Professional learning communities as a place for ‘catharsis’ and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This study seeks to examine how the design and implementation of a professional learning community promotes teacher educators’ professional learning during the recent health crisis. The article reports the experience of six Chilean English language teacher educators that participated in the first iteration of a larger design-based research project. Data were collected through a focus group and individual semi-structured interviews and analysed using thematic analysis, which offered the possibility of showing the participants’ varied perspectives and insights towards the community. The community became a space to seek and provide advice, emotional support and improve collegial relationships during uncertain times. It also offered a low-risk space to unveil teaching practices, reflect upon them and learn with and from colleagues. This article’s main contribution is a detailed description of the design and implementation of a learning community and its characteristics while highlighting the relevance of teachers’ selves for their professional growth.

Keywords:

• Teacher educators
• professional learning communities
• personal development

Reviewing Editor:

• Timo Ehmke, Department of Education, Leuphana University of Lüneburg: Leuphana Universitat Luneburg, Germany

SUBJECTS:

• Teacher Training
• Teachers & Teacher Education
• Educational Research

Introduction

Recent reports and empirical studies have shown the repercussions that the COVID-19 health crisis has brought into the educational arena, exacerbating already-existent inequalities in terms of resources, access to technology and parents’ educational literacy at a school level (e.g., Bellei et al., 2022; Breda et al., 2020; Gelber et al., 2021). Nevertheless, this rapid response of research and policy has once again neglected the pivotal role that teacher educators play in the education of teachers and, consequently, the learning of all children. This is particularly relevant as most of the activities in teacher education programmes moved to an online setting, which encouraged teacher educators to adapt their skills and knowledge to remote teaching. Consideration of these professionals and their crucial role in maintaining the education of teachers-to-be did not take centre stage in neither research nor policy, heightening their marginalisation as the backbone of teacher education. This adds to what research has shown in terms of lack of attention to these professionals and their Professional Development and Learning (PDL) in all contexts and disciplines (e.g. Cochran-Smith, et al., 2020; Kabakci et al., 2010; Knight et al., 2014; Maaranen, et al., 2019; McGee & Lawrence, 2009; Snoek, Swennen, & van der Klink, 2011; Snoek, Swennen & van der Klink, 2009; Swennen & Bates, 2010).

During the COVID-19 crisis, university-based teacher educators had to accommodate their teaching practices, which required a ‘renewed pedagogic agility’ (Kidd & Murray, 2020, p.552). These professionals had to make quick but significant decisions to adjust their practices not only to fit into a never-seen-before digital era, but also to prepare teachers-to-be to face the uncertainties of the future of education. It is in this shift that transformative opportunities to promote their continuous professional learning are urgently needed. Even though the current context has shaped the ‘new’ dynamics of professional learning initiatives making them more affordable and accessible (Alexandrou, 2021), most of these activities have appeared to be framed within an administrative agenda. Quotidian issues such as dealing with technology and responding to managerial demands online seem to be the primary focus of these PDL initiatives. However, attention to teachers’ reflection while transiting to an entire online setting has still not yet been extensively studied.

Understanding the pivotal role of teacher educators, the perception of professional learning as a career-long journey and the severe need to facilitate low-risk spaces to collaboratively reflect on the rapid adaptions to online teacher education, this paper aims to critically examine how designing and building a Professional Learning Community (PLC) contributed (if so) to promoting teacher educators’ continuous learning. The international literature on PLC, its main tenets and characteristics (e.g. Bolam et al., 2005; DuFour, 2004; Hord, 1997; Meeuwen et al., 2020) provided a basis for the collaborative design and enactment of the PLC as there is limited local research on this topic.

There are several important areas where this study makes an original contribution. Firstly, it offers the opportunity to bring attention to teacher educators to the surface as the ‘linchpins’ of education (Cochran-Smith, 2003). It also adds to the literature on the characteristics, supporting structures and conditions of building a PLC from an empirical stance. It also contributes to local research, as there has been limited attention to this initiative and its potential for professional learning and development. In terms of practice, the significance of this study is the detailed description of the design and implementation of the community, as little is known about how PLCs are enacted. Much of the current literature examines already-established PLCs without revealing their design and the specifics of their evolution. Therefore, this study aims to fill this gap in a twofold perspective: (1) addressing the neglected area of teacher educators’ PDL, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and (2) presenting sufficient details about the design, implementation and evaluation of a PLC.

Literature review

Teacher educators’ PDL

Teacher educators’ PDL is a recent field of study compared to the wealth of research about other aspects concerning the education of teachers. The literature is inundated with studies about teachers’ professional development initiatives, approaches and frameworks. However, the notion of teacher educators’ PDL is a relatively under-research area (Cochran-Smith et al., 2020; Murray et al., 2021). Indeed, in their literature review covering between 2000 and 2010, Ping et al. (2018, p.102) pinpointed that ‘teacher educators’ professional learning has become an independent research field’ with a recent growing interest.

As there is no specific preparation to become a teacher educator (Cochran-Smith et al., 2020), ongoing professional learning takes a dominant role that requires further examination. Van der Klink, et al. (2017, p.163) argued that ‘teacher educators can only continue to act as professionals if they are engaged in further professional development throughout their entire career'. Evidence suggests that initiatives to promote professional learning needs to be relevant, reflective, situated in practice and sustainable (McGee & Lawrence, 2009).

To address a broader conceptualisation, I have purposefully used both professional development and learning to address teacher educators’ professional growth. While development may imply an external influence on teachers’ growth, learning offers a much broader meaning. Nevertheless, both terms represent how teachers evaluate aspects of their professionalism (i.e., knowledge, skills, attitudes, beliefs and actions) (Evans, 2019; Fraser et al., 2007).

