Teacher Development Via the Internet

Peter Beech

The Practice of Teaching• providing instruction• developing productive relationships with

colleagues and administrators, • establishing productive relationships with parents• establishing productive relationships with pupils • maintaining continuous professional growth and

development• transforming schools

http://www.ced.appstate.edu/intercollege/3850/readings/cop.html

Development / Training

“A functioning teacher development group will be a teacher-led peer group which sets its own agenda. A teacher training group, by its nature, will not be a peer group, will have an outstanding agenda and will be conducted or initiated by ‘an authority’.”

Paul Davis http://www.hltmag.co.uk/feb99/mart1.htm

Teacher Development

Continuing development throughout our careers is essential if we are to reach our full potential, enhancing both our professional competence and our personal fulfillment.

Our priorities include:

• What hinders and what helps me in doing that?

• How can I help myself by working with like-minded people?

• How can I become the best teacher that I can be?

• What does development mean to me in my context?

IATEFL TD SIG

http://personales.jet.es/bazkat/about.htm

Dialogue with Colleagues

Dialogue with colleagues is the major tool teachers have available to use for the improvement of their practices.

Connelly and Clandenin (1988)

Ways to Benefit

• participation in a discussion group • accessing research published on

the web • publishing our own articles in

online journals.

Sharing Practice With Fellow-practitioners

We provide ideas and resources for colleagues to use, while gaining valuable feedback which stimulates new cycles of action research.

Community of Practice

Various internet facilities can facilitate induction and participation in peer networks to support our professional development.

“Modern theories of learning and professional development stress the importance of reflection on experience, peer enquiry, the need to embed training in practice, and of collaboration (Schön 1987; Vygotsky, 1978; Kolb, 1984; Wenger, 1998).”

Phil Ridingwww.icce2001.org/cd/pdf/poster1/uk102.pdf

“Teacher networks and communities are excellent ways of fostering the conditions in which such collegiate, reflective, practice-based development can take place (Lieberman, 2000).”

Phil Ridingwww.icce2001.org/cd/pdf/poster1/uk102.pdf

distributed individuals > network >community

The forming of ties between individuals in on-line environments

Reilly, R.A., (1999)

‘A community of practice is different from a network in the sense that it is “about” something; it is not just a set of relationships. It has an identity as a community, and thus shapes the identities of its members.’

(Wenger, 1998)

Professional Growth

An important characteristic of persons who are members of CoPs is that they assume responsibility for their own professional growth and development.

By creating a telecommunications network dedicated to teacher professional development we hoped to entool teachers with the mechanisms for defining and "growing" their own professional development

Collaborative Electronic Network Buildingby Vanessa DiMauro and Gloria Jacobs

The Journal of Computers in Math and Science TeachingFebruary 1995

Building Community

True communities are much more than just Web sites, communication tools or gatherings of people. Communities require member participation and contribution, ownership, quality support and facilitation, shared direction, goals and projects.

(Wellman & Gulia, 1997; Palloff & Pratt, 1999; Kim, 2000).

Resources Available on the Internet

• Journals• Discussion boards • Online teaching resources• Newsgroups

Journals

TEFL Web Journalhttp://www.teflweb-j.org

“TEFL Web Journal is a free, Web based forum for adult level teachers, teacher trainers and researchers world-wide.”

Discussion Boards

Developing Teachers.com

Forums for the developing language teacher

http://foro.developingteachers.com

Online Teaching Resources

http://www.onestopenglish.com

“Solutions for English teaching”

Newsgroups

• TESL-L• Dogme• TD SIG• ELT discussion lists in Greece

TESL-L

• http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/~tesl-l

• To join TESL-L: SUB TESL-L firstname lastname

• TESL-L was founded in May, 1991 • As of December 4, 2002, we have

29,232 members in 161 countries. Our message average is 10 per day

Dogme• "No one can be told what [dogme] is...

they have to see it for themselves.“

• www.teaching-unplugged.com• http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dogme• Members: 175• Founded: Mar 9, 2000• 2882 messages

IATEFL TD SIG

• http://personales.jet.es/bazkat/• http://groups.yahoo.com/group/

TDSIG• Members: 52• Founded: Jul 10, 2000

Websites and discussion lists in Greece (1)

TESOL Greece

• www.tesolgreece.com• http://groups.yahoo.com/group/

tesolgreece

• Members: 124• Founded: Jun 27, 2000

Websites and discussion lists in Greece (2)

TEFL-GR

• www.teflgr.angelcities.com• http://groups.yahoo.com/group/

tefl-gr/• Members: 64• Founded: Oct 22, 1998

Websites and discussion lists in Greece (3)

Anglo-Hellenic

• www.anglo-hellenic.com• http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anglo-hellenic

• Members: 411• Founded: Jun 25, 1999

Websites and discussion lists in Greece (4)

Greek ELT

• www.greekelt.net• http://groups.yahoo.com/group/

GreekELTfeedback/• Members: 11• Founded: Oct 23, 2001

The newsgroup as a community of practice

Teacher Professional Development

• Co-operative design • Building community

• Fostering participation

• Collaboration among teachers

Participation

Engagement with such a community can provide a channel for development, leading from peripheral to full participation.

Legitimate Peripheral Participation

A CoP is comprised of a wide range of expertise in its membership, ranging from apprentice to expert. Inducting apprentices into the community sustains a CoP.

http://www.ced.appstate.edu/intercollege/3850/readings/cop.html

“Practice is an effective teacher and the community of practice an ideal learning environment.”

Brown & Duguid (2000)