a design framework for online teacher professional development communities

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A design framework for online teacher professional development communities Katrina Yan Liu Received: 15 October 2011 / Revised: 23 July 2012 / Accepted: 31 August 2012 / Published online: 13 September 2012 Ó Education Research Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea 2012 Abstract This paper provides a design framework for building online teacher professional development commu- nities for preservice and inservice teachers. The framework is based on a comprehensive literature review on the latest technology and epistemology of online community and teacher professional development, comprising four major design factors and three contextual factors. The design factors include learning goals, communication tools, par- ticipant structures, and member responsibilities; the con- textual factors are culture, politics, and economics. Finally, the role of universities and implications of the design framework for teacher professional development in the new culture of learning are discussed. Keywords Community of practice Á Online learning communities Á Teacher professional development Á Online technology Introduction Teachers are facing greater challenges now than at any point in the past century. Teachers need to create a new and different learning environment for their students (Friesen and Clifford 2003), to balance the individual needs of diverse students with the demands of curriculum and the goals of the larger group (Hammerness et al. 2005), to become an agent of change transforming the existing social order and empowering all students (Darling-Hammond 2002), to enable their students to interact effectively with people of different social and cultural backgrounds in this more globally intertwined age (Darling-Hammond 2010; Ravitch 2011), and to develop an education that enhances students’ strengths rather than fixing their deficits (Zhao 2012). In addition to these challenges in professional practice, teachers are expected to provide better education to all students while meeting increased performance stan- dards under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the growing movement to establish standardized testing of students in tandem with using those test results in a value- added assessment methodology that may determine the future of individual teachers and their schools. In this era, teacher professional development (TPD) is clearly an essential component to improving education through advancing the quality and expertise of teachers (Bredeson and Johansson 2000; Bredeson 2003, Loucks- Housley et al. 2003; Hammerness et al. 2005). According to Hammerness et al. (2005), the knowledge, skills, and atti- tudes needed for optimal teaching cannot be fully developed through the process of preservice teacher education. Instead, teachers need to be lifelong learners—and this is even more true in this current period in which learning standards are being constantly redefined through projects such as NCLB and the Common Core State Standards. Unfortunately, as Scott (2010) correctly pointed out, there is a divide between theories of effective TPD and the realities of TPD practice within educational contexts. Moreover, although NCLB appears to place great importance on TPD, the concept is not well defined (or perhaps is too well defined): the NCLB definition under Title II has fifteen required activities and another three optional activities that range across every aspect of education from specifying the minimum length of workshops to calling for TPD programs to be assessed in terms of the increase in student achieve- ment under teachers participating in the TPD program (Title K. Y. Liu (&) Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Whitewater, WI 53190, USA e-mail: [email protected] 123 Asia Pacific Educ. Rev. (2012) 13:701–711 DOI 10.1007/s12564-012-9230-0

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Page 1: A design framework for online teacher professional development communities

A design framework for online teacher professionaldevelopment communities

Katrina Yan Liu

Received: 15 October 2011 / Revised: 23 July 2012 / Accepted: 31 August 2012 / Published online: 13 September 2012

� Education Research Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea 2012

Abstract This paper provides a design framework for

building online teacher professional development commu-

nities for preservice and inservice teachers. The framework

is based on a comprehensive literature review on the latest

technology and epistemology of online community and

teacher professional development, comprising four major

design factors and three contextual factors. The design

factors include learning goals, communication tools, par-

ticipant structures, and member responsibilities; the con-

textual factors are culture, politics, and economics. Finally,

the role of universities and implications of the design

framework for teacher professional development in the

new culture of learning are discussed.

Keywords Community of practice � Online learning

communities � Teacher professional development �Online technology

Introduction

Teachers are facing greater challenges now than at any

point in the past century. Teachers need to create a new and

different learning environment for their students (Friesen

and Clifford 2003), to balance the individual needs of

diverse students with the demands of curriculum and the

goals of the larger group (Hammerness et al. 2005), to

become an agent of change transforming the existing social

order and empowering all students (Darling-Hammond

2002), to enable their students to interact effectively with

people of different social and cultural backgrounds in this

more globally intertwined age (Darling-Hammond 2010;

Ravitch 2011), and to develop an education that enhances

students’ strengths rather than fixing their deficits (Zhao

2012). In addition to these challenges in professional

practice, teachers are expected to provide better education

to all students while meeting increased performance stan-

dards under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the

growing movement to establish standardized testing of

students in tandem with using those test results in a value-

added assessment methodology that may determine the

future of individual teachers and their schools.

