Abstract
Critical Friends Groups (CFGs) are a form professional learning community that has been used for teacher learning in K-12 environments for many years. In order to foster community and learning amongst distributed participants, CFGs are beginning to make their way online. This article describes the expereience of a four-year old online CFG whose goal was to explore how different technologies can support the work of a virtual CFG by being an online CFG. This article describes the technologies used to host this CFG, the attributes of those technologies to support this collaborative work and the lessons learned from the group’s experience.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.References
Anderson, L., & Olsen, B. (2006). Investigating early career urban teachers' perspectives on and experiences in professional development. Journal of Teacher Education, 57(4), 359–377.
Andreu, R., Canos, L., de Juana, S., Manresa, E., Rienda, L., & Tari, J. J. (2003). Critical friends: a tool for quality improvement in universities. Quality Assurance in Education, 11(1), 31–36.
Bambino, D. (2002). Critical friends. Educational Leadership, 59(6), 25–27.
Bernacchio, C., Ross, F., Washburn, K. R., Whitney, J., & Wood, D. R. (2007). Faculty collaboration to improve equity, access, and inclusion in higher education. Equity & Excellence in Education: University of Massachusetts School of Education Journal, 40(1), 56–66.
Blitz, C.L. (2013). Can online learning communities achieve the goals of traditional professional learning communities? What the literature says. (REL 2013–003). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantaci. Retrieved from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs.
Costa, A., & Kallick, B. (1993). Through the lens of a critical friend. Educational Leadership, 51(2), 49–51.
Langer, J. (2000). Excellence in English in middle and high school: How teachers' professional lives support student achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 37(2), 397–439.
Lock, J. V. (2006). A new image: Online communities to facilitate teacher professional development. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 14(4), 663–678.
Moore, J.A., & Carter-Hicks, J. (2014) Let’s talk! Facilitating a faculty learning community using a critical friends group approach. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 8(2), Article 9.
Phillips, J. (2003). Powerful learning: Creating learning communities in urban school reform. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 18(3), 240–258.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Moore, J.A. Exploring Five Online Collaboration Tools to Facilitate a Professional Learning Community. TechTrends 62, 612–617 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-018-0288-3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-018-0288-3