Distributed leadership facilitating collaboration in a teacher community of practice Gyeong Mi Heo CEFRIO, QC, Canada [email protected] Donna Anderson Grosse Ile School, QC, Canada [email protected] Marie-Helen Goyetche Arundel School, QC, Canada [email protected] Dorothy Taker Grosse Ile School, QC, Canada [email protected] Alain Breuleux McGill University, QC, Canada [email protected]

Abstract: Building Community through Telecollaboration (BCT) is a province-wide initiative with educators and administrators from English school boards across Quebec. It aims to encourage, facilitate and support collaboration among students, teachers and educational leaders to enhance learning by using ICT. In this paper, we present (a) a conceptual framework for the BCT project based on the participatory design research approach and (b) teachers’ collaborative activities and collaborative student projects in three teacher groups, which are divided according to the cycles they are teaching in. In addition, we highlight the roles of cycle group leaders as teacher leaders and teacher researchers for facilitating communication and collaboration among teachers in the teacher groups.

Introduction Building Community through Telecollaboration (BCT) is a province-wide initiative with educators and administrators from English school boards across Quebec (Breuleux, Heo, Wall, Morgan, & Flores, 2009). The main goal of the BCT Project is “to encourage, facilitate and support collaboration among students, teachers and educational leaders to enhance learning across the community.” The BCT project is based on a notion that the use of Information and communication technology (ICT) allows us to overcome the challenges of distance, professional isolation, and educational success in small and remote schools. Using a design research approach (Bereiter, 2005; Brown, 1992; Collins, Joseph, & Bielaczyc, 2004; Schoenfeld, 2006), it was initiated in 2007 through mutual close collaboration between teachers, administrators, and a leadership team including researchers and techno-pedagogical consultants as practitioners with support from a Provincial techno-pedagogical resource organization. Based on the results of evaluations on Phase 1 (2007-2009), the BCT project was redesigned in Phase 2 (2009 - present) and adopted a participatory design research approach (Silva & Breuleux, 1994), which emphasizes the engagement of users / participants in the design process. Participating teachers were grouped according to the “Cycle” they were teaching in (i.e., elementary education in Quebec is divided into Cycle 1 (Grades 1 and 2), Cycle 2 (Grades 3 and 4) and Cycle 3 (Grades 5 and 6)). A volunteer lead teacher was selected for each cycle, who engaged actively in the project development process as a representative of the users (i.e., the participating teachers) in close collaboration with the researchers and the practitioners as well as facilitated and supported communication and collaboration among the teachers in their cycle groups.

Heo, G. M., Anderson, D., Goyetche, M-H., Taker, D. & Breuleux, A. (2011). Distributed leadership facilitating collaboration in a teacher community of practice. Proceedings of the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (SITE) 2011, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.

In this paper, we will discuss (a) a conceptual framework of the BCT project, (b) teachers’ collaborative activities and collaborative classroom projects in each cycle group, and (c) roles of cycle group leaders as teacher leaders and teacher researchers.

