Purposeful Collaboration through Professional Learning Communities: Teacher Educators’ Challenges

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected the teaching practicum component of initial teacher education programmes in significant ways. School-based placement could not take place, but teacher educators still needed to ensure that the teaching practicum component complied with policy. The aim of this study is to indicate how work-integrated learning teacher educators created professional learning communities among an entire population of 7 041 student teachers enrolled for the Baccalaureus Educationis degree, the challenges they faced and how they managed these challenges. The professional learning community model of Hord (2009) was used as a conceptual framework for this study. In this qualitative multi-site case study, document analysis was the primary data collection method. Journals and WhatsApp messages kept by the two work-integrated learning teacher educators and the minutes of virtual work-integrated learning meetings were analysed using narrative and thematic analysis. The findings indicated four main challenges, namely constituting the professional learning communities and developing the alternative task, dealing with issues related to group demographics and diversity, connectivity, technology and collaborating in learning in a remote environment, and lastly, providing continuous feedback, support and guidance. Recommendations for future practice are discussed.