Teacher professional learning in an
online community: the experiences
of the National Quality Schooling
Framework Pilot Project
Nicky Carr and Dianne P. Chambers*
The University of Melbourne, Australia
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Educational authorities in many developed countries are funding the development of online
environments that aim to facilitate teacher professional learning through collegial, reflective sharing
of practice. But is this a case of ‘if we build it they will come’? Are teachers ready to share ideas and
experiences in online communities of practice to enhance their professional learning? This article
examines the experiences of teachers and school leaders who participated in a pilot online environment
created to support teacher professional learning and it identifies factors that facilitated use of
the online environment and factors that acted as a deterrent to use. The article identifies three key
sets of conditions that deter teachers’ use of online communities as a model for professional learning.
These include a lack of perceived commonality of purpose; an underdeveloped culture of
shared, critical reflection about practice; and lack of familiarity and experience amongst teachers in
using computer-mediated communications tools as part of their regular practice.
Introduction
Much literature suggests that the most effective forms of teacher professional learning
and development are those that require teachers to engage in reflective practices,
preferably through sharing experiences with teacher colleagues engaged in similar
practices or areas of interest (Bodzin & Park, 2000; Ferry et al., 2000; Herrington
et al., 2000). Such collegial sharing of information and ideas about practice has been
found to encourage teacher self-reflection and to support the risk taking and struggle
entailed in transforming practice (Putnam & Borko, 2000).
However, issues of limited time and access to peers would appear to reduce the
opportunities for reflective sharing among teachers in face-to-face settings.
*Corresponding author. Faculty of Education, McDonell Building, The University of Melbourne,
VIC 3010, Australia. Email:
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144 N. Carr and D. P. Chambers
Information and communications technologies (ICT) are claimed to have the
potential to foster the conditions in which collegial, reflective, practice-based
teacher professional learning can occur through online environments and related
networks (Wenger, 1998). That is, it has been proposed that teacher professional
learning can be facilitated through communities of practice whose members
communicate via computer-mediated communications (Wenger, 1998).
The use of computer-mediated communications to facilitate the sharing of knowledge
and best practice has been adopted by many companies in the business sector
(Brazelton & Gorry, 2003). Following the lead of industry, the development of online
communities as a tool for teacher professional learning is an emerging feature in
school education systems in developed nations. Significant government funds are
being allocated for the development of online professional learning resources, many
of which use computer-mediated communication to foster the development of online
communities of practice among school teachers. In the United Kingdom, examples
include the 36 online teacher communities that have been developed under the
umbrella of the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency
(2004); the SENCO Electronic Communications Project (Parker & Bowell, 1998),
that links UK special education teachers; and Talk2Learn, which provides a platform
for UK school leaders to discuss issues relating to the administration and leadership
of UK government schools (National College for School Leadership, 2004). In the
USA, examples include Tapped In (SRI International, 2003) and the Maryland
Electronic Learning Community (Riel, 2000).
Australian educational authorities are also investing in online teacher learning
communities. At the State level examples include Tasmania’s Discover site (Department
of Education Tasmania, 2003), Queensland’s The Learning Place (Education
Queensland, 2002) and Western Australia’s Teachers’ Learning Support Network
(Commonwealth Department of Education Science and Training, n.d.).
However, it is unclear whether the teaching profession is ready for a model of
professional learning using computer-mediated communication, particularly when
created for them by an education authority, rather than developed organically by
teachers themselves. Building an online community is not just a matter of developing
the online environment using the latest technology—organisational and cultural
support must be provided to facilitate participation by teachers. It is essential that the
developers of such online communities understand what motivates teachers to participate
and contribute to online communities and what prevents or inhibits teachers
from participating. This article reports on the experiences of a sample of teachers and
school leaders who participated in an online learning community, the National
Quality Schooling Framework Pilot Project, and identifies the factors they believed
either enhanced or diminished their use of the online community.
Factors influencing participation in online environments
Studies of participation in online communities, including those designed specifically
for a teacher audience, identify a number of factors that are likely to influence the
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Teacher professional learning in an online community 145
level of participation in computer-mediated communication environments. The asynchronous
nature of many forms of computer-mediated communications allows
participants to enter the discussion whenever convenient, and allows members of the
community to reflect on and articulate their views before sharing them with other
community members (Dillon, 2000; Hawkes, 2000). The time independence of such
tools is seen as one factor that facilitates participation. A downside of time independence
is that participants must be highly motivated to make the time to engage with
the online community. Existing demands on participants’ time can limit the time
available to them to be active in online communities (Fusco et al., 2000). The
location independence of online communities is also seen as a positive influence on
participation (Hawkes, 2000).
