Understanding teacher learning in professional learning networks (PLNs): The emergence of lived learning experiences

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.62695/ZEZD6789

Keywords:

Knowledge, knowing, professional learning, PLNs, emergence

Abstract

This paper reveals the nature of teachers’ professional learning in online professional learning networks (PLNs) by narrating both my learning experiences and my understanding of the acquired theories (e.g., Gnosis, Episteme, Enactivism and Complexity Theory) from a seminar. The seminar made my learning experience the moments of wondering, discovering, struggling, and transforming, thereby resulting in my knowing about the acquired theories. These moments and the theories enabled me to reflect upon the conventional teacher professional learning and to explore the nature of teacher professional learning in PLNs such as knowledge, doing and being as a whole, learnable participatory position, emergence and understanding, true professional learning, and affordances of PLNs for teacher professional learning.

Author Biography

Xiong Wang, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

Xiong Wang, PhD, is an Assistant Lecturer from the Department of Secondary Education, University of Alberta. Her research interests focus on teachers’ professional learning, online learning and assessment in mathematics education. Her current research project is about investigating the nature of the relatively new phenomena of mathematics teacher professional learning through social networks (e.g., Twitter and blogs) based on complexity thinking.

References

Aoki, T. (1996). Narrative and narration in curricular places. In Pinar, W. & Irwin, R. (Eds.).

(2005). Curriculum in a new key: The completed works of Ted T. Aoki. Lawrence Erlbaum.

Ball, D., Hill, H. C., Bass, H. (2005). Knowing mathematics for teaching: Who knows mathematics well enough to teach third grade and how do we decide? American Educator, 29(1), 14–17, 20–22, 43–46.

Ball, D., Thames, M., & Phelps, G. (2008). Content knowledge for Teaching: What makes

it so special? Journal of Teacher Education, 59(5), 389–407.

Barron, M., Cobo, C., Munoz-Najar, & Ciarrusta, I. S. (2021, February 18). The changing

role of teachers and technologies amidst the COVID 19 pandemic: key findings

from a cross-country study. World Bank Blogs. https://blogs.worldbank.org/

education/changing-role-teachers-and-technologies-amidst-covid-19-pandemickey-

findings-cross

Beach, P., & Willows, D. (2014). Investigating teachers' exploration of a professional

development website: An innovative approach to understanding the factors that

motivate teachers to use internet-based resources. Canadian Journal of Learning

and Technology, 40(3), 1–16.

Borba, M. C., & Llinares, S. (2012). Online mathematics teacher education: overview of

an emergent field of research. ZDM Mathematics Education, 44(6), 697–704.

Boud, D., & Walker, D. (1998). Promoting reflection in professional courses: The

challenge of context. Studies in higher education, 23(2), 191–206.

Brescia, W. F., & Miller, M. T. (2006). What’s it worth? The perceived benefits of

instructional blogging. Electronic Journal for the Integration of Technology in

Education, 5(1), 44–52.

Brooks, C., & Gibson, S. (2012). Professional learning in a digital age. Canadian Journal

of Learning and Technology, 38(2), 1–17.

Chambers, C. (1987). Phenomenology and Hermeneutics. University of Victoria.

Charalambous, C. Y., & Pitta-Pantazi, D. (2015). Perspectives on priority mathematics

education: Unpacking and understanding a complex relationship linking teacher

knowledge, teaching, and learning. In L. D. English, D. Kirshner (Eds.), Handbook of

International Research in Mathematics Education (3rd ed.; pp. 19–59). Routledge.

Dash, S., de Kramer, R. M., O’Dwyer, L. M., Masters, J., & Russell, M. (2012). Impact of

online professional development on teacher quality and student achievement in

fifth grade mathematics. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 45(1),

–26.

Davis, B. (1996). Teaching mathematics: Toward a sound alternative (Vol. 7). Taylor &

Francis.

Davis, B. (2004). Inventions of Teaching: A Genealogy. Lawrence Erlbaum.

Davis, B., & Simmt, E. (2006). Mathematics-for-teaching: An ongoing investigation of

the mathematics that teachers (need to) know. Educational Studies in

Mathematics, 61(3), 293–319.

Davis, B., & Sumara D. (2008). Complexity as a theory of education. TCI: Transnational

Curriculum Inquiry, 5(2), 33–44.

Davis, B., & Sumara, D. (2010). Curriculum forms: On the assumed shapes of knowing

and knowledge. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 32(6), 821–845.

Davis, B., Sumara, D., & Kieren, T. E. (1996). Cognition, co-emergence, curriculum.

Journal of Curriculum Studies, 28(2), 151–169.

Deng, L., & Yuen, A. H. (2011). Towards a framework for educational affordances of

blogs. Computers & education, 56(2), 441–451.

Doll, W. (2012). Complexity and the culture of curriculum. Complicity: An International

Journal of Complexity and Education, 9(1), 10–29.

Ellis, J. (1998). Interpretive inquiry as a formal research process. In J. Ellis (Ed.), Teaching

from understanding: Teachers as interpretative inquirer (pp. 15–32). Garland

Publishing.

