A summary of research addressing the question of "how could online support be more valuable to teachers?" with a focus upon pre-servicec teachers. For the SPARK forum at QUT

1. Nick Kelly and Steven Kickbusch
nick.kelly@qut.edu.au and steven.kickbusch@qut.edu.au

2. So many questions
• How do teachers currently get support online?
• What support do teachers say that they want?
• What is the impact of online support?
• What is the potential for teachers to support one another online?

3. Overview: Digital methods
• Design-based research
• Creating an online community and studying it
• Disaggregation of data
• Data from ~45,000 early career teachers in Australia
• Primary research
• Quantitative: survey-based and “scraping” of social media
• Qualitative: interview-based and sampling through social media

4. Teachers supporting each other online
Type of community Example of community type Description of example
Nationwide,
government
funded
Scootle Community
http://community.scootle.edu.au
Federal Government supported site (run by Education Services
Australia) to facilitate a social network (Facebook style) around
Scootle resources in particular and the teaching profession in
general. Available to most educators in the country.
Statewide,
government
funded
The Learning Place
http://education.qld.gov.au/
learningplace/
State Government supported site (run by Education Queensland)
with a large and widely used collection of resources for classrooms
and professional development, with social network support (chat,
blogs, learning pathways)
Commercial Facebook groups
https://facebook.com
A widely-used commercial site that supports many diverse groups of
teachers. Some are openly available and some are private; ranging
from the very small to the very large (Author et al., 2016).
Institutional Education Commons (USQ)
https://open.usq.edu.au/course/
info.php?id=62
A Moodle community of preservice and early career teachers
supported by motivated faculty members who provide a library of
articles, videos and mentoring through the site (Henderson, Noble,
& Cross, 2013).
Cross-institutional TeachConnect
http://teachconnect.edu.au
A collaboration between eight teacher education institutions
(universities), supported by the teacher registration body.

5. Method: Data disaggregation
• What is the relationship between types of early
career support and intention to leave the
profession?
• What is the relationship between types of early
career support and job satisfaction?

6. Mining social media
• Data scraping from Facebook
• Use of python, Facebook API, and a server
• Coding scheme
• Sampling from Twitter and Facebook
• Interviews with purposeful selection
• Conveners of groups

7. (Kelly & Antonio, 2016)

8. Findings from studying social media
• Public Facebook groups of teachers:
• Support for declarative knowledge
• Not for situational knowledge (no reflection or modelling of practise)
• Private Facebook groups of teachers
• Support during casual employment
• Accessing collegial support from existing connections
• Support to deal with a challenging work environment
• Applying elsewhere

9. Digital methods: design-based research
• Participation and phases
• Three components (Collins et al., 2004):
1. Is the thing useful?
• Action research
2. What are the transferable design principles?
• Contributing to the next design
3. What is the theoretical contribution
• Why is it useful? Does it confirm existing theory? Give rise to new questions?

10. Evaluation phase

11. A space for deep reflection upon
teaching practice.
Pre-service and Early-career
teachers are mentored by
experienced teachers.
Mentorship Circles
Small
Private
Trusted
Stable

12. Community Q&A
Growing
Knowled
ge
databas
e
Answerin
g
question
s
Sharing
resourc
es
Givin
g
advic
e
Knowle
dge
never
lost
Helpi
ng
one
anoth
er
A space for Community Knowledge
Sharing where teachers help one
another
Shared knowledge is easily accessible
to the rest of the wider community.

13. Outcomes
• All 9 universities in Queensland
• Workshops with PSTs
• Mentoring program
• Online CPD, circles, MET
• Ministerial endorsement and media
• Over 1000 members
• Ongoing development
• Moving towards better online support for teachers

14. TeachConnect
• https://vimeo.com/196226741

15. One of the things I've found is that if
any one of a group of people with
similar problems asks a question
there's a good chance that the
question will reflect some of the
thinking of their peers.
- Myles Horton

16. References
• Kelly N., Reushle S., Chakrabarty S. & Kinnane A. (2014). Beginning teacher support in
Australia: Towards an online community to augment current support, Australian Journal
of Teacher Education 39(4), pp. 68-82 http://dx.doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2014v39n4.6
• Kelly N., Russell N., Kickbusch S., Barros A., Dawes L., & Rasmussen R., (Under review), A
network of preservice teachers for transition into the profession: TeachConnect as
design-based research, Australasian Journal of Educational Technology
• Kelly N. and Antonio A. (2016). Teacher peer support in social network sites, Teaching
and Teacher Education, 56: 138-149 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2016.02.007
• Kelly N., Sim S., & Ireland M. (Under review). Slipping through the cracks: Teachers that
miss out on early career support, Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education
• Kelly N., Cespedes M., Clarà M., & Danaher P., Investigating the complex relationships
between teacher education, early-career support, job satisfaction and intention to leave
the profession. Target: Journal of Teacher Education

17. What teachers say they use (2014 study)
• 118 early career teachers
• School support matters
• Online sources matter
• What is actually going on?
Most valued forms of support.
Kelly, Reushle, Chakrabarty, & Kinnane (2014)
Description
Mean ranking
(6 as highest)
St.
Dev.
Support from my school (such as mentoring) 5.09 1.34
Support from other online sources 3.92 1.23
Employee induction program 3.59 1.52
Support from another source not listed here 3.33 1.82
Support from networks formed at university
(including online networks)
2.81 1.68
Beginning teacher networks (such as BETA, the
Beginning and Establishing Teachers’
Association)
2.26 1.03