Communication in online communities is primarily conducted through text.
Textual language used in online environments tends to be more precise, better structured
and received with increased attention than verbal messages (Harasim, 1990;
Hawkes, 2000). However, conveying meaning through text can be problematic for
some (Hammond, 1998) with anxiety about the use of language acting as a barrier to
contributing to online discussions (Wegerif, 1998).
Maintaining a sense of community where there is little or no face-to-face contact
can also prove difficult for some members of an online community. Conversations in
an online environment lack many of the non-verbal cues and sound inflections used
in face-to-face situations (Wegerif, 1998; Hawkes, 2000; Preece et al., 2003) that are
an essential and significant component of communication for many people. Facilitators
can play a pivotal role in the development of an online community through
encouraging participation (Hammond, 1998).
Use of an online community requires that members of the community have access
to reliable networked computers and an appropriate level of competency in using
such tools (Nonnecke et al., 2004). Organisational and structural issues within
schools may also impact on the effectiveness of online teacher communities. Participation
in online communities is frequently done in the teachers’ own time and in
addition to existing responsibilities. This is not always valued by schools in the same
way that traditional professional development activities are valued (Dillon, 2000).
Characteristics of successful online communities
As with communities that exist in the physical world, communities in the online world
take time to develop. Preece (2000) has described four stages of development of online
communities—pre-birth, early life, maturity and death. At birth, an online community
requires a high level of facilitation to generate a small level of activity by its members.
As the community moves through its early life toward maturity, the level of facilitation
required diminishes and the level of activity by members increases until a critical mass
of activity supports a mature, successful and self-sustaining community. However, it
takes time for a community to progress through these stages. Inadequate facilitation
in the early stages or a withdrawal of facilitation before the community has reached
its critical mass could result in an early death of the community.
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146 N. Carr and D. P. Chambers
One of the characteristics of successful online communities is that they display a
strong sense of commitment to an idea and a shared sense of purpose or well-defined
domain of interest (Lieberman, 2000; Bradshaw et al., 2002). A further characteristic
of successful online communities is that they have a high level of use (Parker &
Bowell, 1998) and should support the same ebb and flow of communication and
information sharing in which face-to-face teams engage (Schlager et al., 1999).
Not everyone who belongs to an online community makes contributions to the
online discussion within that community. This behaviour is known as lurking, where
members of an online community read other people’s contributions but make no
contributions of their own. Lurking is seen as normal behaviour in most online
communities—members often lurk for a while to familiarise themselves with the
nature of the discussion before making a contribution. However, if the purpose of an
online community is to generate new ideas, then having a high proportion of lurkers
may undermine the development of the community—there needs to be sufficient
public interaction to act as a stimulus for discussion, debate or learning (Nonnecke
et al., 2004).
Effective online communities should provide operational, intellectual and affective
support to their members through their conversations (Kovaric & Bott, 2000). Kovaric
and Bott define operational support in this context to mean timely assistance with
practical classroom strategies, activities and techniques; intellectual support refers to
new perspectives, ideas and inspiration; and affective support refers to emotional
support and compassion.
The National Quality Schooling Framework Pilot
The Australian Government’s Department of Education, Science and Training
funded the development of the National Quality Schooling Framework Pilot Project
in 2002 in the context of governments and education systems establishing online
communities for teacher professional learning.
The National Quality Schooling Framework Pilot Project (NQSF) was established
as a web-based resource with the primary focus of supporting schools in the
implementation of school improvement projects. The NQSF Pilot Project aimed to:
●support teacher learning and school innovation;
●enhance the evidence base that schools could draw on to improve and demonstrate
the quality of student learning outcomes;
●ensure continuing focus on quality learning outcomes for all students; and
●research and develop the capacity of schools to access and engage teachers in both
real and virtual learning communities as part of their normal professional practice
(Cuttance, 2003).
Over 100 teachers from 46 schools and pre-schools from across Australia participated
in the NQSF Pilot Project during a seven-month period from March to September
2002. Schools nominated themselves to participate in the NQSF Pilot Project and
were selected on the basis of the suitability of the school improvement project they
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Teacher professional learning in an online community 147
intended to implement. Schools represented a cross-section of schools by sector
(government/non-government), stage (Pre-school/Primary/Secondary), geographical
diversity (metropolitan & regional/rural, but no remote schools) and socio-economic
diversity. Participating schools received funding to support the implementation of an
agreed school improvement project. School principals then nominated staff who were
involved in the school improvement project to participate in the online environment.
There was no limit on the number of staff from each school who could participate in
the online environment. During the project schools were expected to make use of the
NQSF online environment to support the implementation of the school improvement
project and to support teacher professional learning.