In this era, teacher professional development (TPD) is

clearly an essential component to improving education

through advancing the quality and expertise of teachers

(Bredeson and Johansson 2000; Bredeson 2003, Loucks-

Housley et al. 2003; Hammerness et al. 2005). According to

Hammerness et al. (2005), the knowledge, skills, and atti-

tudes needed for optimal teaching cannot be fully developed

through the process of preservice teacher education.

Instead, teachers need to be lifelong learners—and this is

even more true in this current period in which learning

standards are being constantly redefined through projects

such as NCLB and the Common Core State Standards.

Unfortunately, as Scott (2010) correctly pointed out, there is

a divide between theories of effective TPD and the realities

of TPD practice within educational contexts. Moreover,

although NCLB appears to place great importance on TPD,

the concept is not well defined (or perhaps is too well

defined): the NCLB definition under Title II has fifteen

required activities and another three optional activities that

range across every aspect of education from specifying the

minimum length of workshops to calling for TPD programs

to be assessed in terms of the increase in student achieve-

ment under teachers participating in the TPD program (Title

K. Y. Liu (&)

Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University

of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Whitewater, WI 53190, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

123

Asia Pacific Educ. Rev. (2012) 13:701–711

DOI 10.1007/s12564-012-9230-0

Page 2: A design framework for online teacher professional development communities

IX Part A Section 901(34)).1 Finally, existing models of

professional development have a practical problem: they

have not successfully helped teachers improve their prac-

tices because they are not tailored to teachers’ specific

needs, nor do they accommodate teachers’ busy schedules

(Sprague 2007). As a result, TPD tends to be viewed as an

add-on to already busy teacher workdays, or worse, as time

off for teachers and principals rather than as legitimate

professional work. Further, TPD is seen to focus on indi-

vidual development, without attention to organizational

improvements or the development of ‘‘professional capital’’

(Hargreaves and Fullan 2012), and as well as something

generally developed by outside professional development

experts and conducted in a ‘‘hit-and-run style,’’ without

coherence or sustainability (Bredeson 2003; Loucks-

Housley et al. 2003). In short, in spite of the clear need for

effective TPD—whether considering the demands of NCLB

or not—the institutions and practices providing TPD tend to

be marginalized and maligned, perhaps justly so.

Situative research on TPD provides a schematic model

for comparative purposes that places teachers, facilitators,

and the PD program within a broader context (Borko 2004,

p. 5). According to Borko (2004), some of this research

shows that strong professional communities foster teacher

learning and can stimulate reflective practice; however, the

development of TPD communities can be difficult and

time-consuming (p. 7). An obvious direction for TPD is to

go online (Bonk 2009); teaching-oriented online commu-

nities in various forms have long existed, from the virtual

worlds of Tapped In (http://tappedin.org/tappedin), Inquiry

Learning Forum (http://ilf.crlt.indiana.edu), and multiple

forums in Second Life, to more amorphous networks such

as FarNet (now part of the larger virtual learning network

in New Zealand: http://www.vln.school.nz) and innumer-

able email lists, web sites, and collaborative blogs. Taking

TPD online is not an easy task, however, especially if one

of the goals is to help teachers create community. Douglas-

Faraci found, for example, that a simple e-learning

approach to TPD is not sufficient for success in all

domains2 of learner-centered TPD, when measured through

participant self-assessment (Douglas-Faraci 2010). Signif-

icantly, the two domains missing from the e-learning

approach are interaction and collaboration between par-

ticipants, and assessment and evaluation of the results of

the online TPD in the participants’ classrooms. In other

words, just taking TPD courses online fails in exactly the

area required for creating community as well as in that

necessary to determine the effectiveness of those courses.

Thus, although the primary concerns with online TPD that

Douglas-Faraci identified through the literature were that

programs were not rigorous and that their rigor could not,

in fact, be assessed (p. 754), self-assessment by online TPD

participants showed no concern about those aspects. This is

not to say that rigor and the need to be able to assess rigor

is unimportant, but clearly the priorities of TPD providers

and scholars in the universities and those of TPD partici-

pants in the schools do not completely align.

The goal of this study is to outline a model for a more

effective alternative to traditional teacher professional

development, one that can address the needs identified both

by TPD professionals for rigor and by participants for com-

munity building and assessment. Based on both the literature

and an on-going self-study of my own TPD activities over the

past 5 years, I have found that the most promising solution is

to combine two existing methods into a new alternative that

can either supplement or replace more traditional systems.

To that end, I take from Lave and Wenger (1991) the concept

of a community of practice (often abbreviated as CoP), and

combine with it the newer idea of a virtual community using

online social networking and communication media such

as Facebook, Twitter, teleconferencing, and blogging. This

kind of online learning community for TPD holds promise as

the most effective way for teacher professional development

programs to provide participants with continuing support,

combining the potential for rigorous content, adequate

assessment, and sustainable community.