Conceptual Framework The BCT project is situated within a conceptual and methodological context of participatory design research, including notions of professional learning networks within a community of practice (Blankenstein, Houston, & Cole, 2008; Hofman & Dijkstra, 2010; Little, 2002; Palincsar, Magnusson, Marano, Ford, & Brown, 1998; Schlager & Fusco, 2003; Wenger, 1998). Key organizational features of the BCT Project in Phase 2 are summarized below: A Distributed Leadership Community: Teacher ownership is an important underlying principle that guides the leadership and management of the BCT project. The BCT leadership team consists of three cycle group leaders as representatives of the cycle groups as well as researchers and practitioners. The feedback from teachers that is collected through Appreciative Inquiry assessments after each face-to-face session, online teacher questionnaires, and focus group interviews are also crucial . The members of the BCT Coordinating Committee[1] meet after each of the face-to-face sessions and at the end of the school year to provide strategic direction and operational support for the project. To support the BCT community including the BCT leadership team, various aspects of support are provided: the cooperation and support of the English school boards, the strong support of principals, other administrators and support staff in the 15 BCT schools, and the support of local techno-pedagogical consultants and IT staff in the school boards. A Culture of Sharing: One goal of the BCT project is to create and foster a culture of reflection and sharing within the network of teachers. It fosters a move from individual practice to collaboration, professional engagement, and teacher leadership. The goal of the BCT community as a professional learning network is to allow teachers to make sense of the challenges they face in their practice especially for integrating ICT into the classroom and to discover creative solutions to these challenges. In the BCT project, teachers and administrators have shaped the shared vision of facilitating the use of ICT in support of effective teaching practices for students learning in the classroom. ICT for Collaboration: As a collaborative design-based enterprise, the BCT project aims to create conditions in elementary classrooms that allow students and teachers to build and share knowledge together through the use of ICT. Collaboration through ICT tools is both the object of the project and an element of solution to other challenges of teacher professional development. In the BCT project, collaboration among teachers and administrators is modeled, encouraged and facilitated through face-to-face meetings (four times per year) as well as in online sessions (i.e., BCT Sakai portal and Live Classroom). Professional Learning: The essence of the BCT Project is professional learning. The BCT teachers engage in an active process of collaborating with other teachers in a professional learning network and hence they become knowledgeable regarding how to use ICT for students collaborating within and across classrooms based on their experiences in the BCT community. Agendas and topics for face-to-face and online sessions (i.e., using LiveClassroom and the Sakai Portal) mostly depend on collegial consensus. For example, a BCT face-to-face meeting begins with information and discussions related to the goals and objectives of the project and strategies and suggestions on developing and facilitating collaborative projects. Then, it moves on to the actual development of student collaboration projects as the year progresses. In addition, hands-on sessions about ICT tools (e.g., blog, wiki, Voicethread, Smartboard, Google docs, photo/video editing tools and others) are held. The face-to-face sessions are especially valuable in encouraging interpersonal connections for the sharing of professional practice and the learning of new skills.

[1]

The members of BCT Coordinating Committee are attached to a provincial educational resource organization, an Information Technology R&D center, as well as members from the BCT leadership team.

Heo, G. M., Anderson, D., Goyetche, M-H., Taker, D. & Breuleux, A. (2011). Distributed leadership facilitating collaboration in a teacher community of practice. Proceedings of the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (SITE) 2011, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.

