Engaging with research as a lead learner online

 

1.      Introduction / Context:

Engaging with research is for many leaders something they would love to do, but something many struggle to make time for. Whereas the affordances of learning online have continued to become increasingly well understood. The online social media professional learning group, #edureading, provides an outlet for timely, and school-relevant, research to inform leaders around a range of core topics.

2.      Main content:

Teaching is complex and Professional Learning is failing to match it

Teaching is a complex endeavour (Beckett & Hager, 2018; Kurtz & Snowden, 2003), becoming increasingly nuanced and difficult to navigate. Meeting the Professional Learning (PL) needs of teachers is equally challenging; within any one staffroom, there is a bewildering array of knowledge and experience. Despite this diversity, PL for many teachers remains largely the same: it is uniform, lacking any tailoring to individuals. It is often a ‘one-off’ affair where a consultant presents a neatly packaged offering and disappears without any follow-up. It is hardly surprising that much of the literature on PD shows almost without fail how ineffective it is, especially in regards to improving student outcomes (Cohen & Hill, 1998, 2001; Curwood & Biddolph, 2017; Wiliam, 2016).

Professional learning within Australia is often experienced to as ineffective, often delivered through large conferences, one-shot experiences with little follow up, or in largely impersonal ways (Kolber & Heggart, 2021; Netolicky, 2020). Into this space there has emerged a continued interest in the potential of online learning, with the failure of Massive Open Online Courses, being just one example of its many failures. The emergence of social media has renewed interest in professional learning of this kind, with many teachers and leaders using a range of tools to engage with professional learning. Even on social media, there is often a need to maintain ‘face’ by seeming to be professional and polished, without addressing failures or appearing to lack confidence. This can limit some aspects of potential professional growth and can even make using social media for professional purposes something of a disheartening experience for some teachers and leaders, who compare unfavourably to those sharing online. Research has emerged that explores the possibilities of these groups, including Teach Meets (both face-to-face and online), #AussieED, the longest running and most popular online Twitter discussion (Kolber & Enticott, 2020; Mercieca, 2021) and #edureading, the focus of this paper (Kolber & Heggart, 2021).

The emergence of an interesting alternative

The group being discussed, #edureading, brings together its members, and the broader audience of Twitter, around a monthly theme exercised through a close reading of a single academic, education research paper. The core activity of the group is reading this article and responding to three prompts, tailored to the article under discussion, via the online video sharing platform of FlipGrid. This sits alongside ongoing private-message discussion among the group using Twitter, that throughout the month typically involves supporting one another in their work, bringing relevant examples, articles and tweets to the groups’ attention and so forth. These discussions culminate in a live Twitter ‘chat’ on the last Sunday of the month, that draws upon the ideas that have emerged from the previously outlined response options. Of special import to leaders, is the membership of the group, teachers, leaders and academics from around the world provide insight into different nations, contexts and viewpoints. This shift in perspective is a must-have luxury for leaders especially, who can become laser focussed onto their own contexts and the nature of things that have ‘always been done that way’. By leveraging ‘context collapse’ (Marwick & boyd, 2011), means that each participant cannot assume a shared understanding of systems, acronyms and meanings held by concepts, supporting clarity of expression and reflection.

Emerging tools for managing and collecting learning

As the group has continued over the years, additional chats have taken place on ‘Twitter Spaces’, that allow live audio discussions to be held by the group during the middle of the month, as well as on Clubhouse when this application became popular. Prior to this the discussion also took place for many months in written format using a shared annotation document on Kami, allowing for an ongoing, text-based digital annotation where ideas were shared and commentary made upon other member’s notes. This shows the manner in which the group spans social media spaces (Twitter and Clubhouse), as well as more traditional online learning platforms and tools (FlipGrid and Kami). Each of these tools provides possibilities for leaders to explore different adult learning, andragogic practices with their own staff learning experiences. As one member of the group, Dr Kelli McGraw, noted:

“I value being able to tune in to professional conversations at local, national and international levels, so my PD planning involves seeking events and communities to link with that will enable me to make these connections.”

Teachers and leaders are increasingly looking towards using social media and self-organising to meet their professional development needs (Greenhalgh & Koehler, 2017). This provides spaces for play, exploration and innovation where leaders and would-be-leaders can trial methods for learning, for themselves, and with their own staff in ways that may not always be possible within existing settings. Each of the tools outlined here have great utility for leading learning with adult learners of all kinds, and teachers and leaders specifically.

 

3.      References

Beckett, D., & Hager, P. (2018). A complexity thinking take on thinking in the university. In The Thinking University (pp. 137-153). Springer.

Mercieca, B. M. (2021). Sustaining Online Teacher Networks. In Sustaining Communities of Practice with Early Career Teachers (pp. 65-97). Springer, Singapore.

Cohen, D. K., & Hill, H. C. (1998). Instructional policy and classroom performance: The Mathematics Reform in California (RR-39). Consortium for Policy Research in Education.  https://www.cpre.org/sites/default/files/researchreport/780_rr39.pdf

Curwood, J. S., & Biddolph, C. (2017). Understanding Twitter as a networked field site. Implications for Research on Teacher Professional Learning, (1), 81-103.

Greenhalgh, S. P., & Koehler, M. J. (2017). 28 days later: Twitter hashtags as "just in time" teacher professional development. TechTrends, 61(3), 273-281.

Kolber & Enticott, E. (2020). Find your teacher tribe online: Twitter. Idiom, 56(2), 40–41. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.307127283875363 

Kolber & Heggart (2021). Education focused pracademics on Twitter: Building democratic fora. Journal of Professional Capital and Community. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPCC-11-2020-0090

Kurtz, C. F., & Snowden, D. J. (2003). The new dynamics of strategy: Sense-making in a complex and complicated world. IBM Systems Journal, 42(3), 462-483.

Marwick, A. E., & boyd, d. (2011). I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media & Society, 13(1), 114-133.

Netolicky, D. M. (2020). Transformational professional learning: What, why and how?. Independent Education, 50(1), 32-33.

Wiliam, D. (2016). Leadership for teacher learning. Learning Sciences International.

4.      The Reflective practitioner

Q. Do you engage with research in a regular and meaningful way?

Q. What groups, methods or tools, do you use to broaden your thinking beyond your own setting?

 

5.      Use it now

·       If the ideas outlined here interest you, you can pursue membership of the group here:

·       If there are staff where you work that enjoy engaging with research and linking it to their own practice, such as a professional learning community, you could set up a similar group to explore these ideas.

·       As the group has been running since 2018, there are 30 academic articles carefully chosen by teachers and leaders as relevant to their work worthy of exploration.

·       Consider trailing the tools outlined here for your own professional learning needs, or to lead learning with your colleagues: Kami for digital annotation; FlipGrid for student and teacher reflection; Twitter for short and timely reflections; and Twitter Spaces or Clubhouse for Audio call-in discussions of research and education.

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