Informal Professional Learning Research Articles

PRESCHOOL TEACHERS PREPARATION FOR WORKING WITH CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS IN CALIFORNIA

Following the realization of the importance of early development and the low quality of early childhood education programs in the United States the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) were established to develop professional standards for special educators. It was found that the most important factor in providing education for children with special needs is well-trained teaching staff. Principles for ensuring the existence of high-quality programs for kindergartens began to be developed. A new concept of “Developmentally Appropriate Practice” was formed by The National Association for Nursery Education (NANE and seven standards for the professional training of early childhood teachers were proposed. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed by the Congress in 1975. IDEA regulates how states and public agencies provide early intervention, special education, and other services. The state has established grants to improve the quality of school education by attracting and retaining effective teachers. It was found that 7 million, or 14% of all public school received special education services. The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing is revising the Special Education Standards for Children with Disabilities. The commission developed draft teaching, administration, and preparation program guidelines in collaboration with a technical advisory group of early childhood education professionals. It was clarified that there are additional internship programs in California, Completion of the internship program leads to a Certificate of Eligibility to Teach, which is identical to completion of a traditional teacher preparation program. It was concluded that the policy of the Department of Education, the educational laws of the United States are aimed at encouraging participation in formal and informal professional learning, but it should be a continuous process, because adults providing care and education are responsible for the progress of children throughout their lives.

Informal professional learning through collaborative action research: Fostering backstage dialogue among new EAP teachers

Researchers agree that informal professional learning is crucial for developing new EAP teachers' expertise, but there exist few teacher-centred accounts of how context-specific projects and practices create favourable conditions for such learning. Through presenting and analysing a collaborative action research (CAR) project, this paper illustrates how CAR can facilitate informal learning among new EAP teachers. The project was conducted in the context of a large-scale EAP course at a Singaporean university, where three teachers, each possessing under three years’ experience teaching EAP, co-created an 11-page analytic rubric and reflected on their collaboration. Drawing on the written reflections of these three teachers, this paper examines how collaborative rubric development created a “backstage” setting where teachers engaged in trusting and stimulating dialogue, aimed at addressing shared concerns surrounding performance expectations and scoring practices. Through the process of drafting, revising, disseminating, and using the rubric, the three teachers clarified and adjusted their own assessment-related beliefs and practices, reflected on the limits of using rubrics to align assessment standards, and experimented with different methods of sharing their findings with other teachers. In the process, the rubric was reinvented as a dialogical tool that enabled teachers to scaffold professional learning for each other.

How Do Teachers Collaborate in Informal Professional Learning Activities? An Epistemic Network Analysis

Teachers turn to many sources for support and professional learning, including social media-based communities that have shown promise to help teachers access resources and facilitate productive exchanges. Although such online communities show promise, questions about their quality for providing a suitable learning environment remain insufficiently answered. In this study, we examine how teachers’ engagement on Twitter (now known as “X”) may adhere to characteristics of high-quality professional development (PD) activities. In that, we employ advanced conversational analysis techniques that extend the primarily descriptive methods used in prior research. Specifically, we collected data from three Twitter communities related to Advanced Placement Biology (N = 2,040 tweets, N = 93 teachers). Qualitative two-cycle content analyses derived both tweet content and sentiment. Using epistemic network analyses, we examined the collaborative structures to examine how participation patterns can identify characteristics of high-quality online PD. Results indicate that some teachers use Twitter with a content focus and coherent to their individual contexts and prior knowledge. Notably, differences in collaboration and participation patterns by teachers’ overall activity level hint at the existence of an online community of practice. More active teachers communicated more about how their individual contexts relate to instruction, whereas less active teachers exhibited more targeted engagement, for instance, related to sharing teaching resources and organizing learning opportunities. Overall, this study illustrates how Twitter may provide a meaningful learning environment to teachers so that it can serve as a relevant avenue for their professional learning.

