Fostering community cohesion to sustain small scale online professional development courses

Abstract

This research explores how community cohesion can sustain teacher participation in a small-scale, mixed-mode (face-to-face and online) professional development (PD) course. Secondary school teachers in Queensland undertook a mixed mode PD course utilising Education Queensland's Learning Place. The results indicate significantly longer participation than required and when combined with interview data supports the proposed community cohesion model as a useful construct in reconsidering traditionally ineffective PD design. The community cohesion model, based on Wenger's (1998) Community of Practice, proposes that a community is sustained when teachers work together (mutual engagement) responding to a common need (joint enterprise) and consequently share their ideas, stories, experiences and skills (shared repertoire). This process is as much a transformation of identity as of practice.