The Development and Sustainment of Small Online Learning Communities of Teachers

Abstract

The aim of this study is to make a contribution to knowledge of how an online collaborative professional learning community (OLC) might be created, supported, developed, and sustained. Although the literature of collaborative professional learning and practice supports the notion that teachers learn better when they talk to each other, there is a paucity of research to explain how teachers might learn collaboratively online. Analysis of web tracking statistics and content analysis techniques were used to examine data from web server logs when 60 Brunei teachers participated in a nine- month online, collaborative, professional learning community development programme. The Cultural-Historical Theory of Activity model was used as a tool for analysing online, collaborative, professional learning community performance. Findings show that online, collaborative, professional learning communities are not satisfactorily explained by theories about offline, collaborative, professional learning, thereby supporting the notion of the need for an emergent theory of online, collaborative, professional learning communities. A new online, collaborative, professional learning community model has been created to explain the iterative development and complex functioning of such a community. The findings showed that successful communities aspire to achieve dual learning outcomes; they must develop a capacity to learn together in an online setting, while at the same time, seek to achieve practice-related goals. Policy and practice implications include the need for extensive, individualized pre-training for teachers before they participate in online, collaborative, professional learning, the necessity of dual professional learning tracks, and the identification of 22 characteristics of effective online learning communities that are each vital for the creation, development, and sustainment of online professional learning communities. Several tools for community evaluation and explanation have been developed.