Teachers are increasingly turning to the Internet or seeking resources beyond what a school provides to drive their own learning. The theoretical framework behind this is called heutagogy, and has anchors in the theories of both constructivism and constructionism. Like Makerspaces encourage students to experiment and learn through the process of development, teachers will seek out the information they need to direct their own professional learning and growth. In many cases, the extent to which teachers will do this is cultural - how much the school values this work, encourages growth, and supports teachers in this process. Schools also see results from self-directed professional learning when time and resources are made available for teachers to engage in conferences and professional organizations, and for teachers to share their learning with others.

Informal Learning

Not all professional learning activities are explicitly labeled as such. A few years ago, I developed a brainstorming session where we brought in a small group of educators to help vet the recommendations for the NC Digital Learning Plan. We didn’t present at all and we didn’t teach any new material. We simply presented the results of our work and asked for feedback. At the end, several of the participants came up to members of the team and said “that was some of the best professional development we’ve been to in a while.” That was perplexing to the team - it was not at all a professional learning event, nor was it designed to be. However, just having the time away from the daily responsibilities, to think and to analyze and to reflect and to examine practice in new ways can have value as a professional learning experience. The same can be said of curriculum writing, test item development, etc. - they are valuable opportunities for teachers to expand their practice and consider new ways of doing things.

Walkthroughs

A great option for informal learning is for teachers to open up their classrooms for walkthroughs. While walkthroughs are often seen (and done) as evaluative tools, they have great formative and professional learning potential. At the most basic level, walkthrough data can help inform professional learning needs. A formalized instructional rounds process allows teachers to get in to other classrooms to observe. These practices, in addition to providing feedback to the teacher being observed, can provide visiting teachers with examples of promising practices in other classrooms and can also facilitate the development of peer networks. While providing less schoolwide data, allowing teachers to develop their own instrument focused on their individual learning goals can provide teachers with individual feedback and foster development of peer feedback networks.

Communities of Practice

A community of practice is essentially a PLC that can transcend time and space (not be synchronous or limited by distance) and are typically focused on a specific topic area. Building a community of practice takes care, time, and resources and is a difficult thing to build and sustain. Online professional learning communities can present opportunities to develop a broader network, but have their own challenges, such as the perception of value and the community having sufficient value to drive regular return traffic. As a result, many people tend to use communities that are already popular such as the NCTE forums, and new communities often have trouble getting started. Informal communities of practice became useful to teachers during COVID to reduce isolation and provide support to the transition to remote learning.

Edcamps

Edcamps are professional learning experiences created at a grassroots level. An edcamp is typically organized by teachers within a district or series of districts and held in a school on a Saturday. Edcamps are always free and open to anyone. Unlike a traditional conference, an Edcamp has no pre-set schedule. Ideas for the schedule for the day is generated by the participants as they arrive based on what they want to share or learn about. In an Edcamp, there may not be an “expert” in the room, but Edcamp is designed to value the contributions of the community, and focuses on allowing everyone to co-create the session they’re in. The first Edcamp in North Carolina was held in 2012 at NC State. Since then, hundreds have popped up, both geographic (Edcamp Wake, Edcamp JoCo, Edcamp Bull City, etc.) and around specific topics (Edcamp Equity). Research around Edcamps is largely positive, indicating that teachers do change their practice as a result of their attendance. Schools have also been adopting the Edcamp model to use in lieu of traditional PD days in the school. Since EdCamps are traditionally run by volunteers, the increased workload put upon educators from COVID means that there are a lot fewer EdCamps now than there were five years ago.

Twitter and Personalized Learning Networks

When organized communities don’t exist, some teachers have taken to creating their own, using social media tools. Known as personalized learning networks, these networks are organized by the interests of the individual educator and can allow them to choose who they engage with and how. Synchronous Twitter Chats allow teachers to engage with one another by tweeting using the same hashtag to answer questions at the same time, creating the effect of a conversation. Slowchats are similar to twitter chats, except they aren’t synchronous. A study by Carpenter (2015) and 2018 along with Guidry (2016) suggested that Twitter has value in allowing teachers to share and consume best practices. There are some questions about the depth and quality of the interactions in a medium such as Twitter and the risk of participants “shouting into the void”. However, the connections and idea sharing does tend hold value for those who participate. Primarily, Twitter was the mechanism for this until the acquisition by Elon Musk last year. Over the past few years, online attacks on teachers from accounts such as Libs of TikTok have soured teacher willingness to participate in professional learning on public forums such as Twitter. Twitter chats used to be a major part of this course, but becuase of this change in culture, are no longer included.

Post-COVID

We still don’t know much about what educator professional learning is looking like post-COVID. At the start of the pandemic, teachers were participating in professional learning sessions in unprescedented amounts. However, as the stress of remote learning became more sustained, most optional PL activities seemed to trail off. Anecdotally, it hasn’t quite recovered yet and many of the communities that existed before COVID have become more disbanded as social networks have fragmented. Much research is being done on this topic, so in six months to a year, we will have a much better understanding of the state of the professional learning landscape in K-12.