Possibilities of online teacher professional development

communities

In order to address the need for flexibility, sustainability,

and rigor in professional development programs, online

TPD programs have emerged (Dede 2006; Schrum 1992;

Killion 2000; Koch and Fusco 2008; Lloyd and Duncan-

Howell 2010). A recently discussed topic that has captured

popular and scholarly attention is online learning commu-

nities for TPD. In the past decade, information and com-

munication technologies (ICT) and digital networks have

altered both the learning environment and the diverse roles

of learners within them. Anytime, anywhere and just-in-

time concepts are part of daily life for those who are able to

access ICT (Garber 2004; Liu 2005; Lock 2006). As Bonk

(2009) rightly points out, due to web technology, we can all

be ‘‘adventurers, explorers, writers, dreamers, and learners.

At times we move from physical to virtual and other times

reverse’’ (p. 23). ICT provides people with greater possi-

bilities and more opportunities to work collaboratively in

bridging distance and time. Having identified challenges

1 http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg107.html#sec9101,

retrieved May 11, 2012.2 The domains include: (1) variety of multimedia resources; (2)

participant interaction and collaboration; (3) instructor/facilitator

quality; (4) participant understanding and ability to implement the

skills and strategies learned; (5) whether the training was standards

aligned; and (6) assessment and evaluation.

702 K. Y. Liu

123

Page 3: A design framework for online teacher professional development communities

conventional teacher professional development models

face, with the advances in ICT and ICT infrastructures

available to schools and teachers, the teacher education

field has sparked a shift toward online community3 models

for the purpose of providing ongoing support to teachers’

professional practice. Advocates of online communities

believe that by leveraging technology, they can recreate a

‘‘we’’ that has gradually broken down into many isolated

‘‘I’s,’’ can go beyond the boundaries of countries, cultures,

and races, and can break the limits of time and space to

‘‘meet’’ at any time and any place.

The following section addresses the definitions of online

professional development communities, then considers the

goals, communication tools, and social structures of the

community, as well as the cultural, political, and economic

context, which form the foundation of the proposed design

framework.

Definitions of online professional development

community

Although widely discussed in the education field, the defi-

nition of an online community varies from a tightly knit

group of people who share important parts of their lives on a

day-to-day basis to an amorphous chat group that can be

joined (and left) by anyone with a valid password. Lave and

Wenger (1991) advanced the term community of practice

(CoP) to capture the importance of activity for fusing indi-

viduals to communities in the real world, and the importance

of communities in legitimizing individual practices. Barab

and Duffy (2000) discussed a CoP as a collection of indi-

viduals sharing mutually defined practices, beliefs, and

understandings over an extended time frame in the pursuit of

a shared enterprise. They described a CoP with the following

four characteristics: (1) shared knowledge, values, and

beliefs; (2) overlapping histories among members; (3)

mutual interdependence; and (4) mechanisms for repro-

duction. Later, Barab and Schatz (2001) extended the list to

eight characteristics. Then, based on a review of the litera-

ture and previous work, Barab et al. (2006) defined a CoP as

a persistent, sustained social network of individuals who

share and develop an overlapping knowledge base, set of

beliefs, values, history, and experiences focused on a com-

mon practice and/or mutual enterprise. From this definition,

it is obvious that CoPs are more than a temporary meeting of

like-minded individuals in a workshop or a course. They

grow, evolve, and change dynamically, transcending any

particular member and outliving any particular task.

An online community is assumed to contain some char-

acteristics of a real-world community, with additional

challenges added by the technologies and by the physical

distancing these technologies both permit and cause. Within

these parameters, there are two contrasting definitions of the

term of online community. The first simply equates online

community with a space mediated by various forms of

information technology. For example, Hagel and Amstrong

(1997) define virtual communities as a computer-mediated

space where there is an integration of content and commu-

nication with an emphasis on member-generated content.

The second view believes that online communities are new

forms of ‘‘community’’ created by participants through a

variety of web-based communication pathways. For exam-

ple, according to Rheingold (1993), online communities are

‘‘social aggregations that emerge from the Internet when

enough people carry on those public discussions long

enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of

personal relationships in cyberspace.’’

Compared to the first view, technology in the second

view is only a tool for community building; the members

develop genuine relationships and determine the nature of

the community. Combining this view with Barab, MaK-

inster, and Scheckler’s definition of a CoP, I would say that

an online community is a persistent, sustained social net-

work of individuals who, by using various forms of tech-

nologically mediated communications, share and develop

an overlapping knowledge base, set of beliefs, values,

history, and experiences focused on a common practice

and/or mutual enterprise. In other words, we need to rec-

ognize that in an online community, technology is only a

tool for community building. Therefore, technological

support is important to help build non-face-to-face com-

munication, but learning to use technology should not be

the central purpose of building an online community unless

the goal of the community is to enhance participants’

knowledge and skills in integrating technology in their

classrooms. It takes some time for members of the com-

munity to shift their focus from learning how to use the

technologies and become familiar enough with the online

environment to pay more attention to what they interact

about in the community. Conrad’s (2005) research reveals

that, having spent a considerable period of time online,

learners’ perceptions of community and online learning

shift away from technical considerations toward affective

considerations such as relationships, interconnectedness,

and familiarization among community members.

