DEVELOPING A COMPUTER SCIENCE TEACHER COMMUNITY IN GREECE: DESIGN FRAMEWORK AND IMPLICATIONS FROM THE PILOT Panagiotis Tsiotakis, Athanassios Jimoyiannis Department of Social and Educational Policy, University of Peloponnese (GREECE)
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Abstract This paper reports on the design and the implementation of a Computer Science Teacher Community in Greece. The pedagogical and technological dimensions of the teacher community design framework are presented in detail. The architecture of a new platform developed to support the teacher community and the community tools and features it incorporates are also outlined. Finally, first findings of the pilot phase regarding interaction, cooperation, educational support and development of the participating teachers are presented. Conclusions are drawn for future development and research regarding teacher communities. Keywords: teacher communities, design framework, platform architecture, computer science teachers.
1
INTRODUCTION
In the last decades, schools and teachers are internationally confronted with increasing demands because of educational reforms, new educational policies, changes in curriculum frameworks, new learning tools to be integrated in classroom practice (e.g. ICT, Web-based tools) etc. To thrive in increasingly demanding school contexts, teachers need to adapt to diverse needs through adjustment to new pedagogical approaches and designing authentic learning activities applicable in school practices. In this regard, teachers need continuous support through multiple professional development opportunities to deepen pedagogical knowledge and to improve their instructional design knowledge and skills. Therefore, to deal with these demands and the increased complexity of current instructional work, consultation and ongoing collaboration between teachers has become more important. However, traditional and popular approaches to teacher professional development appear to have low impact on teachers’ ability to put innovative teaching approaches into practice (Jimoyiannis, Gravani & Karagiorgi, 2011). In recent years, academics, scholars, educational policy makers and educators themselves promote the idea of teacher communities. The main objective is to strengthen collaboration between teachers and support teachers’ work by sharing educational material and instructional practices, developing meaning and achieving knowledge construction in a participatory and collaborative way contrary to the traditional isolated manner of work (Levine & Marcus, 2010). In addition, communities of teachers are considered as a way to embed teacher collaboration into the culture of the school (Vescio et al., 2008) while networked intelligence can be used in instructional design, e.g. learning interventions and activities applicable in practice. In recent years, there is growing research evidence, supporting the impact of communities on teachers’ professional development as well as on student achievements (Jackson, 2009; Levine & Marcus, 2010; Skerrett, 2010; Vescio et al., 2008). At the same time, the rapid expansion of the Web, as a course delivery and learning platform, provided a significant incentive for educational institutions to develop e-learning programmes through both, on-line and blended approaches. E-learning is nowadays commonly accepted, not only as a popular alternative to traditional face-to-face education, but also as a tool for lifelong learning. In addition, Web 2.0 is expected to offer participatory environments supporting communication, active and collaborative learning, self-directed and lifelong learning, peer and self assessment, and responsiveness to individual needs (Brown & Adler, 2008; Jimoyiannis, Tsiotakis & Roussinos, 2011). The tremendous growth and diffusion of Web 2.0 tools has led to increased interest in creating educational and research communities. In recent years, on-line teacher communities appear to dynamically evolve due to their affordances to support sustainable environments for communication, interaction, collaboration and content sharing without temporal or spatial restrictions. Therefore, teacher communities constitute a promising idea and a new model for teacher professional development (Graham, 2007; Luehmann & Tinelli, 2008; Jimoyiannis, Gravani & Karagiorgi, 2011).
Proceedings of EDULEARN13 Conference 1st-3rd July 2013, Barcelona, Spain
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ISBN: 978-84-616-3822-2
This paper reports on the design and the implementation of a Computer Science Teacher Community (CSTC) in Greece. The theoretical foundations of teacher communities are addressed in the first section. Following, the pedagogical and technological dimensions of the teacher community design framework are presented in detail. The architecture of a new platform developed to support teacher community and the community features it incorporates are also outlined. Preliminary findings regarding the implementation of the pilot phase of the community are presented. Finally, conclusions are drawn for future development and research regarding teacher on-line communities.
