My doctoral research inquiry will focus on the nature of authentic professional development which is believed to occur among teachers working telecollaboratively with other teachers. Among teachers who have used the Internet to help their students participate in curriculum-based telementoring projects in recent years, research has found that teachers reported significant amounts of professional learning occurs as an "unintended consequence" of involvement with these online learning activities (McGee, 1997; McGee, 1998). Currently, the nature of this phenomenon is being investigated by research attempting to identify specific characteristics of this on-the-job, "just-in-time," authentic kind of professional development among teachers engaged in online curriculum-based projects (Abbott (work in progress); Harris (work in progress)). Further research is also being conducted to explore the nature of the process of collaborative reflection among teachers in order to develop a procedure or set of guidelines that may be used for a similarly structured collaborative process useable by teachers telecollaborating online (Harris, Abbott, Glazer, (work in progress). It is hoped that such a process could be used by schools with Internet connections as a valid form of K-12 teachers' professional development.

The concept of teachers using Internet communication tools for authentic professional development has already been advocated by a number of well-known professional development specialists, who have suggested grounding professional skill improvement in teachers' on-the-job practice and in teachers' use of telecommunication tools to contact and consult with other professionals (Harrington-Lueker, 1996). In addition, some professional development specialists have suggested that teachers telecollaborative communications with other professionals -- such as other teachers, subject matter experts from a variety of content fields relevant to teachers' instructional curriculum, higher-education personnel, and so on -- should be recognized and should be supported as a valid form of professional development. Further, there has been support for the notion that teachers should receive regular professional development credits for engaging in such professional skill-enhancing activities, although the precise manner in which this might happen has not been made clear (Hixson & Jones, 1990). However, one possible method by which teachers might document and receive professional development credits for on-the-job improvement is currently being used in Australia, which has authorized use of a portfolio system to document and validate teachers' authentic professional development, including self-directed and distance-learning use of Internet tools and resources for learning (Retallick, 1999).

In order to better understand the nature of authentic professional development conducted among telecollaborating teachers, I will be conducting an inquiry into the experiences of teachers using a prototype telecollaborative reflection model developed in accordance with guidelines emerging from previous research studies (Harris, Abbott, Glazer, (work in progress)).

I will conduct my research within a constructivist paradigm in order to allow for collaborative co-construction of knowledge between me (the researcher) and participating teachers. The process under investigation is new, and participants will usually communicate with one another exclusively in reflexive groups online. Therefore, in order to explore to the fullest extent possible the nature of teachers' experiences when engaging in this new process, I will rely on in-depth individual-participant interviews, peer debriefing with other constructivist or naturalistic-inquiry researchers, and reflective collaboration among all participants. The constructivist research paradigm and the specific collaborative qualitative-research methods that are to be used in this research study are consistent with the collaborative nature of the phenomenon being explored.

Those interested in this study would likely include teachers interested in exploring non-traditional avenues for professional growth, as well as school districts interested in providing on-demand, readily available, and individually adjustable types of professional development opportunities for their teaching staff. A wide variety of higher-education and teacher-training institutions and education agencies would also likely be interested in the progress of these telecollaborative professional development activities. For example, colleges of education may choose to encourage their students majoring in education to include participation as an extension of coursework in teacher training and teacher-supervisor training.

References

Abbott, Lynda. (work in progress) "The nature of authentic professional development during curriculum-based telecomputing."

Erlandson, D. A., Harris, E. L., Skipper, B. L., & Allen, S. D. (1993). Doing naturalistic inquiry: A guide to methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Harrington-Lueker, D. (1996). Coming to grips with staff development. Electronic Learning, 16 (1), 32-43.

Harris, Judi; Abbott, Lynda; and Glazer, Courtney. (work in progress) "The 'Electronic Emissary': Telementoring and teacher-to-teacher telecollaboration as vehicles for authentic professional development."

Harris, Judi; Abbott, Lynda; and Glazer, Courtney. (work in progress) "Students' curriculum-based telecomputing as teachers' authentic professional development."

Harris, Judi; Abbott, Lynda; and Glazer, Courtney. (work in progress) Teachers' collaborative reflection as a form of authentic professional development. [Paper to be presented at NECC 2000 in Atlanta, GA, June 23- 28, 2000.]

Heaviside, S., Farris, E., Malitz, G., & Carpenter, J. (February 1996). Advanced telecommunications in U.S. public elementary and secondary schools, 1995 (NCES E.D. TABS Report No. 96-854). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Research and Improvement.

Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

McGee, P. A. (1997). Collaboration and unintentional teacher learning in telementoring contexts. Unpublished manuscript, University of Texas at Austin.

McGee, P. A. (1998). Unintended professional development in curriculum-based K-12 telementoring projects (Doctoral dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1998). ProQuest Digital Dissertations, AAT 9838045.

National Center for Education Statistics. (1999). Internet access in public schools and classrooms: 1994-98 (E.D. TABS Publication No. NCES 99-017). [On-line]. Available: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs99/1999017.html

NUA Internet Surveys. (1999). How many online? [On-line]. Available: http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online/index.html

Retallick, J (1999) Teachers’ workplace learning: Towards legitimation and accreditation, Teachers and Teaching, 5(1), 33-50.