All of these definitions aside, the term ‘‘community,’’

when used to describe virtual communities, is contentious

in some circles. According to Howard Rheingold, who

invented the term virtual community and published a book

3 No single term exists for online community in the education field.

Some people use online network, some use computer-mediated

community, some use electronic community, virtual community, and

electronic networks. In this paper, online community will be used,

although the other terms will also appear when they are used in the

literature this paper cites.

A design framework for online TPD communities 703

123

Page 4: A design framework for online teacher professional development communities

of the same name in 1993, the traditional definition of a

community is of a geographically circumscribed entity

(neighborhood, village, etc.). Virtual communities are

usually dispersed geographically, and therefore are not

communities under the original definition. However, if one

considers communities to simply possess boundaries of

some sort between their members and non-members, then a

virtual community is certainly a community. Researchers

such as Conrad (2002) found that many learners lacked a

basic concept of community even after participating in

several online courses. Similarly, notions of community

within the realm of professional development communities

or professional learning communities have been used to

mean everything from small groups of individuals to entire

school districts. As Huffman (2011) observes, ‘‘the lack of

a consistently used, common definition…only serves to

confuse the practitioner’’ (p. 322).

As Hayles (2002) argues, the technologies of virtual

reality, with their potential for full-body mediation, make

the concepts of ‘‘presence’’ and ‘‘absence’’ seem irrele-

vant and also change the traditional meanings of presence

and absence. It is true that in an online community, the

concepts of presence and absence seem to be changed too.

When a group of people ‘‘meet’’ in the online community

through audio and video technology, they can see each

other and talk with each other. Are they present or absent

at the meeting? Virtual or online communities, on the

other hand, have also become a supplemental form of

communication between people who know each other

primarily in real life. When I call my father through

Skype and we both turn on the webcamera, we can see

each other while talking, using online video to create an

electronically mediated face-to-face world. My father

always says, ‘‘Oh, this is so great—I feel you are just in

front of me!’’ It seems that communications technology

has taken us beyond the one-directional media wasteland

described by Neal Postman (1985), and perhaps onto the

road to the global village Marshall McLuhan envisioned

in 1964.

Nevertheless, the creating of community online, and

especially the creating and sustaining of professional

community online, does not automatically arise from new

technology; however, well it simulates co-present reality.

Obviously, electronic and especially Internet-related tech-

nologies have greatly changed the meaning of community,

or at least the potential scope of community from the co-

present to the virtual. Nevertheless, we need to ask what is

the potential of these technologies to build communities of

practice for professional development? In other words, how

best to build a goal-centered online community of practice

that unites communication tools and social activities within

the larger cultural, political, and economic context in which

teaching and learning takes place?

A strong professional community in the real world is

characterized by shared goals such as student learning and

meaningful collaboration among faculty members—see, for

example, Hord’s five dimensions of a professional learning

community (1997) and Huffman’s subsequent operational-

ization of that model for longitudinal research (2011). An

organization that is constructed with clear purposes and

maintained with shared goals among members will develop

and sustain the capacity for community if support—struc-

tures, tools, financial, and political assistance—appropriate

to the organization’s total context can be maintained

(Kreijns et al. 2003; Garrison 2006; Shea 2006; Ryman

et al. 2009). For this reason, I follow a variation of Borko’s

‘‘model of’’ a professional development system (Borko

2004, p. 4), which places teachers, facilitators, and the

program itself within an (untheorized) context—but instead

I present it as a ‘‘model for’’ online teacher professional

development community (Geertz 1973, p. 93). Figure 1

shows a goal-centered model that places the technical and

social aspects of community within the larger cultural,

political, and economic context so that they reinforce each

other and the goals of the community. Following ideas

established in the literature, I have separated the social

aspects of community of practice into participant structures

and participant responsibilities. As I draw out the value and

implications of this model in the next section of this paper,

the reasons for this separation should become clear.

