Lleida, Spain. He is also Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Linguistics, Adult and Specialist Education at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. His research is framed within cultural psychology and addresses some key problems faced by teachers. It focuses on phenomena like teachers knowledge, teachers emotion, teachers reflection, and teachers resilience, placing special emphasis on representation, interaction, and the mediating role of digital technologies. Some of his recent publications are Understanding teacher knowledge from a cultural psychology approach, Teaching and Teacher Education, 43, 110 119, 2014, and What is reflection? Looking for clarity in an ambiguous notion, Journal of Teacher Education, 66(3), 261 271, 2015. Benjamin Kehrwald is a specialist in online learning in higher education. His research interests include social presence, technology-mediated social processes, social learning, networked learning, and online communities. His xiii

xiv ABOUT THE AUTHORS ongoing work centres on online learning in higher education, including the design, development, and use of a variety of environments to support learning in and beyond university campuses. Patrick Alan Danaher is Professor in Educational Research in the School of Linguistics, Adult and Specialist Education, and he is also Associate Dean (Research and Research Training) in the Faculty of Business, Education, Law and Arts at the Toowoomba campus of the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. He is also an adjunct professor in the School of Education and the Arts in the Higher Education Division at Central Queensland University, Australia. His published research books include Contemporary Capacity- Building in Educational Contexts and Educational Learning and Development: Building and Enhancing Capacity (both co-authored with Catherine H. Arden, Margaret Baguley, Andy Davies, Linda De George-Walker, Janice K. Jones, Karl J. Matthews, and Warren Midgley), Researching Education with Marginalized Communities (co-authored with Mike Danaher, Janet Cook, Phyllida Coombes, and Geoff Danaher), Identity and Pedagogy in Higher Education: International Comparisons (co-authored with Kalwant Bhopal), Mobile Learning Communities: Creating New Educational Futures (co-authored with Beverley Moriarty and Geoff Danaher), and Teaching Traveller Children: Maximising Learning Outcomes (co- authored with Phyllida Coombes and Cathy Kiddle).

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CoP/s DBR ECT/s FAQs HEI/s ICT/s ITE LMS/s ODL OER/s PLC/s PST/s Q&A QCT STEM TESSA VC/s Community/ies of practice Design-based research Early career teacher/s Frequently asked questions Higher education institution/s Information and communication technology/ies Initial teacher education Learning management system/s Open and distance learning Open education resource/s Professional learning community/ies Pre-service teacher/s Question and answer Queensland College of Teachers (Australia) Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Virtual community/ies xv

LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 1.1 A diagrammatic representation of the book 5 Fig. 7.1 Activity in developing the design of TeachConnect 69 Fig. 7.2 Movement from student communities within cohorts to a professional community of teachers in service within the same mobile platform 71 Fig. 7.3 A screenshot of the look and feel of TeachQA 76 Fig. 7.4 A screenshot of the TeachConnect front screen 78 Fig. 8.1 Framework for design principles for learning networks 87 xvii

LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Distilled characteristics of effective teacher communities 28 Table 6.1 Questions guiding the design of learning networks 62 Table 7.1 Respondents (n=118) ranking of six descriptions of support (from 1 to 6, with 6 indicating the highest ranking) 73 Table 7.2 Responses to the question Please state whether you agree that the following features may be useful to teachers in their first year of teaching (n=60) 74 xix