Online learning communities for Canadian teachers

The notion of a learning community is an adaptation of the concept of the learning organisation within which people continually seek ways to learn together. Cultivating high-performing communities of practice, as opposed to mere ‘interest roundtables’ or affinity groups, presents challenges to all participants. Anthony Herrington (2006) and his colleagues in Australia have developed the Novice Teacher Support Project - a site developed to support teachers in their first three years of teaching. This comprises face-to-face workshops, summer institutes, electronic resources and mentoring. The project provides resource support to e-mentoring and incorporates face-to-face meeting as part of its mentoring program between novice and expert teachers. The professional development support, through discussion forums, e-mentoring, and face-to-face workshops, is linked to state-based professional teaching standards.

At Memorial University in Canada, online learning communities for teachers are being developed that include practicing teachers, pre-service teachers and teacher-educators, so that they can collaborate and, in doing so, learn from one another. Communities of practice are particularly useful for students in faculties of education who are about to enter the profession. They also have value for practicing teachers who are able to keep in touch with what is happening in faculties of education in terms of research, new publications and the exploration of ideas. Communities of practice have particular value for teacher educators in the preparation of new teachers, as they enable students of education to engage with teachers in classrooms, facilitating the integration of educational theory and teaching practice.

In the Faculty of Education at Memorial University, the development of an online community of practice linking education students, practicing teachers and teacher educators has two integrated dimensions. Online communities of practice have been introduced in lectures and coursework and they provide a forum for subsequently mentoring interns undertaking initial teaching practice in schools.

In courses taken prior to entry to schools as interns, students seek to integrate educational theory and teaching practice, as well as their physical learning environments with virtual ones, using a ‘cybercell’ approach. A cybercell is a face-to-face group whose members extend their discussions to include virtual visitors (Stevens & Stewart, 2005). Virtual visitors to ‘cybercells’ have been selected from recently-graduated teachers who share their practical insights from the schools to which they have been appointed with pre-service teachers at the university, through participation in collaborative university coursework within which they can provide guidance and support. Pre-service teachers in the Faculty of Education can discuss with practicing teachers practical applications of theories that are part of their coursework. At the same time, ‘cybercells’ provide practicing teachers with opportunities to share their work by explaining it to emerging members of the profession. By extending learning in a university setting from actual (face-to-face) spaces to include virtual visitors in schools, mutual understanding and, it is anticipated, knowledge-building, will be facilitated. It is further anticipated that some ‘cybercells’ that develop within teacher education courses will have a life beyond the graduation of teachers from the faculty of education. It is possible that some members of ‘cybercells’ will continue to assist teacher educators from time to time, as virtual visitors, in the professional education of future teachers.

Following the introduction of pre-service teachers in the faculty of education to schools through ‘cybercells’, a complementary program has been developed to further assist their induction into the profession through the internship. In the secondary teacher education program at Memorial University, which consists of three semesters, the middle semester is spent in schools as interns under the guidance of a co-operating teacher. While in schools as interns, pre-service teachers are required to engage with one another in a further online community of practice in completing academic assignments related to their classroom work.

Poole (2000) noted that pre-service teacher development is an ideal time to introduce teacher candidates to the larger community of their profession and to the tools that can provide them with access to continued learning within an online community of practice. A salient benefit of communities of practice is the bridging of formal organisational boundaries in order to increase the collective knowledge, skills, and professional trust and reciprocity of practitioners who serve in these organisations (Wenger, et al., 2002). Herington et al. (2006) and Ingersol (2004) both found evidence to indicate that beginning teachers who participated in an induction program with experienced teachers, during their first year of teaching, were less likely to leave the profession. The development of online communities of practice in Canada, to enhance both coursework and internships, already suggests that teachers who experience a successful induction to the profession by directly engaging with it are better prepared to function in a modern-day classroom.

References

• Herrington, A, Herrington, J, Kervin, L, & Ferry, B (2006). ‘The design of an online community of practice for beginning teachers’. In Contemporary issues in
• technology and teacher education, 6(1), 120-132.
• Ingersoll, Richard and Jeffrey M Kralik (2004). The Impact of mentoring on teacher retention: what the research says. Denver: Education Commission of the States.
• Poole, MJ (2000). Developing online communities of practice in preservice teacher education. Retrieved 27 September 2006 from: http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/update/508413
• Stevens, K and Stewart, D (2005). Cybercells – learning in actual and virtual groups. Melbourne, Thomson-Dunmore.
• Wenger, E, McDermott, R, & Snyder, WM (25 March, 2002). Cultivating communities of practice: a guide to managing knowledge – seven principles for cultivating communities of practice. Retrieved 27 September 2006 from: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/2855.html

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Professor Ken Stevens lectures in the Faculty of Education, at Memorial University, in St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada.  Dr David Dibbon is Associate Dean of the Faculty of Education at the same university.

 

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