Learning goals

An online community’s direction and outcomes are greatly

influenced by the learning goals of the community—in fact,

it can be argued that the other design factors should

be determined by the goals. Barab et al. (2006) designed

the Inquiry Learning Forum (ILF) as a web-supported

community of K-12 math and science teachers who work

together to create, improve, and share inquiry-based

learning. They designed the ILF with the belief that

teachers need to be full participants in and owners of their

own virtual space. The goals of the ILF are to improve

student learning and teacher growth by supporting preser-

vice and inservice teachers in:

• teaching sound inquiry-based science and math in the

context of national and state standards and effective

pedagogical practices

• inquiring into both their own and other teachers’

classroom practices

• sharing inquiry-based resources, lesson plans, web

sites, and relevant materials to support student learning

• connecting with other teachers who have varying

degrees of experience and similar interests achieving

their professional growth goals

704 K. Y. Liu

123

Page 5: A design framework for online teacher professional development communities

Under the guidance of these specific goals, the com-

munity designed six learning opportunities for members:

Engage in online discussions, Visit ILF Classrooms,

Become part of an Inquiry Circle, Facilitate a Discussion,

Personalize your Professional Development through ILF

Involvement, and Obtain College Credit for courses offered

through the ILF. All events and activities in ILF were

designed toward achieving the original goals of the

community.

As a counter example, consider the description by Parr

and Ward (2006) of what was at first a not very successful

case of building an online community for schoolteachers.

The project, Learning Communities in the Far North

(FarNet), not to be confused with the North American

internetwork of the same name proposed in 1991, was

launched in 2001 as a number of digital opportunity pilot

projects funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Education.

The purpose of FarNet was to link teachers in ten schools

for their professional development in integrating informa-

tion and communications technology (ICT) into various

educational settings in order to improve student achieve-

ments in math, science, and technology. The project used a

web site with pages associated with each curriculum area

and all teachers who taught in that area were members.

According Parr and Ward (2005), the goal of the online

community was to make good resources available elec-

tronically and so make math, science, and technology

‘‘come alive’’ for students (p.v). Curriculum leaders were

appointed from across the schools and were responsible for

obtaining and posting resources on the pages for their

subject area. It is obvious that in this project, there were no

clear goals for the online community building and sus-

taining. Teachers were simply requested to post resources

for others to access, which is a major shift in terms

of deprivatizing practice. Therefore, there was a lack of

willingness to share among teachers. On the other hand, the

curriculum leaders in the project, without a strong guiding

purpose and shared understanding of their role, focused on

their own ideas and visions. The project was unable to

build a safe, supportive, and constructive community of

practice for the teachers; as Parr and Ward observe in their

final report (2005),

The creation of a professional learning community

is a complex process and a number of factors need

to be present before such a community will thrive.

These include cultivating a climate where teachers

are comfortable to deprivatize practice and accept

collective responsibility for teacher and student

learning. The proportion of teachers who participated

by ‘‘posting’’ resources on the FarNet site was small

and virtually confined to curriculum leaders. There

was little evidence of widespread use of the resources

available, which were predominantly electronic ver-

sions of print resources with some notable excep-

tions. Where communities appeared to operate best in

FarNet, for example the community of Maori teach-

ers, they were building on previous links. In other

cases they were sustained, albeit in a weak form, by

volunteerism (vi).

GoalsParticipants Structures

ParticipantResponsibilities

Communication ToolsPolitics

Culture

Cost (Humanware, software, hardware)

Fig. 1 An online teacher

professional development

community

A design framework for online TPD communities 705

123

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In other words, even in the sub-case of Maori teachers, in

which there was an existing base for the online community

of practice, community itself failed to thrive, and the

project was not considered a success.

However, in subsequent years, FarNet has confounded

the pessimism of the final report, not as a stand-alone

project but as an element within the larger, nation-wide

virtual learning system. Bennet and Barbour (2011) have

described efforts to work with Maori secondary students

through virtual learning networks in FarNet that show some

success. Importantly, they identify the need to integrate

TPD as vital to ensuring the continuing success of the

program. The goal here—addressing the learning needs of

Maori students—leads them to call for a unifying justifi-

cation for developing TPD addressing both the technical

issues of online education and the larger sociopolitical

context of the Maori community in New Zealand (Bennet

and Barbour 2011, 83).

These two cases show that the first and most important

step in building an online teacher professional community

is to establish clear goals, so that participants know what

they should do, what they are going to achieve, how to link

their participation activities to their classroom practice, and

feel secure to participate in online interactions. In an online

community, clear goals and specific design principles seem

to be even more important than those in a real-world

community, perhaps in part because the members of the

online community do not have many opportunities to meet

face-to-face to clarify expectations and uncertainties. The

two online community cases described above make it clear

that there are always goals in the design of an online

community, explicit or not. When placed against each

other, the Tapped In and FarNet examples show that the

goals of an online community of practice must come from

the members themselves, and cannot be imposed upon

participating teachers from the outside without considering

the needs and interests of the teachers. In other words, there

must be an organic connection between the real-world

practice of teachers and the online world of teacher pro-

fessional development, such as the needs of the Maori

students in the later development of FarNet.