Collaborative Activities in Cycle Groups About 45 teachers and administrators from 15 English schools across the province of Quebec participated in the BCT project in 2009-2010. Based on these organizational features, in addition to the face-to-face meetings, the participating teachers in each cycle group communicated through BCT Sakai portal discussion forum, e-mail, and LiveClassroom and collaborated with each other within and across the cycle groups by using web 2.0 tools, such as wikis, voicethread, and blogs. A brief summary of each cycle group’s activities is as follows. Cycle 1 (http://cycle1-bct.wikispaces.com/): Most of the Cycle 1 teachers were newcomers to the BCT Project and also novices in ICT in the Fall of 2009. As they planned and developed a collaborative project (with Voicethread) to introduce themselves as well as their class to each other, they became more comfortable with the use of ICT. The Cycle 1 group began to use the Sakai portal to: (a) share project ideas with other groups; (b) access other projects; (c) comment and respond to other projects; and (d) be aware of upcoming events and announcements about the BCT project (e.g., face to face meetings, new postings, and summaries of previous meetings). In addition, they started sharing what they had done on the Cycle 1 Wikispace, which was developed in February 2010 to share collaborative projects going on in the various classes about the Olympics. For example, one of the wiki pages was about winter carnivals, as these are often seen as a celebration of winter sporting events. The kindergarten of one school shared pictures of favorite winter sports with sentences about them and another school responded with a Voicethread about the winter carnival at their school. Later as teachers became more confident and comfortable in the use of wikis they started to add their blogs, Voicethreads and other collaborative projects. Cycle 2 (http://bctcollaboration.wikispaces.com/Cycle+Two+2009-2010): Cycle 2 teachers did not use the Sakai portal as much as they could in 2009-2010. Most of the messages on the discussion forum were posted by the cycle leader. Even though they agreed that the Sakai portal could be used to find a project idea and/or a project partner, to share collaborative projects, and to plan and develop projects, they still perceived that they needed more experience and practice to readily access it due to the complexity of the portal. In addition, the Cycle 2 group is divided into four smaller project groups they felt more comfortable with private communication tool (e.g., e-mail). The Cycle 2 Wikispace was developed more as a resource area for the Cycle 2 teachers at the beginning of the school year and closer to the end, it was used more to showcase and share the collaborative projects. Most of the Cycle 2 projects were based in English Language Arts and/or French as a Second Language class along with three collaborative projects: (a) Flat Stanley project, (b) Tales of A Fourth Grade Nothing project, and (c) What Makes a Good... project. Three schools participated in the Flat Stanley project. Among them, two schools did their projects in English based on the novel Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown and the other did it in French based on “Clément aplati.” The students created their own version of Flat Stanley with stencils, replacing Stanley’s head with their own picture. The students showed their schools in the eyes of Flat (student’s name). The collage of pictures and voices were uploaded on a voicethread and comments and questions were dealt with in both languages. Two other schools worked on the novel Tales of A Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. They divided the book into two parts, each group summarizing and illustrating their part. They also used Voicethread. Two schools developed their project on The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown called What Makes a Good.... Some schools did not post their Voicethreads due to confidentiality issues. Cycle 3 (http://cycle3-bct.wikispaces.com): Cycle 3 teachers used the Sakai portal for project planning and development, including asking and answering questions, suggesting projects, sharing/developing project ideas, and sharing projects in progress. They started initiating a discussion topic in relation to teaching practices (e.g., evaluation of students’ learning, sharing teacher strengths, and teacher best practices)as well as collaborative projects. They also updated collaborative projects underway on Cycle 3 Wikispace. On the wiki the teachers shared three significant language arts projects called: (a) Book Talks, (b) Meet Our Characters, and (c) Literature Circles. The Book Talks project involved the students from different classes commenting on the various novels they read in class. Meet our Characters were actually profiles of the different characters in the stories as the students’ stepped into the characters’ shoes. The teachers used the wiki as a discussion forum for Literature Circles. Another project that the Cycle 3 teachers became involved in was the Olympics. The different classes did various activities around the 2010 Olympics and shared them through articles, voicethreads, and pictures on the wiki. Schools also posted Olympic Day celebrations at their own schools.

Heo, G. M., Anderson, D., Goyetche, M-H., Taker, D. & Breuleux, A. (2011). Distributed leadership facilitating collaboration in a teacher community of practice. Proceedings of the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (SITE) 2011, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.