2
ONLINE TEACHER COMMUNITIES
Electronic communities are generally thought as social structures that provide participants with opportunities to communicate and collaborate with peers who share the same interests; the ultimate goal is to continually support learning and professional development of the participants. Establishing an efficient community requires a set of rules, habits, strong ties and interaction between members to be set in order to achieve common goals (Wenger, 1998). In the context of situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991), many scholars have come to emphasise learning in professional communities as a dynamic and social participation process, captured in collaborative activities, working artefacts, routines, stories or language (Roth & Lee, 2006). Wilson (1995) has proposed the notion of learning ecology to describe informal learning environments where members work together and support each other, use a variety of tools and resources and endeavour to achieve their learning goals through collaboration and problem solving activities. Many ideas have been proposed regarding decentralized, fostered, connected learning communities which allow participants to shape their learning ability (Brown & Duguid, 1991; Siemens, 2003). Each member of the learning ecosystem has its own individual goals; however, what happens within the limits of dynamic and evolving communities organized around a set of rules is that people gain significant benefits through interacting with others and sharing common interests and experiences. Additionally, a learning ecosystem is characterized by self-preservation and sustainability, since each member offers his knowledge, experience, abilities and creations to the whole community; therefore, members contribute decisively to the establishment of collective thinking and community knowledge. Teacher communities are claimed to contribute to the improvement of teaching and schooling practices (Hou et al., 2010; Jackson, 2009; Levine & Marcus, 2010; Skerrett, 2010). The widespread interest about teacher communities is rooted in their potential to create unique conditions for informal learning and a sustainable environment for teacher collaboration and collaborative learning. A teacher community involves certain levels of commitment and dedication, and the creation of ‘‘a social structure that can assume responsibility for developing and sharing knowledge’’ (Wenger et al. 2002, p. 29). In line with Wenger (1998), there are three core dimensions in a teacher community, which reflect the nature of the community, what the community is about and how it functions: Group identity: Mutual engagement that bind teachers together in a social entity. Shared domain: A joint enterprise as understood and continually negotiated by its members. Shared interactional repertoire: Shared practices, communal resources and beliefs teachers have developed over time. Communities are continually evolving and developing systems. According to Wenger (1998), communities function in a circular process, which temporarily might show less activity, restructure itself on particular features or die out. This means that a community can move back and forth along the three stages of development for each core feature: Beginning: The community processes are characterised by limited sense of group identity and feeling and some degree of shared patterns, procedures and willingness to be active in the domain. Evolving: The community processes are characterised by consciousness of the group identity and development of collective activities. Mature: The community processes are balanced, shared and focused on a shared domain and feelings of group identity. Brouwer et al. (2012) suggested that communities of teachers can be developed by being facilitated and properly designed. The design, implementation and evaluation of on-line teacher communities is
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an open research problem in the wider e-learning context (Hou et al., 2010; Baran & Cagiltay, 2010; Zydney et al., 2012).
3
THE COMMUNITY DESIGN FRAMEWORK
The design framework of the CSTC presented in this paper included the following phases: • Determining computer science (CS) teachers’ learning and professional development needs • Conceptualising the technological and pedagogical features of the CSTC platform • Evaluating candidate platforms and tools to be used • Development of the CSTC platform • Determining the community operation framework (timeline, activities, roles etc.) • Setting the pilot phase of the CSTC • Teacher community outcomes and evaluation.
3.1
Determining professional development needs of the CS Teachers
The main idea around the particular teacher community (CSTC) was the New National Curriculum of ICT and Computer Science for compulsory education (K-9). The new concept in teachers’ development was their ability to design and implement their instructional interventions with the objective to support students’ constructivist and collaborative learning by using a wide range of ICT tools and programming environments. In this context, the CSTC was designed to enhance teachers’ pedagogical knowledge and instructional design skills through exchanging instructional ideas and experiences, sharing and collaboratively designing educational materials and artefacts. The following themes for community interaction, debate and collaboration, were suggested by the coordinators, in the start-up phase, as an indicative but not exhausted working framework: • General principles and philosophy of the new ICT-Computer Science Curriculum • Current pedagogy and computer science education • Instructional design fundamentals; learning activities applicable in school practice • ICT-based project learning • Web2.0 tools in school practice.