Communication tools

Communication tools should be selected based on learning

goals. From observing different online communities, it is

easy to determine that the most commonly used communi-

cation tools are live chat, video, discussion board, library or

laboratory, and distance video conference tools. For exam-

ple, chat is only one of the many features of the Tapped In

interface. Other features for members include a private

office, special interest groups, threaded discussion boards,

storage for files and links, and a special K-12 Student

Campus. Special Interest Groups are primarily resource

rooms where group members store their files and links.

Groups will occasionally meet in their group rooms, but

more often they use the threaded discussion board in their

group room to communicate among themselves. As for the

ILF, four major communication tools are used: discussion

board, live chat, video classroom, and library. Live chat is

one of the more popular online communication tools

because of its instant interaction function. As Rheingold

(1993) describes, thousands of people in the world are joined

together in a cross-cultural grab bag of written conversations

known as Internet Relay Chat (IRC). IRC has enabled a

global structure to construct itself with three fundamental

elements: artificial but stable identities, quick wit, and the

use of words to construct an imagined shared context for

conversation.

Participant structures

The term ‘‘participant structure’’ was coined by Susan

Philips (1972) to describe the different ways that teachers

arrange ‘‘verbal interactions’’ with students (p. 377).

More recent work on discourse analysis suggests that

communication involves substantially more than verbal

communication, including (but not limited to) ‘‘bodies,

clothes, non-linguistic symbols, objects, tools, technolo-

gies, times and places’’ as well as ‘‘ways of acting and

interacting’’ (Gee 1999, p. 25). As Shaffer (2005) uses

the term to refer to discourse in the more general sense,

and include within the term ‘‘classroom social arrange-

ments’’ and how they impact learning, I use the term

here to refer to discourse in the online community

including non-linguistic symbols such as pictures and

videos.

In the ILF, a variety of participant structures are

designed to encourage teachers’ inquiry. One major par-

ticipant structure is the ILF Classrooms that enable ILF

members to virtually visit the classrooms of other teachers.

The home screen of the ILF contains classrooms through

the Classrooms space. After ILF members select a specific

classroom lesson, they can watch seven or eight video

segments of the implemented lesson. Community members

can view an overview of the lesson, reflective commentary

from the teachers, descriptions of teaching activity, lesson

plans, student examples, and connections to both state and

national standards. It might be true that when teachers

watch the other community members’ lessons, they can

learn the strengths and weaknesses of the lessons from the

video-taped classroom reality, the lesson plans, and the

reflections. However, because of the design constraints,

there seem to be no opportunities for the teachers who

watch the class videos to comment on the lessons, and thus

no discussion can arise between the teachers who taught

706 K. Y. Liu

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the lessons and the viewers of their lessons. Taking the

Japanese lesson study model as an example (Fernandez

2002), discussing a lesson to generate questions and con-

structive criticism, and subsequently suggest alternative

approaches, is a process of collaborative reflection. This

collaborative process can eventually enhance teachers’

daily practice and students’ learning. Designers should

therefore consider a discussion forum on video-taped les-

sons to be an important participant structure. Another pri-

mary area of interest in the ILF is the Collaboratory, a

space in which groups of teachers can come together in an

online space around some collective experience and/or

curricular interest. Each group within the Collaboratory is

referred to as an Inquiry Circle. The Inquiry Circles allow

for smaller sub-groups to collaborate and give members

control of adding documents, discussion threads, web

resources, and other ILF resources without having to con-

tact an ILF staff member, which meet the first design

principle of foster ownership and participation.

Participant responsibilities

When designing an online professional development

community for teachers, questions about the responsibili-

ties of different members of the community will emerge.

Who creates community? Who should take responsibility

for maintaining the community? Is responsibility taken or

is it given? In Conrad’s (2005) research, the adult learners

felt that they themselves were the primary architects of

their community. They named themselves as not just as

learners but also as instructors, administrators, and even

employees responsible for helping to create a sense of

community. The growth of community over time was

marked by increased levels of comfort, intimacy, and sense

of responsibility of each participant in the community.

In Parr and Ward’s (2006) FarNet case, however, some

teachers did not realize the responsibility of building up

the community. Teachers said, ‘‘This is the resource I

made, I am not going to share it with X school. What

have they done?’’ (p. 784). This statement shows that

some teachers did not take the responsibility to contribute

to the community, which in turn has negative impacts on

other teachers who might be willing to share at first place.