Social networking sites as affordable tools for high-potential personal learning networks: the case of teachers as learners in Vietnam

AbstractWhile a great deal has been published about the educational value of social networking sites (SNSs) for teachers, less has focused on teachers who are arguably more dependent on these virtual platforms for informal professional learning due to financial constraints and a lack of regular in-service professional development. Situating this study in Vietnam and focusing on teachers teaching English as a foreign language, we examined how these teachers have adapted SNSs, a tool typically used in leisure and social life, into online personal learning networks. The evidence was collected from 393 teachers’ responses to an online survey. The results from descriptive and non-parametric inferential tests revealed three main findings: (1) Teachers engage in a variety of professional learning activities using SNSs with high frequency, regardless of their self-perceived levels of technology competence or teaching experience; (2) Teachers make use of online groups on SNSs for professional topics and their preferences of topics are not likely to be determined by their experience, except for the topics of classroom management techniques and knowledge about learners; (3) The most decisive factors these teachers associated with effective professional learning on SNSs include time availability, reliability of information and materials, personal information privacy and desire to learn. Teachers’ perceptions about these factors are influenced by the frequency of their SNS use and professional work experience. The implications of these findings for teacher professional development in Vietnam, and other countries in similar economic circumstances, are also discussed.

Working Across Boundaries: School Leaders Redefining Communities of Practice Through Twitter

Attrition rates among school leaders have risen in recent years, and scholars cite a lack of meaningful connections and responsive professional learning as leading reasons why they are leaving the field. School leaders are called to navigate unfamiliar and complex challenges, often working in isolation with limited opportunities for collaboration and professional growth. Social media forums, like Twitter, have potential to support a Community of Practice to facilitate learning around school leadership; however, there is a lack of scholarship exploring how school leaders use social media to support their needs. This mixed-methods study used sentiment and content analysis along with a phronetic iterative approach to explore how school leaders use Twitter to connect with others in the field. The umbrella categories of efficacy, agency, and resiliency emerged from the analysis, offering a glimpse into potential connections made through social media. The findings of this exploratory study suggest that principals are seeking connection, encouragement, and professional learning, yet further development in this area could help inform more formal practices to fill the gap in access to informal professional learning.

Informalities in the art museum: mobilizing educators’ professional learning for policy renewal

As art museums reckon with their colonial roots and ongoing exclusions, critical—if not activist—discourse and approaches have begun to inform even establishment museums. However authentic, intentional, or successful such efforts have been to date, this trend has resulted in exhibitions, programming, and, for some, structural change that imagine individual, collective, and institutional transformation is possible. It is in this context that professional development focused on equity and social change is on the rise. Looking beyond training, this chapter examines informal professional learning; specifically, its role and value in supporting progressive reimaginings of who art museums are for and what they can do. Drawing on qualitative research I conducted with gallery educators in Scotland during the first wave of COVID-19, I consider how informal learning can be leveraged to enact personal and organizational change in a post-pandemic future. In my discussion I propose a tentative framework for critically engaged informal learning and key areas for policy renewal in art museums. Mobilizing this data for critical analysis responds to both a paucity of literature on transformative professional learning in art museums and a lack of research and policy attention to informal learning among educators more broadly.

Headteachers and the pandemic: Themes from a review of literature on leadership for professional learning in complex times

ABSTRACTThis paper draws from a review of the global literature on school leadership during the first 30 months of the pandemic (2020–2022), when educational leaders were faced with complexity on an unprecedented scale. COVID-19 challenged school leadership, providing opportunities to reflect on: leadership practice within and beyond school contexts; building relationships with wider communities and external stakeholders; established bureaucratic systems and ways of working (Author et al. under review). School leaders’ reliance on organisational stability, hierarchy and standardised practice was also challenged: reflective practice was needed, whilst responding to complex and demanding situations. Increased teacher autonomy and agency was encouraged and embraced, with ‘profound collaboration borne out of necessity and urgency’ (p. 393), highlighting the fluid practice of leadership rather than the role specificities of a leader. As school systems return to the business of in-person schooling and further away from the shock of the pandemic, the article renews calls to learn from experience and innovation. Three aspects are discussed, for supporting the development of school leadership/leaders capable of navigating complexity: school leadership; informal professional learning; formal professional learning. Our analysis provides insights into advancing professional learning approaches: accounting for complexity; enhancing teaching and learning; strengthening educator empowerment.