Roles of Cycle Group Leaders As mentioned in the previous section, one of the key features of the BCT project in 2009 was to create the role of cycle group leaders for the various cycle group activities. In 2009-2010, there were four cycle group leaders: co-leaders Nancy[2] and Debbie for Cycle 1 (School board 1), Emilie for Cycle 2 (School board 2) and Kacey for Cycle 3 (School board 3). To offer a better understanding of their roles, the cycle group leaders, as co-authors of this paper, reflected on their experiences and thoughts on being teacher leaders and they discussed the benefits and challenges they had while acting as teacher leaders at the end of the school year 2009-2010. Based on their reflections, the roles of cycle group leaders are identified as encouraging teachers’ collaboration in a community of practice for teachers and hence improving teachers’ professional practice and students learning. The cycle group leaders as well as actively participating teachers are considered as a “core group” in the BCT community. The cycle group leaders participated in the development of the project and represented the members of their cycles. They also facilitated and supported communication and collaboration among teachers of their cycles. During the design and implementation process, the cycle group leaders participated in regular teleconferencing meetings with the BCT leadership team (i.e., practitioners and researchers) and corresponded regularly through emails to discuss and work on various important issues. Working with the BCT leadership team this way allowed for frequent discussions and timely evaluation of how the projects had been going and where they were heading. Acting on behalf of the participants of their cycles, the cycle group leaders enabled the leadership team to be more aware of each group’s expectations, needs and concerns. As this happened and the team responded very sensitively to what the cycle group leaders were saying, teacher ownership came out to be an important underlying driver of the project. They were happy and excited to be part of the decision making. Motivation levels soared as a result. As cycle group leaders, they felt it was a fulfilling experience and an opportunity to develop their leadership skills and improve their practice professionally. They had opportunities to work on communicating ideas, collaborating with others to reach collective decisions, and self-evaluating and reflecting, as well as becoming confident in the role of a cycle group leader. Emilie (Cycle 2 leader) shared her reflection of this role stating: “By becoming a cycle group leader I believe I have developed professionally. Call it training, mentoring, sharing, exchanging I had a lot to share and offer and yet I had a lot to receive and learn as well. By helping others, I was able to improve my own teaching practices. It was a winwin situation.” Kacey (Cycle 3 leader) also reflected on how she felt about taking on the role of cycle group leader and how the support and collaboration from the leadership team was important. She said: “Initially I was very apprehensive about taking on such a task. I did not feel I had enough experience or self-esteem to be able to lead a group of people, participate in leadership meetings and handle all that was required. I soon realized though that I was not alone and that with the collaboration of other members on the leadership team, I was surrounded by support. I felt valued, respected and trusted. These feelings helped to build my confidence as a cycle group leader.” In addition, cycle group leaders felt that they had gained enormous amounts of confidence and strengths in terms of using and teaching ICT both to students and colleagues. By mentoring and training others they could strengthen their abilities to use ICT and present it to others. Throughout the last two years there was evidence of this as cycle group leaders gave many presentations on various ICT tools, such as Skype, LiveClassroom, Voicethread, Wikis, Google docs, Blogs, Sakai portal, and other web 2.0 tools. It became clear to the cycle group leaders that as they taught they were learning as well and as a result have also used many of the teaching practices and ICT uses in their own classrooms. One teacher, reflecting on this, noted: “you retain better what you learn when you teach it to others.” Some cycle group leaders had also gone on to feel comfortable enough to present ICT and online collaborative projects to other colleagues in their schools and school boards and at other professional development events. Nancy and Debbie (Cycle 1 leaders) felt very strongly about how immersing themselves and their students in ICT increased their confidence to share what they had learned. They reflected:

[2]

We use pseudonyms to refer to the teachers.

Heo, G. M., Anderson, D., Goyetche, M-H., Taker, D. & Breuleux, A. (2011). Distributed leadership facilitating collaboration in a teacher community of practice. Proceedings of the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (SITE) 2011, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.

“Like any leadership role, there were certain benefits and difficulties of being cycle group leader. We felt that a great benefit was the number of teachers, students, and administrators that we got to work with and build our own network. We also were teaching what we had learned about technology to our colleagues and strengthening our confidence with technology. We also think being cycle group leader gave us more confidence in presenting to colleagues. As cycle group leaders we also got a chance to hear about so many great collaborative online projects.” Another crucial role of the cycle group leader was to provide support to the cycle group and whole BCT community. They made themselves readily available through face-to-face sessions, Sakai discussion forum, emails, and LiveClassroom to answer concerns and questions of members in a timely way. The cycle group leaders were able to share their past experiences in the BCT project as well as numerous resources they had in relation to teaching practices, online collaborative projects, and ICT tools in their cycle groups. As well, they regularly reported through face-to-face sessions and Sakai discussion forums on meaningful progress and accomplishments of the cycle groups. They led and coordinated the cycle group and there was constant support through team work. The leaders acted as facilitators for projects between schools as well. One of the benefits of the team work and support, especially by using ICT, is that teachers could overcome the challenges of distance, professional isolation, and educational success in small and remote schools. Through ICT, many schools are linked throughout the Quebec province and some competent teachers even connected beyond the provinces to learn more about other areas of the world. They were able to go beyond the walls of their classrooms, in some cases one class gathers all students from a given cycle, and hence they had opportunities to communicate with students from the same levels elsewhere in the world. Likewise, for the teachers who teach in isolation in a small school, it was often difficult due to distance to get professional development. In this situation, support from the BCT project enabled them to feel less professional isolation and they were able to develop professionally on many levels. Nancy and Debbie (Cycle 1 leaders) coming from one of the most remote schools involved in the BCT project shared how they communicated and collaborated through ICT to overcome the challenge of distance and professional isolation: “During the project we began to open our classrooms up to learning beyond our walls and we linked with many schools within Quebec as well as the United States, Alberta, and even Scotland. We were also active users of sakai, emails, live classrooms, and skype to plan with other teachers in these areas and share how to use certain tools to create online collaborative projects. It seemed our networks kept growing and growing as we supported the community.”