It is more challenging for teachers to develop a sense of

responsibility in an online environment for the reason that

most of the participants do not know each other and thus

they do not have a feeling of connectedness or a need to

take a responsibility in community building. From Parr

and Ward’s FarNet case, it can be seen that time is a

critical factor in cultivating a sense of responsibility

within the community. Teachers in an online community

need time to get to know one another and each individ-

ual’s goals and primary needs to build up a level of

familiarity. Another phenomenon shown in Parr and

Ward’s FarNet case is that contributions tend to be dis-

tributed to a small number of people in an online com-

munity. This disparity in contribution may be due to

design constraints that do not specify each participant’s

responsibilities when they first join the community or do

not provide opportunities for participant to realize that

each individual member of the community has ideas and

strengths that are valuable for the development of the

community. Unlike the simple request for teachers to post

resources to the web site in the FarNet case, the Tapped

In community brings together a design team representing

researchers, teacher educators, technology developers, and

Tapped In members to work out a robust, versatile

and scalable system that values each individual’s talents

and interests. In the system, different participants have

different goals and core activities. For example, the Help

Desk enables experienced Tapped In volunteers to engage

with new visitors, taking on some of the responsibility for

technical training while simultaneously expanding the

ranks of participants in the community. Experienced

Tapped In members can also create and manage their own

interest areas.

The success (or lack thereof) of the examples above

shows the importance of separating the social aspects of

online community into participant structures and partici-

pant responsibilities. By mandating participant structures

linked to participant responsibilities that emphasized dis-

ciplinary boundaries and hierarchy, FarNet failed to build

the kind of community teachers needed for their profes-

sional development. Tapped In, on the other hand, by

separating participant structures and responsibilities, and

by enabling participants to both select their involvement

and create new ways to engage with each other, provided a

base for participation, growth, and evolution. When com-

bined with the variety of communication tools available to

Tapped In participants (in contrast to the more restricted

webpage approach of FarNet), the result was a system that

was able to reinforce and develop the shared goals of the

community. Subsequent development of FarNet within the

larger online teaching and learning system of New Zea-

land’s bears this analysis out: allowing participants to

develop their own structures and responsibilities supported

by a greater variety of communication tools has reversed

the initial lack of success of the community building effort.

There are other design issues identified in the literature,

such as resources available to the online community

(Schlager and Schank 1997), the technical tools, audience

analysis, and budget available to the system designers

(Charalambos et al. 2004), and so forth. However, using

the model in Fig. 1, these other design issues more prop-

erly fit into the larger context. It is that larger context to

which I now turn.

A design framework for online TPD communities 707

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Cultural, political, and economic context

In the real world, TPD is influenced by many aspects, one

of which is typically labeled ‘‘context’’ (see, for example

the diagrams in Borko 2004). Loucks-Housley et al. (2003)

identify nine contextual factors influencing professional

development such as students, teachers and teachers’

learning needs, organizational culture, and available

resources. As before, rather than proliferating factors, I

organize them in the model in Fig. 1 into cultural, political,

and economic factors.

Culture of collaboration

It is widely accepted that teachers typically work in iso-

lation from their peers, and the prevailing professional

expectation is that they achieve competence on their own

(Lortie 1975; MacLaughlin and Talbert 2001). This tradi-

tional culture left teachers to practice as they chose and

impeded teachers’ professional development. However, as

MacLaughlin and Talbert discovered, there were schools

and departments where teachers worked together in com-

munities of practice united around shared beliefs and

responsibilities for teaching in a culture of collaboration.

In research on online communities, collaborative culture

has also been identified as a supporting factor. In Selwyn’s

(2000) study, a group of teachers used an established forum

as an information and empathetic exchange resource over

2 years of postings and discussion. One recurring form of

discussion involved participants using the forum as an

information sharing environment. In Nicholson and Bond’s

(2003) study, an electronic discussion board was used as

a place for preservice teachers to share experiences and

ideas. The electronic discussion board became a place

where problems could be discussed, potential solutions

suggested, and collaborative reflections on students and the

practice of teaching supported.

Politics of teaching, learning, and professional

development

In the real world, teacher professional development com-

munities are influenced by internal and external politics.

This is often the case as well with online learning commu-

nities. Will online teacher professional development obtain

political support from decision makers? If so, will they draw

away money from other parts of the professional develop-

ment budget, causing conflict within the field? In addition,

how will online participation be credited? As mentioned

above, the foundational documents for NCLB (and now

Race To The Top) attempt to place comprehensive teacher

professional development within the overall regime of stu-

dent assessment: core curriculum, standardized testing, and

value-added assessment of teachers and schools. In so doing,

however, the focus on community goals necessary to build a

community of practice has been lost. Collaboration is not

enhanced by hierarchy, as the initial experience of FarNet

shows quite clearly, nor is it encouraged by the pitting of

teacher against teacher, school against school inherent to

high-stakes testing. Moreover, although online technology

holds out great potential for learning and education, as

scholars such as Bonk (2009) repeatedly observe, it also

holds out significant potential for surveillance and admin-

istrative abuse resulting from the loss of privacy of practice

required by collaboration among teachers. The attempt to

marry collaboration among participants with the assessment

of individual participants in online portfolio systems has

already been shown to stunt development of novice teachers

(Liu 2011). There is no reason to believe results would be

different for experienced teachers, especially given the

current political climate in the United States with respect to

K-12 education. These policy issues need to be addressed at

the school, district, and state level if teachers are going to

feel empowered to participate, and online TPD communities

are going to develop to their full potential.

