• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • Massey Documents by Type
    • Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • Massey Documents by Type
    • Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Facilitating a blended learning community : a collaborative approach to professional learning : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education at Massey University

    Icon
    View/Open Full Text
    01_front.pdf (894.1Kb)
    02_whole.pdf (22.04Mb)
    Export to EndNote
    Abstract
    This thesis has researched the question of "How can blended learning communities be facilitated to support the professional learning of inservice teacher educators?" Inservice teacher educators work to build teacher capability with the ultimate goal of raising student achievement. This relatively small group of people work across large geographical areas and are having increasing difficulty meeting the demands of the teachers. In addition, inservice teacher educators' contact with teachers is often less frequent than is desirable to ensure sustainable shifts in practice. However the growth in internet-based collaborative tools has meant that different ways of communicating are being created at exponential rates. Due to the natural limitations on inservice teacher educators' work, innovative ways of sustaining the professional development they provide are becoming increasingly important. The action research project described in this thesis has investigated one of these innovative approaches; not towards shifting teacher practice but focusing rather on improving the practice of the inservice teacher educators themselves. Five inservice teacher educators known as Isteam (Inservice teacher educators at Massey) formed a professional learning community to investigate the use of blended learning communities which use a combination of both face to face and online learning environments. While this thesis discusses how blended learning communities can be facilitated to support the professional learning of inservice teacher educators, Isteam themselves investigated the potential of using both blended learning communities to support the professional learning of teachers they worked with. Isteam met physically face to face on regular occasions and carried on their learning virtually between meetings through an easily modifiable webpage environment known as a wiki. This thesis discusses how these two environments wove their relative strengths together to build the professional learning of Isteam in ways that far exceeded the possibilities of using one or other learning community on its own. Research findings indicate that blended learning communities require early phases of building knowledge and social relationships, and that developing pedagogical capability relies on these building blocks to be in place first. Blended learning communities worked most effectively to improve the professional learning of inservice teacher educators when the facilitator: 1. Provided a range of online and face to face opportunities for inservice teacher educators to build their professional knowledge and gain confidence and competency in using online collaborative technologies, particularly in the early phases of the community's development. 2. Engaged inservice teacher educators in a range of online opportunities, including non task-related activities, to develop social relationships and get participants 'talking' comfortably online. 3. Challenged inservice teacher educators to use their growing knowledge and social relationships as platforms for critically reflecting on their professional learning and practice issues. As a result of these findings, the inservice teacher educators involved in this research project are now strengthening the communities they have already established to ensure they grow to their full potential, and are mentoring other colleagues to develop their own blended learning communities in response to requests for help. Blended learning communities have piqued the interest of inservice teacher educators at Massey as having powerful potential to embrace the demands of working in the 21st century.
    Date
    2009
    Author
    Bell, Heather
    Rights
    The Author
    Publisher
    Massey University
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10179/10811
    Collections
    • Theses and Dissertations
    Metadata
    Show full item record

    Copyright © Massey University
    Contact Us | Send Feedback | Copyright Take Down Request | Massey University Privacy Statement
    DSpace software copyright © Duraspace
    v5.7-2020.1
     

     

    Tweets by @Massey_Research
    Information PagesContent PolicyDepositing content to MROCopyright and Access InformationDeposit LicenseDeposit License SummaryTheses FAQFile FormatsDoctoral Thesis Deposit

    Browse

    All of MROCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    Copyright © Massey University
    Contact Us | Send Feedback | Copyright Take Down Request | Massey University Privacy Statement
    DSpace software copyright © Duraspace
    v5.7-2020.1