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PLCs in the 21 st Century: Partnerships for Powerful Learning. Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach Doctoral Candidate at William & Mary CEO, Powerful Learning Practice Dr. Sofia Pardo Lead Researcher, ideasLAB. Purpose of Study. The purpose of our study is to identify the: nature
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PLCs in the 21st Century: Partnerships for Powerful Learning Sheryl Nussbaum-BeachDoctoral Candidate at William & MaryCEO, Powerful Learning Practice Dr. Sofia Pardo Lead Researcher, ideasLAB
Purpose of Study The purpose of our study is to identify the: nature evident outcomes of professional conversations among educators in an asynchronous, team-based, online community of practice. The conversations took place in a white list application for social network creation called NING
Research Questions Flow: What is the flow (i.e., direction) and frequency of the posts among differing roles within the learning community? Function: What is the function (i.e., purpose) and frequency of the posts among posts differing roles within the learning community? Content: What is the content (i.e., topics) and frequency of the posts among posts differing roles within the learning community?
Content Analysis Methodology Created function categories* Identified content categories** Developed codebook in Google Docs Created Analysis Tool- Pulse Piloted coding while training coders in Skype (we started with 5, then 4, then 3) Calculated inter-rater reliability(http://dfreelon.org/utils/recalfront/recal3/) * Adapted from Bonk & Kim's (2008) 12 forms of mentoring & Gunawardena, Lowe & Anderson (1997) online knowledge construction analysis model ** Adapted from Australian e-potentials survey (2008)
Content Analysis: Interrater Reliability Average Pairwise Percent Agreement Flow: file:///C:/Users/snbeach/Desktop/FLOW.php.htm Function: file:///C:/Users/snbeach/Desktop/FUNCTION.php.htm Content: file:///C:/Users/snbeach/Desktop/CONTENT.php.htm
Content Analysis Methodology Unit of Data Collection Discussion thread within an online connected learning community Unit of Data Analysis Individual posting to discussion thread within a forum, blog post, or group room in an online connected learning community. Flow was analyzed from context of thread Type of Evidence: Manifest vs. Latent Manifest or explicit meaning that can be objectively derived from the words used and the thoughts expressed in the postings.
Frequency and Direction of Posts Community Leader Broadcast Team Leader Fellow Member Experienced Voice Flow Team Leader
FLOW Who is talking to whom? 1215 is 76% of entire posts (1636)
FLOW (cont.) Where are these conversations taking place?
FLOW (findings) • Majority of comments were broadcasted with slightly higher numbers in public (384) than group spaces (358). • Members posted mostly in group spaces yet they were addressed more often in public spaces. • Fellows addressed team leaders three times more than team leaders did to fellows. (Directional Reciprocity) • Out of 130 community members, 20% chose not to post and just observe (lurk). • While the community was designed with loose governance, the higher the perceived leadership role the comments took on a more specific direction.
Content of Discussions by Role Learning and Teaching
Content of Discussions by Role Professional Learning
Content of Discussions by Role Resources
CONTENT While it was expected to have a high concentration of comments in T&L and Professional Dev areas, we were surprised at the number of comments around resources. While members posted mostly in group spaces, the topic of L&T was discussed more in public areas of the community. However, the opposite happened with professional learning as it occurred more often in the smaller, intimate setting of the groups-with the exception of the CL role. Members talked about resources everywhere (both public and private) however, Fellows discussed resources more in groups. CL continued to be public in their leadership role.
FUNCTION The three most utilized levels of knowledge building were sharing info, sharing/contrasting exp, and sharing point of view. The content they were sharing, contrasting, or giving a point of view on aligned nicely with the top content areas as well. Least used knowledge functions were the highest order skills- negotiation of meaning and professional growth, with negotiation of meaning only occurring at the CL level. Most mentoring took place in the CL role. The content being mentored was PL, Leadership, and L&T
International perspectives deepened the professional conversation that took place by those involved in the coding. However, because of the under utilization of the EV (international visitors) further study needs to occur as to make the most of the opportunity for diverse conversations at the community level. • Tools were mastered within the context of knowledge building for the most part, with the exception of resource sharing. • More focus to the development of a shared vision for community outcomes needs to happen at the start of the project. • Job-embedded PD that results in significant shift doesn’t occur in 4 months. • Pulse holds tremendous potential for unlocking emprical truths in CMC because of the ease of use and authenticity of data placement
References Bonk, C. J., & Kim, K. A. (1998). Extending sociocultural theory to adult learning. In M. C. Smith, & T.Pourchot (Eds.) Adult learning & development: Perspectives from educational psychology. Mahwah, NJ, USA: Erlbaum Associates. Freelon, D.G. (2010) ReCal: Intercoder Reliability Calculation as a web service. International Journal of Internet Science 5 (1), 20-33. Gunawardena, C. Lowe, C & Anderson, T. (1997). Analysis of global online detabe and the development of an interaction analysis model for examining social construction of knowledge in computer conferencing. Journal of Educational Computing Research 17(4), 37-431. DEECD (2008). ePotential Teacher ICT Capabilities Survey; Powerfuil Learning Enabled by ICT.
