CHARACTERISTICS OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND TEACHER INTERACTIONS IN A MOOC DESIGNED FOR THE TEACHING OF STATISTICS
Open Access
- Author:
- Bonafini, Fernanda Cesar
- Graduate Program:
- Curriculum and Instruction
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 24, 2018
- Committee Members:
- Rose Mary Zbiek, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Rose Mary Zbiek, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
M. Kathleen Heid, Committee Member
Kyle L. Peck, Committee Member
William L. Harkness, Outside Member - Keywords:
- MOOCs
Online Professional Development for Teachers
Teachers' Professional Development
Professional Development in Statistics Teaching
MOOC for K-12 Teachers
MOOC for Teachers
MOOC Forums
Qualitative Research
Social Network Analysis
Effective Professional Development - Abstract:
- This study investigates to what extent the characteristics of effective face-to-face professional development hold in a MOOC designed for statistics development of secondary teachers and the nature of teachers’ and others’ interactions with materials and with each other in this online professional development. Social theory of learning and connectivism are used to frame participants’ learning as they establish and experience interactions in the network. The context of this study is a MOOC for educators offered by a large American university and specifically designed for teachers to learn about statistics teaching and the use of statistical investigations in teaching. Qualitative research methods of content analysis are used to identify and describe the enacted characteristics of the MOOC vis-à-vis documented characteristics of effective face-to-face professional development literature. Inductive coding and social network analysis were used to understand the content of participants’ interactions and the network structure produced by them, respectively. Findings regarding characteristics of effective professional development show how this MOOC embodied variations on key characteristics of effective face-to-face professional development. Participants’ autonomy is highlighted as a common element that modifies the characteristics suggested in the literature of face-to-face teachers’ professional development. Findings regarding the nature of participants’ interactions show that MOOC resources were vehicles for participants’ interactivity with some resources engaging more participants than others, and resources being essential for the creation of organic networks. Discussion starters acted as network expanders who amplified interactivity among participants, while the main instructor took the leadership of interactivity and acted as a concierge throughout this MOOC. The study also shows how participants interacted with others in forums, exposing that they shared not only their perspectives about resources provided by this MOOC but also their qualifications and their insecurities with respect to statistics content and statistics teaching. Aligning theoretical perspectives from social theory of learning with connectivism, this study helps to create awareness in the field of teacher professional development regarding new characteristics that emerge when professional development is delivered in large-scale, via the Internet, and free of charge. In this sense, outcomes of the study include a suggested set of characteristics that MOOCs should contain to be an environment for effective professional development for teachers. For the fields of mathematics education and statistics education, this study presents teachers getting acquainted with the pedagogical approach of teaching statistics through data investigations through this MOOC, exposing their perceptions of this approach and their intentions of further implementation, which can contribute to minimize the lack of training in statistics teaching identified in the literature. Implications for research highlight the importance of the quality of participants’ posts in MOOC forums, their individualist modes of interaction in this online professional development, and the role MOOC resources play in their practice. Further research is suggested in the areas of investigating the impact of forum prompt content on the quantity of posts made by participants, sentiment analysis of the content of participants’ forum posts, and investigation into the role of the main instructor in MOOCs for teachers’ professional development.