How do teachers learn to teach international students? Teachers’ informal professional learning in international vocational education

ABSTRACT The majority of the literature in the field of international education focuses on the experiences of international students, while much less is known about how teachers learn to teach this cohort. Research on teachers’ informal professional learning and critical moments of growth in their endeavour to enhance the learning experiences of international students in the vocational education and training sector is even scarcer. This article responds to the dearth of existing literature. related to teachers’ professional learning in international vocational education It is based on a study that includes semi-structured interviews with 102 staff in Australian vocational education and training. The article uses positioning theory as a conceptual frame to analyse teachers’ narratives of informal professional learning relation to teaching international students. The findings show that teachers position international students as valuable resources contributing to their informal professional development. The study indicates that it is crucial for teachers’ on-the-job learning experiences to be factored into the broader policy frameworks concerning teacher professional development. The article provides the evidence base to inform the development of situated and targeted professional learning for teachers teaching international students.

Pursuing professional learning by using social media: how do instructional designers apply self-regulated learning?

The instructional design and technology field are dynamic, requiring instructional designers to stay abreast through timely professional learning. Social media offers characteristics to collapse the time, geographical, and financial limitations of informal professional learning, but challenges exist. Continuous professional learning requires proactive actions, wherein self-regulated learning (SRL) plays an important role. However, not all professionals know the effective strategies to promote SRL skills. This study examines instructional designers’ (N = 17) experiences of professional learning on social media through an SRL lens. Data collected through semi-structured interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings include SRL strategies conducted by instructional designers and the challenges they faced. This study informs instructional-design professionals and educators of ways to encourage continuous professional learning using social media while fostering SRL simultaneously.

Making spaces for collaborative action and learning: Reflections on teacher‐led decolonising initiatives from a professional learning network in England

AbstractThis article draws on the experiences of teachers and teacher educators within the “Bristol Decolonising Network”, an informal professional learning network based in South West England, to share examples of teacher‐led decolonising/antiracist initiatives. The seven vignettes presented cover a range of subject areas across the English Secondary school curriculum, with varying rationales, foci, forms and intended outcomes. For this Special Issue, we look across these cases to consider links between teacher‐led decolonising and antiracist initiatives and professional learning. We suggest that professional learning is both a condition for, and outcome of, teachers' engagement in such work; and that extending collaboration beyond hierarchical and institutional boundaries is a key enabler for progress on this agenda.

State Policy and Funding in Gifted Education

Policy and funding influence equitable education for students who are gifted. The concept of equity is examined through variations in policy and in funding at the state, district, and local levels. Challenges and barriers to equity in policy and funding include policy structures, where policy provides guidance without accountability measures, or where policy does include systemic evaluation for improvement. Examples have been drawn from four different states in different areas of the United States and multiple examples from various districts are presented. State level mandates for identification of and service to gifted learners are presented, including those following the Exceptional Children’s Education Act and those not. Variations in definitions of gifted are articulated. District level policies, demonstrating local control, illustrate ranges of service and guidance. Examples of the broad range of funding available for gifted programming are articulated and include base funding as well as formulaic metrics. Adequate resources for equitable gifted education are explored by considering expenditures and allocations of funding, frequently dependent on locale, school size, and economic resources. A call for action suggests practices to improve equity in gifted education include building and implementing strong advocacy skills, pursuing fiscal support for services for gifted learners, and committing to a professional developed workforce through formal and informal professional learning for educators and policymakers. Educator attitudes and beliefs and public perceptions that may perpetuate myths are examined in relation to equitable services for gifted students.

Primary teachers’ professional learning during a COVID-19 school lockdown

ABSTRACT Background The COVID-19 crisis forced education providers around the world to cancel contact teaching in schools as part of measures to limit contact between people and to slowdown the spread of the virus. The rapid and unexpected transition to distance teaching in the beginning of the pandemic posed an unprecedented challenge for teachers and placed a significant demand on their informal professional learning. This study focused on Finnish primary teachers’ professional learning domains and activities during the first weeks of Finland’s COVID-19 school lockdown. Purpose The aim was to understand what and how primary teachers learnt during the beginning of the distance teaching period. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted individually with 20 Finnish primary school teachers, all of whom had been delivering distance teaching from the beginning of the lockdown, during the fourth week of the distance teaching period. Two separate qualitative analyses were undertaken. Findings The first analysis indicated that teachers’ professional learning involved more than progress in the most self-evident and apparent technological knowledge domain: learning was also firmly connected to pedagogical knowledge and coping skills. The second analysis identified the individual learning activities, such as learning by doing, experimenting and considering one’s own teaching practice, and revealed three levels of collective learning activities (with a close colleague, in the school community and in larger online communities) carried out with the aim of improving distance teaching. Conclusions The study draws attention to primary teachers’ multifaceted professional learning domains and the activities entered into during the rapid shift from contact to distance teaching. It highlights that even in emergency circumstances, teachers’ individual and collective learning processes are interrelated and supplementary to each other. Educators’ hard-earned understanding achieved in relation to distance teaching should be nurtured and refined to further benefit and support the profession.