Lessons Learned Lessons learned from the BCT project 2009-2010 are discussed in this section. In relation to learning, teachers were more willing to learn and use ICT when they believed it would benefit their students’ learning. They reported that students enjoyed sharing their work with authentic audiences and learning about and with ICT. While engaging in the collaborative projects, students had taken more ownership for their learning, learned how to collaborate more effectively, and understood the importance of digital etiquette and Internet safety issues. The BCT teachers also realized that the issue of Internet safety and privacy must be carefully considered for students and parents and hence they planned to build a common consent form for classroom collaborative projects in the BCT community. In addition, the BCT teachers reported about their learning in relation to teaching practice. They felt they had developed more strategies for collaborating and communicating with their colleagues and gained expertise in using ICT in their classrooms. Based on their experiences, two issues are highlighted: (a) It is important to focus on pedagogy first and then the ICT tools to support it, and (b) It is important to focus on learning only the ICT tools that are needed for a project rather than attempting to learn every new ICT tool. There is a wide range of expertise in the BCT community. In the BCT project, flexible, just-in-time learning was encouraged. Beginners appreciated taking “baby steps” and could benefit from support from their colleagues. The more experienced BCT teachers remain involved by helping others, doing presentations of ICT tools, suggesting topics on Sakai discussion forums or even leading the cycle groups. To do that, building relationship between newcomers and experienced teachers through face-to-face sessions is also crucial.

Heo, G. M., Anderson, D., Goyetche, M-H., Taker, D. & Breuleux, A. (2011). Distributed leadership facilitating collaboration in a teacher community of practice. Proceedings of the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (SITE) 2011, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.

In the BCT project, various sources of supports were: (a) the principals and other administrators and techno-pedagocial consultants for providing the resources, time, and technical support, (b) the colleagues for pedagogical, technical, and collaborative aspects, (c) the cycle group leaders who facilitated the development of projects and opportunities for teachers to work with one another, and (d) the BCT leadership team for online and face-to-face support. Among these supports, the cycle group leaders’ roles as facilitators and representatives of the cycle group are especially highlighted in this paper for building and cultivating a community of practice for teachers. Time is one of major concerns in facilitating teachers’ voluntary participation in the community of practice. It should be noted that there are significant differences in the amount of time teachers could allocate to work on activities in the BCT community. We should be careful not to overload teachers and allow them flexible time frames for contributions to the project. Their involvement and work in the project should not be an add-on but should blend work with learning. The use of ICT and the classroom collaborative projects should fit in to what they are already teaching and evaluating in class and not be something entirely different and extra.

Conclusion In conclusion, it is clearly evident that there are many benefits emerging from the participatory design research approach we took in the BCT project at different levels; including personal and professional level, students and classroom level, school, school board and community level. Among them, especially, the roles of the cycle group leaders are crucial in designing, building, and cultivating a community of practice for teachers, in facilitating communication and collaboration through ICT among teachers, and in exemplifying and supporting the BCT project and the BCT teachers along the way. The cycle group leaders also appreciated their experiences as teacher leaders and had developed their leadership skills as well as teaching practice and had confidence and strengths in using ICT in relation to their professional development.

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Heo, G. M., Anderson, D., Goyetche, M-H., Taker, D. & Breuleux, A. (2011). Distributed leadership facilitating collaboration in a teacher community of practice. Proceedings of the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (SITE) 2011, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.