3.2
Conceptualising the architecture of the technological platform
The platform to be used constitutes a critical component regarding the formation and the operation of a community. Literature review suggests that asynchronous discussion forums and learning management systems were widely used to support on-line teacher communities (Zydney et al., 2012; Correia & Davis, 2008; Delfino et al. 2008). In recent years, Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis, eportfolios etc. were dynamically used to build learning communities (Hou et al., 2010; Jimoyiannis, Tsiotakis & Roussinos, 2011; Gray & Smyth, 2012). However, these environments offer limited opportunities for student-directed actions and initiatives. For example, traditional LMS are tutorcentred environments, designed to support e-learning initiatives and programs in the context of formal education. A teacher community platform should incorporate features and tools beyond conventional LMS. Therefore, a technological platform, having the objective to support interaction between members and community learning, should provide two fundamental, mutually interrelated components: • the virtual space, where members meet, interact and collaborate with each other • the community ‘memory’, which is a record of the community knowledge, and its development and operational history. Towards outlining a conceptual and pedagogical framework of community interactions and learning, we have defined four constitutional components in relation to the dimensions of a teacher community: Content sharing area: It includes various content sharing tools (file repository, blog, wiki, tagging, links to external resources etc.) Communication area: This area is structured around communication and discussion tools (messaging, chat, discussion forum, videoconference, microblogging)
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Community area: Group tools, friends support, community pages, portfolio area, task schedule and content management tools constitute the main components of this area. Supportive and personal tools: Personal repository, dashboard, timeline, profile, searching tools. Fig. 1 shows the conceptual and structural model of an ideal platform aiming to support efficient teacher communities. The basic tools and functionalities are grouped into the four basic categories mentioned above. However, there are tools that could be assigned into more than one category. For example, the wiki acts simultaneously as a content sharing and a collaborative tool. Online users, messaging Forum, chat, email
Blog, Wiki, Comments
Videoconference, microblogging
File sharing, Tagging
Content sharing area
Communication area
Teacher Community Platform
Supportive tools
Community area
Personal repository, searching
e-portfolio, tasks, group support
Dashboard, Calendar
Friends support, scaled access
Member Profile
Scheduling, organizing files
Fig. 1. Conceptual and structural model of the CSTC Platform
3.3
Platform architecture
The present project started in the academic year 2010-11. A wide range of platforms were set in servers of the Department of Social and Educational Policy, e.g. Moodle, Claroline, Sakai, Elgg and Mahara. They were tested and evaluated with regard to both, technical and educational characteristics, in different educational and developmental programmes (undergraduate and graduate courses, research and development projects etc.). The evaluation criteria were related to usability, functionality and potential interoperability in connection to other systems. Other features, like stability, operational errors and open source license were also taken into account. Important parameters were also the platform evolution rate, plug-ins extending platform capabilities, and technical support (e.g. manuals). Our evaluation results indicated that there is no platform available integrating all the necessary features described above. We concluded, therefore, that an ideal platform aiming to support a teacher community should be a combination of multiple systems and tools. In Fig. 2 the architecture of the CSTC platform is shown. The platform is based on a Single Sign-On access system and a series of popular and well-documented tools: Joomla: Main Site (Public view) and User Registration System Moodle: Learning Management System Mahara: Collaboration and e-portfolio System Mediawiki: Community wiki BigBlueButton: Videoconference tool.
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BigBlueButton Moodle
Mediawiki
Mahara Joomla (SSO)
Fig. 2. CSTC platform architecture
Fig. 3. Community platform main page (dashboard) The CSTC platform was designed to provide to the teachers a variety of tools and services in a uniform and operational way. Fig. 3 presents the main platform page. Community operation activities were structured in a weekly basis. Moodle was the core system supporting community organization and continuous communication among community members (announces, discussions, content material, links to external resources etc.). In other words, Moodle was operating as the community dashboard containing information about current community news and events, forum topics, blog articles, group members, recent activities, links to Mahara portfolio and to Mediawiki etc.