Data-Related Ethics Issues in Technologies for Informal Professional Learning

Professional and lifelong learning are a necessity for workers. This is true both for re-skilling from disappearing jobs, as well as for staying current within a professional domain. AI-enabled scaffolding and just-in-time and situated learning in the workplace offer a new frontier for future impact of AIED. The hallmark of this community’s work has been i) data-driven design of learning technology and ii) machine-learning enabled personalized interventions. In both cases, data are the foundation of AIED research and data-related ethics are thus central to AIED research. In this paper we formulate a vision how AIED research could address data-related ethics issues in informal and situated professional learning. The foundation of our vision is a secondary analysis of five research cases that offer insights related to data-driven adaptive technologies for informal professional learning. We describe the encountered data-related ethics issues. In our interpretation, we have developed three themes: Firstly, in informal and situated professional learning, relevant data about professional learning – to be used as a basis for learning analytics and reflection or as a basis for adaptive systems - is not only about learners. Instead, due to the situatedness of learning, relevant data is also about others (colleagues, customers, clients) and other objects from the learner’s context. Such data may be private, proprietary, or both. Secondly, manual tracking comes with high learner control over data. Thirdly, learning is not necessarily a shared goal in informal professional learning settings. From an ethics perspective, this is particularly problematic as much data that would be relevant for use within learning technologies hasn’t been collected for the purposes of learning. These three themes translate into challenges for AIED research that need to be addressed in order to successfully investigate and develop AIED technology for informal and situated professional learning. As an outlook of this paper, we connect these challenges to ongoing research directions within AIED – natural language processing, socio-technical design, and scenario-based data collection - that might be leveraged and aimed towards addressing data-related ethics challenges.

Promoting socially just schools through professional learning: lessons from four US principals in rural contexts

ABSTRACT The concept of professional learning, with the principal as lead learner working towards the institutional goal of social justice, is the focus of this descriptive qualitative study. The purpose was to examine the actions and behaviours of US rural principals as they demonstrate professional learning to ensure social justice for marginalised students. Multiple iterations of coding the field notes and interview data resulted in the following themes: Professional Learning in a Social Context; Professional Learning in a Culture of Care; and Professional Learning for Positive Change. This study confirmed that social justice practices for marginalised children may be taught by leading through informal professional learning and is accomplished through learning in a social context for others to observe and hear, development of a culture of care, and focus on positive change in beliefs and attitudes. Professional learning that is embedded in the daily work of schools is the most viable strategy for rural teachers to incorporate social justice practices in their daily work. One implication from these findings is that principals must first become social justice role models and competently practice socially just behaviours themselves. Based on findings from this study, a model for professional learning is offered.

Experiencing Transformation of Professional Identity: From Teaching to Leadership in a Small Rural Primary School in Cyprus

The study used the Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002) model on teacher professional growth to investigate the changes and the transition of professional identity when a deputy head teacher was appointed as an acting head teacher in a small rural primary school in Cyprus. The head teacher had no previous experience in headship, and did not receive any training or followed an induction course to the job. The goal of the study was to identify ways to support novice acting head teachers for effective leadership in the complexities of small primary schools. Data was collected through diary notes and semi-structured interviews using thematic analysis of qualitative data. The analysis revealed the importance of the interaction between the external stimuli and information through informal professional learning in the role set and the personal knowledge and previous experience. Feelings of isolation as the main outcome of this experience enabled changes in leadership practice through enactment and reflection. The teacher’s suggestions for a professional learning program could be the contribution of her personal experience on the educational context.

