Re-presenting collective learning: a generative way forward

Professional development is increasingly conceived as a sustained group or community process, often supported by online technologies. Yet despite the enthusiasm for online communities of practice [40], and the innovative educational contexts being developed to support them, the reality of developing and maintaining a critical mass of teacher engagement is proving to be challenging (for example, the Inquiry Learning Forum (ILF) [4]; the Hawaii Networked Learning Communities (HNLC) [37]). Teacher educators and designers of technological learning environments continually strive to maximize the value of teacher engagement in such contexts, yet the conditions under which social learning and collaboration become an appropriate strategy for teachers remain unclear [4; 19]. Furthermore, contemporary research from evolutionary psychology [27] and modeling of cultural transmission [5] suggests the likelihood that professional development in sustained groups would involve subtle yet influential social learning strategies. For example, decisions regarding the adequacy of a particular concept or professional behavior may be influenced by the status of the group member advocating it, the frequency of the behavior in the group, or even which idea or behavior was offered to the group first [1].