4 4.1
THE PILOT Participants and process
The Community was announced after mid-November 2011. Computer science teachers in secondary schools throughout the Greek territory were invited to participate on a voluntary basis, after an open call. They were informed about the project, its objectives and time schedule from the community public webpage. Initially, a total of 147 teachers expressed their interest to participate in CSTC. They asked to complete the online application form; afterwards, they received their account information details. Finally, 101 members (62 male and 39 female) remained active and exhibited a consistent or periodic
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presence in the community activities; 96 of them were CS teachers in primary and secondary schools and 3 CS teacher counsellors, and the coordinators of CSTC (the authors). The teachers in the community covered several criteria, e.g. ranging age, teaching experience, academic degrees, in-service training experience etc. They were between 25-55 years old and they had a teaching experience ranging between 3 and 20 years. They were familiar with Web platforms; however only 10 teachers had previous e-learning experience in relation to their professional development. No teacher had previously participated in a teacher community. The coordinators shaped an ongoing cooperation framework with the aim to support a high level of dialogue, interaction, and collaboration among members. Teachers were encouraged to collaboratively acquire the knowledge and skills mainly through engagement, experience sharing, reflection on themes presented in the videoconference sessions, discussion and interaction with peers, and using the material uploaded into the Moodle sessions. In addition, participants were exposed into detailed on-line discussions through the community forum regarding various issues arising into the community. Teachers’ individual and collaborative work was continually visible within the platform. The participants were continually informed about any community event by receiving email notifications through the platform.
4.2
Community workflow
The pilot was implemented between December 2011 and April 2012. Combining e-moderating model (Salmon, 2003) and the existing knowledge concerning best practices in e-learning (Jimoyiannis, Gravani & Karagiorgi, 2011), the design principles determining the framework of the CSTC implementation consisted of five stages. Despite that community is a living and dynamic evolving system, and the boundaries between successive stages are blurred, the following phases were expected to appear: Access and motivation: Teachers were invited to participate in and informed about the community. They were motivated to express their interest and then they received their personal account details. This process lasted for 2 weeks approximately; the majority of the community members were registered until mid-December. Online socialization: The participants were registered and created their profile in the platform. They introduced themselves to the community giving information about their personal, professional, scientific and other social aspects. In addition, they familiarized with the technological tools of the platform. Discussion forums were spontaneously and dynamically created to solve organizational, technical or operational problems. Therefore, the first community activities started up. Information exchange and experience sharing: Topics and timeline schedule were collaboratively determined and presented in the platform dashboard. Teachers were engaged in discussion forums which dynamically emerged into the platform. Common teachers’ activities in this phase were personal experiences presentation, information and ideas interchanging, educational material and resources sharing. Knowledge construction: Knowledge construction is expected to be achieved through teachers’ experiences and ideas interchanging, group working, engagement in authentic collaborative tasks aiming at creating new artefacts, instructional material, and learning activities applicable in school practice. Teacher Community: Indicators, related to aspects of the community operation and function, are expected to be present over time.
