RSA3:Toward “Hybridised” Faculty Development for the Twenty-First Century: Blending Online Communities of Practice and Face-to-Face Meetings in Instructional and Professional Support Programmes

RSA 3: Toward “Hybridised” Faculty Development for the Twenty-First Century: Blending Online Communities of Practice and Face-to-Face Meetings in Instructional and Professional Support Programmes

http://www.informaworld.com.cucproxy.cuchicago.edu/openurl?genre=article&id=doi:10.1080/14703297.2010.498177

This week’s reading in Palloff and Pratt’s book walked us through what a learning community should look like when setting up online learning. The intended purpose of the online learning communities seemed to focus more on the teacher-student classroom learning community rather than a professional learning community. Palloff and Pratt emphasized establishing a community and setting up collaborative learning groups. All of their suggestions could be put towards a PLC rather than a classroom setting but would need to be modified slightly to fit the professional development model that was chosen for the PLC. One of the most important things that Palloff and Pratt mention is that everyone in the online community should feel a sense of belonging. Everyone in a PLC should always feel like they belong and if they don’t they need to work to rectify the situation. Everyone in the PLC should be aware of how everyone is feeling and all should feel free to have an open dialogue whether it be online or in person.

In Brooks’ article regarding the blending of online communities to both online and face to face the focus was on school faculty needing to come together to learn specifically about new technology that needs to be implemented in their classrooms. This again doesn’t specifically meeting the typical model of a PLC but parts of this article applied to traditional PLCs. Brooks mentions that the “blended faculty learning community approach…will create a flexible and accessible environment for faculty to engage in sustained critical reflection and discourse about their teaching environment.” This a key part of any PLC. Only after taking these courses in educational technology do I truly realize the importance of having a way to collaborate and communicate through technology. It is important to not only share ideas on the day of the PLC meeting but it is important to share ideas throughout the week.

While neither of these writers specifically mention PLC, some of the concepts they discussed are applicable to professional learning communities.

References

Brooks, C. F. (2010). Toward "Hybridised" Faculty Development for the Twenty-First Century: Blending Online Communities of Practice and Face-to-Face Meetings in Instructional and Professional Support Programmes. Innovations In Education And Teaching International, 47(3), 261-270.

Palloff, R. & Pratt, K. (2007). Building Online Learning Communities: Effective Strategies for the Virtual Classroom, (2nd ed.). San Franciso: Jossey-Bass. ISBN: 978-0- 7879-8825-8