The Impact of Service-Learning on EFL Teacher Candidates’ Academic and Personal Development

<p style="text-align:justify">Despite its well-documented benefits for training a wide range of professionals, including teacher candidates in almost all content areas, the incorporation of service-learning into foreign language teacher education is relatively new, and most research only dealt with narrative accounts of non-work-related charitable activities. Consequently, this study sought to investigate the impact of the 20-hour peer-tutoring project on the teaching beliefs, community service attitudes, personal and professional development of 14 Turkish EFL teacher candidates. A comparison between their pre- and post-service metaphors revealed a conceptual shift not only in their teaching perspectives from the behaviorist to constructivist paradigm for knowledge acquisition, but also in their community partnership approaches from the unidirectional to reciprocal pattern of altruism towards their tutees. The classification of their written reflections into six types of significant learning demonstrated that despite a relatively greater focus on expressing their foundational knowledge and application practices, a more balanced distribution of learning gains was achieved between the two overarching spheres of academic learning and personal growth, when coursework engagement and multimodal reflections were co-implemented. They reported developing effective teacher dispositions, interpersonal skills and social responsibility, valued intrinsic rewards for their contributions to the youth well-being, and also appreciated the informal professional learning opportunities the peer-tutoring service offered, though without establishing their own learning agendas.</p>

“I’m finally getting that help that I needed”: Early career teacher induction and professional learning

This paper reports findings from a study of early career teachers (ECTs) in Western Australia. The aim of this study was to investigate the professional learning activities of ECTs and the perceived impact of these on their professional development. Data were gathered via two online surveys and interviews. Findings reveal that ECTs participated in a range of formal and informal professional learning activities which were accessed through the Department of Education and their schools. The activities that had the greatest perceived impact on professional development were engaging in informal dialogue with colleagues and participation in an in-class coaching programme. Results lend support to the criticism of the unhelpful dichotomy between formal and informal learning in the provision of professional learning activities for teachers, and ECTs especially. They also highlight the critical role played by relationships and school contexts in ensuring the future generation of teachers are equipped to provide high-quality teaching and will remain resilient and committed to the profession beyond the early career years.

Facebook as a mechanism for informal teacher professional learning in Indonesia

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the use of Facebook as a medium for, and process of, teachers’ informal professional learning regarding mathematical and pedagogical knowledge. Facebook responses to four inter-related posts about mathematics examples from Facebook users (N = 117) were captured and systematically analysed using content analysis. The data were examined through the lens of the five characteristics of the Effective Professional Development framework. The results identified different types of responses to the four Facebook posts including the opening of learning opportunities, rich mathematical and pedagogical discussions, respondents’ appreciations and direct impacts of the posts, as well as the acknowledgement of the misalignment between the proposed ideas and current teaching practices in Indonesia. These responses provided evidence that all five characteristics of the framework were apparent and highlighted the role of Facebook in supporting teacher informal professional learning within the Indonesian context. The limitations of such social networking-based research and implications for teacher professional development are provided.

Examining Elementary Teachers' Use of Online Learning Environments: An Exploratory Study

This article presents the results of a study that examined elementary teachers' use of online learning environments for their informal professional learning in literacy instruction. Forty-five elementary teachers from a metropolitan area in Ontario, Canada, completed an online survey and participated in a semistructured interview. Survey and interview data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and qualitative methods. Key findings include the types of online learning environments used most often by participants and the motivational factors that influence participants' use of Web-based learning environments for their informal professional learning in literacy instruction. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Life Sciences Teachers Negotiating Professional Development Agency in Changing Curriculum Times

Background This article probes teacher responses to three curricular reform initiatives from a South African situated contextual perspective. It focuses on Life Sciences teachers who have initially reported feeling overwhelmed by this rapidly changing curriculum environment: adopting and re-adapting to the many expected shifts. The research question posed is: How do teachers negotiate and reinterpret their professional roles and responsibilities in the continually changing environment? Material and methods A qualitative research design engaged dialogically with 8 Life Science teachers from moderately -resourced schools located North of Durban generating insights that were central to their shifting agency of their teacher professional development (TPD). Results Our findings show these LS teachers are resilient to the changing curriculum times; their collegiality and agentic actions allows for divisions of labour, sustainable ties and strategies for walking the talk. Conclusions The key features needed for the initiation of an informal professional learning community such as collegiality, shared value and vision for teaching and learning are revealed.