5 5.1
FINDINGS Teachers’ community presence and participation
During the pilot phase, 59 discussion topics were implemented related to CS curriculum, pedagogy and CS education, instructional design and teachers’ instructional experiences in the schools. 254 detailed messages were uploaded by the community members. In addition, 5 videoconference sessions through BigBlueButton took place. In general, videoconference sessions lasted approximately 2 hours. The topics were collaboratively identified and agreed in order to promote cooperation, ties among members and brainstorming about new ideas and
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issues. 10 teachers attended the first videoconference, 14 teachers the second, 19 the third one, 18 attended the fourth videoconference and, finally, 10 teachers attended the last session. Fig. 4 shows a typical screenshot of a videoconference session showing the interface and the tools included (participant list, video and audio connections, presentation section, and chat room). In this particular session, eleven members participated in while nine of them used the video connection. The CSTC coordinators prompted participants to use also the Mahara e-portfolio. Members were able to present their artifacts, creations, educational scenarios and activities, and take advantage of the eportfolio features incorporated. In total, 22 educational scenarios were uploaded by community members. They were available for critical commentaries and free to be used in classroom practice by peers in the community. However, wiki did not appear to be an attractive tool for the teachers in order to support collaborative content construction within the community. Moodle’s internal blog was also used by the coordinators for article writing and peer commentaries in relation to community context issues. The members exhibited limited contribution with postings to the platform blog, probably because they were not familiar with this tool. According to the platform log files, the participation of the members in the videoconference sessions and their regular presence in the community activities, the teachers were generally classified into three main groups:
Fig. 4. Videoconference screenshot a) The first group was consisted of 29 dynamic members, which were very active and had a regular presence in the community activities. They had a major influence to the community comparing to other members by • starting a new discussion topic and contributing to the community discussions • participating in the majority of videoconference sessions • uploading their own creations, educational material and scenarios. The coordinators and the teacher counsellors were also placed in this group. In total, 6952 actions in the CSTC platform were recorded by members in this group. The average number of actions per member was 240. b) The second group consisted of 21 members who exhibited a moderate presence and role in the community. These teachers were active participants in 2 or 3 videoconference sessions. In addition, they attended the various discussion forums on a regular basis but they had limited contribution with posts and commentaries. Some of the teachers in this group uploaded and shared with other community members their instructional material and educational scenarios. Members in this subgroup had in total 1261 actions in CSTC platform; the average number of actions per member was 60. c) Finally, 46 teachers were classified into the third group of members with peripheral role in the community (lurkers). These teachers exhibited low engagement and marginal presence in the community activities; they seem to attend the various discussions in the platform but not in a consistent way. We could characterize these teachers as isolates, since they had no visible presence
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with posts, commentaries, presenting ideas or sharing their learning material. Members in the third subgroup had n total 817 actions in the platform, with average actions per member equal to 17.8.
5.2
Teachers’ views and perceptions of CSTC
Six weeks after the implementation of the pilot an investigation was administered aiming to record teachers’ perceptions about the CSTC and their participation in the community. The teachers were asked to respond to the on-line questionnaire from their personal space. The instrument contained 30 items presenting statements of perceptions and beliefs toward CSTC in a 5-point Likert-type scale. 12 open-ended questions were also included. The analysis was based on the responses of 28 teachers (11 male and 17 female) which were classified in the first and second groups above. From the point of view of the designers and facilitators of the CSTC project several issues can be reported at this preliminary stage, based on teachers’ responses to six of the open questions. Further investigation of these issues and analysis of teachers’ quantitative data are currently in progress.
5.2.1
List two-three strengths of CSTC that positively affected your participation
According to the participants written responses, the main strengths of the community were • Sharing educational material, scenarios and learning activities • Interaction with colleagues, ideas and experiences interchange • Discussion topics and the theoretical framework of the new curriculum of CS • The CSTC platform and the technological tools incorporated • The community and its organization, the whole concept/project.
5.2.2
Describe briefly your main barriers-difficulties that affected your participation in CSTC
The main barriers that affected teachers participation and the time they spent in the CSTC, according to participants’ written responses, were • Lack of personal time • Lack of prior e-learning experience • The CSTC platform and the variety of tools incorporated • Need for more feedback and enhanced peer willingness to cooperate • Low interest about the topics and the subjects under study-discussion • The CSTC objectives were not clear, need for continuous coordination.