Francis-Poscente, K. & Jacobsen, M. (2013). Synchronous Online Collaborative

Professional Development for Elementary Mathematics Teachers. The International

Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 14(3), 319–343.

Gadamer, H. G. (2001). Gadamer in conversation: Reflections and commentary. Edited

and translated by R. Palmer. Yale University Press.

Gadamer, H. G. (1989). Truth and method. Continuum Press.

Luehmann, A. L., & Tinelli, L. (2008). Teacher professional identity development with

social networking technologies: learning reform through blogging. Educational

Media International, 45(4), 323–333.

Hur, J. W., & Brush, T. (2009). Teacher participation in online communities: Why do

teachers want to participate in self-generated online communities of K-12

teachers? Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 41(3), 279–303.

Jardine, D. W. (2015). On Hermeneutics. In K. Tobin & S. R. Steinberg (Eds.), Doing

Educational Research (2nd ed.; pp. 235–254). Sense Publishers.

Kieran, C., Krainer K., & Shaughnessy, J. M. (2013). Linking research to practice:

Teachers as key stakeholders in mathematics education research. In K.

Clements, A. Bishop, C. Keitel, J. Kilpatrick, and F. Leung (Eds.), Third International

Handbook of Research in Mathematics Education (pp. 361–392). Springer.

Laferrière, T., Lamon, M., & Chan, C. K. K. (2006). Emerging E-trends and models in

teacher education and professional development. Teaching Education, 17(1).

LaPointe-McEwan, D., DeLuca, C., & Klinger, D. A. (2017). Supporting evidence

use in networked professional learning: the role of the middle leader. Educational

Research, 59(2), 136–153.

Marrero, M. E., Woodruff, K. A., Schuster, G. S., Riccio, J. F. (2010). Live, Online Shortcourses:

A case study of innovative professional development. International Review

of Research on Open and Distance Learning, 11(1), 81–95.

McAleer, D., & Bangert, A. (2011). Professional growth through online mentoring: A study

of mathematics mentor teachers. Journal of Educational Computing

Research, 44(1), 83–115.

Moser, M. E. (2012). Understanding how novice teachers utilize online collaboration

(Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.

(Publication No. 3543893)

Noble, A., McQuillan, P., & Littenberg-Tobias, J. (2016). "A lifelong classroom":

Social studies educators' engagement with professional learning networks on

twitter. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 24(2), 187–213.

O'Hara, M. (2007). Strangers in a strange land: Knowing, learning and education for the

global knowledge society. Futures, 39(8), 930–941.

Osberg, D. & Biesta, G. (2008). The emergent curriculum: navigating a complex course

between unguided learning and planned enculturation. Journal of Curriculum

Studies, 40(3), 313–328.

Patahuddin, S. M. (2013). Mathematics teacher professional development in and

through internet use: reflections on an ethnographic study. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 25(4), 503–521.

Petrina, S. (2010). Currere: Curriculum as Method or Process.

http://www.dlc-ubc.ca/ wordpress_dlc_mu/edcp562/files/2011/09/Currere.pdf

Pinar, W. F., & Grumet, M. R. (1976). Toward a poor curriculum. Kendall Hunt Publishers.

Quatroche, D. J., Bauserman, K. L., & Nellis, L. (2014). Supporting professional

growth through external resources. In L. E. Martin, S. Kragler, D. J. Quatroche, & K. L.

Bauserman (Eds.), Handbook of professional development in education (pp.

–442). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Smitherman, S. (2004). Chaos and complexity theories: A conversation. San Diego, CA:

American Educational Research Association.

The Alberta Teachers’ Association. (2020). Alberta Teachers Responding to

Coronavirus (COVID-19)—Pandemic Research Study. https://www.teachers.ab.ca/

COVID-19/2020-School-Re-entry/Pages/COVID-19-Survey.aspx

Trust, T. (2012). Professional learning networks designed for teacher learning. Journal

of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 28(4), 133–138.

Trust, T., Krutka, D. G., & Carpenter, J. P. (2016). “Together we are better”: Professional

learning networks for teachers. Computers & Education, 102, 15–34.

Turnbull, D. (2000). Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers: Comparative Studies in the

Sociology of Scientific and Indigenous Knowledge. Amsterdam:

Harwood Academic.

Van de Gevel, A. J., & Noussair, C. N. (2013). The nexus between artificial intelligence and

economics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Wang, X. (2020). Understanding Collective Conversations in a Mathematics

Professional Learning Network (Doctoral dissertation). Available from UNIV OF ALBERTA LIBRARIES's Institutional Repository. (Accession No. uac.99d970fc.

c2fa.4791.bd89.0fdeb166a916)

Wittgenstein, L. (1968). Philosophical investigations. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.

Wood, K. (2006). Conversations: Hermeneutic inquiry unearthing pedagogic relations.

Unpublished Master thesis. Faculty of Education University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.

Downloads

Published

15-09-2021

How to Cite

Wang, X. (2021). Understanding teacher learning in professional learning networks (PLNs): The emergence of lived learning experiences. Malta Journal of Education, 2(1), 100–122. https://doi.org/10.62695/ZEZD6789

Similar Articles

<< < 1 2 3 4 5 6 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.