Economics of online community

Construction cost and long-term funding is very important

for the success of online learning communities (Bonk

2009), and financial support for teachers to participate in

the online learning communities and related activities such

as intermittent face-to-face meetings are vital to help

teachers maintain ongoing participation. The ILF design

report mentioned receiving a three-year grant, but did not

detail the amount of the grant or how they spent the money.

It is worth noting that there are few interactions or updates

after 2004 in the ILF online community. It is inevitable that

constructing and maintaining an online teacher profes-

sional development community requires financial support;

personnel, software, and hardware are important costs

too. For example, the adoption of Telepresence technology

at schools and universities makes long-distance meetings

comparable to face-to-face ones. However, not every

school or university has the capacity to purchase such

expensive equipment without proper funding. Less expen-

sive technologies, such as WebEx conferencing or even

Skype conference calls, while within the reach of less

wealthy organizations, do not provide the same quality of

experience as Telepresence, and are dependent on web-

connected computers and the successful functioning of

distributed Internet technology. In this regard, the eco-

nomic and political factors are inseparable: efforts to

internationalize teacher professional development, for

example, have repeatedly foundered on both the cost of

efficient telecommunications technology and the desire of

708 K. Y. Liu

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national governments to surveil and control cross-border

information exchange.

The combination of the cultural, political, and economic

context for online TPD communities thus has to be con-

sidered in tandem with the internal synergy of participant

structures, participant responsibilities, and communication

tools in support of the participants’ shared learning goals. It

is entirely possible that one or more goals articulated by

participants are technically feasible but politically unlikely.

Conversely, it is possible that economic support in terms of

high-cost communications technology is available, but lack

of attention to shared goals leads to failure of the com-

munity to thrive anyway. For this reason, it is vital that all

stakeholders participate in the design of the community,

even though ultimately it is the teachers and their students

who will form the core of the organization.

A final question to consider is, given the universal

model presented in Fig. 1 for an online teacher professional

development community, what might be the role of uni-

versities in the new culture of learning? After all, univer-

sity teacher education programs have long been central to

TPD, particularly in providing graduate or continuing

education credit usable for maintaining licensure. Although

the details will certainly be contingent upon the needs of a

given group of teachers and their students, university-based

TPD programs can stimulate and help sustain online

communities by providing access to content and peda-

gogical knowledge, and a certain measure of technical

leadership. In addition, their existing role in teacher

licensure makes them ideal for providing the institutional

framework and experience in assessing and granting TPD

credit. Nevertheless, as the examples of Tapped In and

FarNet show, it is vitally important to allow participants to

shape the goals and especially the participant structures and

responsibilities of the community if there is to be both

initial success and sustained engagement as well. In these

areas, the role of the university-based teacher educators is

perhaps best limited to that of facilitator, in order to avoid

the imposition of external goals, structures, and responsi-

bilities, resulting in the shutting down of involvement by

all but a handful of participants. Finally, universities are

uniquely placed to provide an audience for participants’

successes through research, publication, and presentation,

further expanding the active role of teachers in the devel-

opment of their own discipline.

Conclusions and implications

This paper presents a design framework for online teacher

professional development communities grounded on social

and pedagogical theories as well as past efforts docu-

mented in the literature. The framework summarized in

Fig. 1 that results from this research places shared learning

goals at the center of a system that develops social and

technical factors in support of those goals within an overall

cultural, political, and economic context to produce an

effective and sustainable online community for teacher

professional development.

Although existing research presents some successful

cases of online TPD communities in aspects such as

improved sense of community and collaboration among

online community members, there is need for further

investigation into the effectiveness and qualities of online

professional development communities, especially in terms

of promoting teaching practice and student performance.

At the same time, it should be recognized that valuing

online community does not mean devaluing real commu-

nity of co-present interaction. Although research on the

interaction between online and co-present communities of

practice remains to be done, it seems self-evident that

seeing and meeting each other in a healthy, real-world

community would only contribute energy to building and

sustaining a related online community. In the end, the goal

of improved teaching and improved learning through

improved community is the important point; whether that is

accomplished through face-to-face workshops, confer-

ences, and training sessions, or through collaborative

online communities of practice is entirely contingent upon

the needs and abilities of the teachers and their students.

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