5.2.3
Describe how your participation in CSTC has influenced your instruction. Give indicative examples
The majority of the teachers were particularly positive regarding their participation in the CSTC project and its activities. The following statements are representative of many similar responses to this question which show the impact of the project to teachers’ instructional choices in the CS classroom: “I have changed my instructional and pedagogical approaches in various CS topics. For example, I taught introductory programming in primary school using gaming and optical programming with Scratch”. “I have designed a wiki project … Students worked collaboratively and constructively in groups.” “I received feedback from peers… I used many suggestions and ideas to design my lesson plans” “I have borrowed many interesting ideas from colleagues in the community. I have taken account of their comments and, therefore, I have really improved my instruction. The educational scenario regarding spreadsheets, which uploaded by a colleague, was perfectly fitted to a Webquest I designed and implemented with my students. Out of the community, I could not design this particular follow up that, finally, came to be an integrated project.”
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5.2.4
Describe how your participation in the CSTC has influenced you as an instructor
The majority of the teachers were particularly positive about the influence to their profession of the participation in the community. On the other hand, some teachers expected a greater contribution from colleagues in the community. Following are some noteworthy statements: “Many experiences and practices reported by other colleagues became new ideas for me… I adapted them to the reality of my own school. So, I improved my profession.” “I perceived new attitudes … Colleagues influenced me to change the habits I had in recent years.” “It helped me to raise perspectives and objectives of computing course beyond the curriculum…” “For the moment a bit… However, I think it is potentially a good source of information, tools and reflection.” “I am disappointed because I expected higher engagement of the members. On the other hand, I found colleagues with same interests.”
5.2.5
Describe what did you gain from your participation in CSTC
Teachers’ responses to this question were classified into two main categories. The first concern the value of ideas and experiences shared, and the second teachers’ professional development needs. The following statements are representative of many similar responses to this question: “Exchanging ideas, views and concerns with colleagues… Sharing interesting educational scenarios.” “I am always looking for new ideas and techniques… Interacting with colleagues indicates that I am not alone.” “A group of colleagues to address myself in order to ask questions and share things.” “It was my professional recognition and the opportunity to be a member of a group with professionals having common concerns, to get familiar with various platforms as a user in order to place them in my school practice…” “Relating to the time I spent, I think I gained a lot for my job.”
5.2.6
Outline your recommendations for future operation of the CSTC
The majority of the participants seem to prefer a more structured organization and operation of the community with strong focus on educational scenarios and topics, and more teacher deliverables. The following transcripts are representative of many similar recommendations: “CSTC should act not only as a repository of learning scenarios but also as a forum of ideas and suggestions…. I think that a more rigorous organization in the sense of teachers’ compulsory presence with specific deliverables is not a bad idea and would raise members’ participation. Of course, CSTC will loose its spontaneity and freedom…” “I suggest well-defined topics and rigorous organization. What is the ultimate purpose to be achieved by the participants? The project should outline clear learning goals for the teachers…” “I think that CSTC should be a part of formal teachers training…” “I think it would be good to create a platform with rich educational material for CS education (e.g. to enrich the existing material) which can be shared by the teachers and the schools.” On the other hand, one teacher wrote “Teachers’ work cannot be substantially supported by online communities. Educational scenarios and instructional material should be provided by the educational authorities…It is not an easy task for the majority of the teachers to design good educational scenarios for the new Curriculum.”
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6
CONCLUSIONS
In this paper we have presented the design and the implementation of a computer science teacher community aiming to support teachers’ professional development and to enhance their pedagogical knowledge and instructional design skills. The findings confirmed the usability and the functionality of the platform and the tools incorporated to support teachers’ collaboration. In addition, they demonstrated that framework design parameters, e.g. supporting interaction with colleagues, ideas and experiences interchange and sharing educational material and scenarios, were the critical success factors for developing teacher communities. On the other hand, lack of personal time, lack of high level of collaboration and feedback from peers, and low e-learning experiences were the main barriers affecting the engagement of the participants. Teachers appear to prefer a more structured organization of the community and enhanced demands for teacher deliverables. In conclusion, this investigation suggested that teacher communities can be implemented effectively in practice to support teachers’ professional development. Our current research is directed to the comparative investigation of teachers’ engagement patterns in both structured and non-structured online communities. Undoubtedly, constructive critiques and debates are welcome and extremely beneficial to identify potential problems and weaknesses in the CSTC framework proposed.
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