The NQSF online environment comprised two main areas:
●An information section that contained a repository of information resources and
tools designed to support evidence-based school improvement practices and
processes. Resources included research summaries, articles, teaching and learning
ideas, methodologies to support school improvement, and reporting templates.
●A community section that contained computer-mediated communication tools
aimed at fostering ongoing teacher professional learning through the exchange of
ideas and building a sense of community of practice. The main focus of the NQSF
online community was to provide a mechanism for teachers to support each other
in the implementation of their school improvement project.
A series of introductory workshops was held in each Australian state to familiarise
participants with the main features and functionality of the NQSF online environment.
Telephone-based training sessions (tele-tutorials) were also held to ensure that
all participants were familiar with how the site worked, in particular how to use the
computer-mediated communication tools that were an integral part of the NQSF
online environment. The online community within the NQSF pilot environment was
active for a six-month period.
Schools participating in the NQSF Pilot Project were required, as part of the
funding agreement, to submit four reports outlining the progress of their school
improvement project using templates provided on the web site. The submitted
reports were made available to all NQSF participants in the community section of the
online environment. Participants were also actively encouraged by the NQSF Project
Team to make contributions to the community section of the web site and to share
experiences in the implementation of their school improvement projects and learn
from each other through reflective, collegial sharing.
Participants could communicate with each other in a synchronous Chat room, or
by using either of the asynchronous communications tools provided—an online
discussion board called the Forum, or a range of asynchronous tools provided as part
of the NQSF area within Think.com. Think.com is an online environment created by
Oracle Corporation (Oracle Corporation, 2003), designed primarily for students.
However, during the NQSF Pilot, a special area within Think.com was created for
NQSF where participating teachers could communicate with each other either
through sending each other electronic versions of ‘post-it’ or ‘sticky’ notes; or through
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148 N. Carr and D. P. Chambers
conversations, brainstorms, hot seats and debates, all variations of asynchronous
communications.
The study
The NQSF aimed to facilitate teacher professional learning through the development
of an online community of practice, a goal shared with many other online communities
developed by education authorities and systems. Members of the NQSF community
were expected to use the computer-mediated communication tools to actively share
their teaching and school improvement experiences and practices and to establish a
professional discourse that would support their own learning.
In order to understand the factors that influenced the use of the NQSF online
environment during the Pilot Project, a study of 13 NQSF Pilot Project participants
was conducted. The research subjects were selected on the basis of their level of
contribution to the online community in the NQSF online environment. The
sample included subjects who were more active contributors to the NQSF online
community relative to most participants, as well as subjects who made minimal or
no contributions to the online community. The sample included teachers and
school leaders from primary (K–6) and secondary schools (7–12) located in metropolitan
and non-metropolitan locations across Australia. Data were collected
through a series of semi-structured (in-depth) telephone interviews with each
research subject, following the completion of all required school reports at the end
of the Pilot Project. A set of questions for the interviews were developed around
three broad areas relating to patterns of use of the NQSF online environment,
factors that affected use (including time, access, ICT skills, design and functionality
of the environment, role of participant, facilitation, sense of community, shared
purpose, school organisational factors and attitudes to online environments) and the
impact participation may have had on school-based practices. Data from the interviews
were analysed in NUD*IST (QSR International,
to identify common patterns in the responses of the research participants in the
NQSF online environment, using the three areas of patterns of use, factors affecting
use and implications of use as a framework for analysis. In addition, all contributions
to the online community sections of the NQSF web site were classified according
to whether they were in the operational, intellectual or affective domains
(Kovaric & Bott, 2000). A fourth domain, facilitation, was added to identify the
nature and extent of contributions made by members of the NQSF team. This article
reports on only part of the study’s findings.
One of the key aims of the study was to identify and to better understand the factors
that acted to facilitate participation in the online community as well as to identify
factors that prevented or inhibited participation by teachers and school leaders. By
examining the behaviours and motivations of these participants in this particular
online community environment, other researchers may note trends and use the findings
to deepen their knowledge and understanding of how teachers and school leaders
may behave in other similar online environments.
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Teacher professional learning in an online community 149
Findings
Level of contributions
The level of contributions made to the online community sections of the NQSF Pilot
Project was relatively low. Analysis of the contributions made to the community
sections of the NQSF online environment reveal that only 17 ‘discussions’ were
initiated in the Forum over the six months the online environment was made accessible.
The majority of the discussions were initiated by NQSF participants rather than
members of the NQSF team. The discussions generated a total of 91 responses, of
which 64% (58) were made by NQSF participants. The remainder were contributions