Abstract:

The sudden switch to online learning during the pandemic presented teachers and teacher trainers with a situation the majority of them had not met before. Up until the pandemic much discussion of online learning, or e–learning, has been preoccupied with the practice of teaching online and the debate about whether being online is ‘as good as’ direct face-to-face teaching. Although online learning has been viable since the 1990s there has been resistance in the profession to adopting this opportunity. Some of the poor designed software available has also coloured the view of what was possible. However, in the sudden global lockdowns, this debate has become academic because there was no alternative in the crisis some more teacher friendly software has also been established.

The authors contributing to this paper, members of the MirandaNet Fellowship professional community of practice, describe an incubation period since 1992 through which they trace the emergence of new teaching and learning theories and practices based on their varied elearning projects. What is important is the spirit of cooperation and informal mentoring within the Fellowship which meant that research projects were seminal to progress of collaborative thinking and community development.

In this paper we outline the collaborative development of theory and practice impacted on our practice. We have grouped these research findings under four headings: technologies for knowledge sharing; pedagogical theories underpinning collaborative online learning; roles for communities of practice (CoP) members in online debates; and, the impact of MOOCs on elearning. A key conclusion looking across all the findings is that professional collaboration, knowledge sharing and mentoring are powerfully supported when the teachers, as learners, belong to a community of practice.

We hope that this overview of what has been discovered over three decades will assist the profession in making effective use of online teaching and learning as well as optimising mentoring processes.

Keywords:

Strategic research approach, teaching, learning and mentoring on-line, teachers and leaders collaboration, community of practice.