Another Draft of C2 (after SSS 21 Feb 08)

6.1.2 PD should be collaborative

PD should be collaborative and therefore any teacher PD program should enhance collaboration [Ref]. Many online PD programs have emerged to address the limitation of traditional PD programs. The common argument is that online PD programs in which the Internet is their main medium provides greater opportunities for collaboration between teachers, educators, or experts, not only in the physical site, but also in the virtual world [Ref]. In relation to this argument, the current study suggests two contrasting findings. On the one hand, Ann, the high use Internet teacher, used the Internet to collaborate with other learners (e.g. teachers, experts, students) locally and globally and this enriched her learning. On the other hand, Jack, the low use Internet teacher, did not find the Internet yet as an effective tool for collaboration. I discovered that Jack preferred face-to-face collaboration. Given the supposed benefits of online collaboration, this raises the question of why this why this was the case for Jack.
The PD program that I offered to Jack considered the collaboration aspect significantly, since this was one of the characteristics of effective PD [ref]. The Internet-PD model I applied was trying to use the Internet as a tool of our ongoing collaboration. At the same time, the researcher attempted to promote the potential of the Internet as a means for collaboration to enhance PD, by continuously seeking opportunities to connect Jack with online communities such as Math Forum.

Jack appeared to be collaborative, either with the researcher or his colleagues, but hardly in the virtual world. The collaboration between the researcher and Jack are evident, for example, by Jack giving many spaces to the researcher to conduct her research plans, Jack and the researcher developing an investigation project together, and so on. Jack’s collaborations with his colleagues were reflected on many occasions, such as Jack and other Year 2 teachers collaboratively developing Year 2 teaching planning and Jack sharing websites in his school workshop.

However, collaboration with Jack using an online approach seemed more difficult than face-to-face collaboration. The researcher’s efforts such as emailing the online resources to Jack, and organising the resources into blog often led to uncertain results, in particular when Jack neither replied to my emails nor commented on the online resources I had provided. Other studies have also found similar challenges in engaging teachers in online collaboration [e.g. Ref]. In fact, expecting teachers to engage in online collaboration should meet many requirements, such as establishing good relationships and trust with other members of a community of learners with a similarity of interest in the content and the relationship need to be mutual ref], and these aspects were not the main considerations in my study. Personal situation of Jack, including his busy schedule and his preferences at this stage for face-to-face collaboration, appeared to be the main factors for not embracing yet the potential of the Internet as a collaboration tool for his professional development. However, I believe that it may be just a matter of time before Jack embraces the Internet because Jack lives in a digital environment and Jack was a beginning teacher who spent most of his time organising his teaching plan, and so currently does not have much time to intensively engage in online community learning.