Professional learning communities (PLC)

The construct of PLCs was initially proposed by DuFour and Eaker (1998) as the educational parallel of learning organisation introduced by Senge (1990). However, reaching a universal, congruent and precise definition that could serve all contexts has been a complex journey (Chen et al., 2016; Lomos, Hofman and Bosker, 2011). Lomos et al. (2011) call for a clearer conceptualisation of the term to operationalise it and delimit its key dimensions. While Bolam et al. (2005) argued that each school where a PLC is designed and enacted will potentially need to find its own working definition, Hairon et al. (2017) believe that the PLC is a multidimensional construct wherein each of the three dimensions (i.e. professional, learning and community) plays a fundamental role in reaching an overarching definition.

PLC characteristics

Despite the difficulty in defining the concept, a large amount of research has described the main features that characterise a PLC. One of the first studies exhibited five characteristics of school-based professional communities: shared values, reflective dialogue, deprivatisation of practice, focus on student learning and collaboration (Louis & Kruse, 1995). Two years later, Hord (1997) identified four features of PLCs: supportive and shared leadership, collective creativity, shared personal practice and shared values and vision. She argued that supportive conditions such as physical conditions and human capacities are also requirements necessary for the PLC to work effectively. Similarly, DuFour and Eaker (1998) described that a PLC should have the following characteristics: shared values and vision, collective inquiry, collective teams, experimentation, continuous improvement and result orientation. Later, DuFour (2004) put these characteristics into three key overarching aspects that every PLC should have: (1) teachers have to commit themselves to ensure that learning occurs for all the students through actively responding to struggling learners, (2) a collaborative culture must be enhanced by all members of the community in order to analyse and improve their practices, and (3) isolation must be broken down and determined teachers and administrators should work together towards building a collaborative environment. Therefore, a supportive community is believed to have a pivotal role in the promotion of professional development, enhancement of practice and improvement of school outcomes (Little, 2002).

After this initial progress in identifying the characteristics of PLCs, more research has flourished to contribute to the characterisation of a PLC. Bolam et al.'s (2005) unpacking of the concept and its characteristics has predominately served as the key guideline to build, enact and evaluate the effectiveness, consistency and sustainability of PLCs projects. They identified five main characteristics: shared values and vision, collective responsibility, reflective professional inquiry, collaboration, and group and individual learning. They also added mutual trust, respect and support among staff, inclusive membership and openness and networks. Similarly, Sleegers et al. (2013) proposed a model for effective PLC development that included three levels of capacity (personal, interpersonal and organisational) and eight dimensions underlying each level of capacity.

Chen et al. (2016) later argued that the major elements of a PLC could be summarised into two domains: organisational conditions (shared vision, leadership and organisational structures) and relations (collegial trust and collaborative learning). Recently, Meeuwen et al. (2020) summarised all these previous research outputs and developed a three-cluster list, offering 11 characteristics, that presents a common vision for building and evaluating a PLC. Table 1 summarises all this previous research showing how the focus of attention on the social role of PLCs has increased, stressing characteristics around the ‘community’ term of the concept. As time passes, the professional and learning terms appear to have taken a secondary role over the relevance of social relationships in a PLC.

Table 1. PLC characteristics.

Louis and Kruse (1995)	Hord (1997)	DuFour & Eaker (1998)	DuFour (2004)	Bolam et al. (2005)	Sleegers et al. (2013)	Chen et al. (2016)	Meeuwen et al. (2020)
Shared values	Shared values and vision	Shared values and vision		Shared values and vision	Shared values and vision	Shared values and vision	Shared vision	Professional Learning
Reflective dialogue	Collective creativity			Collective responsibility	Active construction of knowledge		Shared responsibility
Deprivatization of practice	Shared personal practice	Collective inquiry		Reflective professional inquiry	Shared practices	Shared personal practice	Reflection
Focus on student learning			Focus on student learning				Shared focus on student
Collaboration		Collective teams	Collaborative culture	Collaboration			Collaboration
	Shared leadership				Stimulating and participative leadership	Supportive and shared leadership
		Experimentation			Currency		Experimenting
		Continuous improvement		Group and individual learning	Collective learning	Collaborative learning	Shared focus on continuous teacher learning	Community
		Result orientation	Results-oriented
				Mutual trust		Collegial trust	Mutual trust and respect
				Respect among staff	Relationships and climate		Social cohesion
				Inclusive membership			Collegial support
				Openness and networks			Giving and receiving feedback
					Resources, structures and systems	Organizational structures

Considering the implications of PLCs for teachers’ professional growth (Vescio, Ross & Adams, 2008) and the lack of opportunities for teacher educators to engage in PDL initiatives, this study aims to design, implement and evaluate a PLC and its contribution to promoting teacher educators’ PDL during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to this goal, the research questions that guided this study are:

How can the design and implementation of a PLC foster teacher educators’ PDL in a context of uncertainty and change? What are the characteristics underlying its implementation?

Method

Context of teacher education in Chile

According to the Law 20.9031¹, the education of teacher candidates is in the hands of accredited and recognised universities (both state and private). These institutions offer teacher education programmes that typically last between four and a half to five years, divided into two terms per academic year. Although each university designs the curricula, most of them follow the Standardised Guidelines for Teacher Education² which provide the competencies, knowledge and skills teachers should have at the end of the teaching course. The curriculum moves between learning about the subject (i.e. English language, Maths, PE) to learning how to teach the subject. The participants of this study work in an English Language Teaching (ELT) programme where they prepare student teachers to teach English as a foreign language. These programmes involve the study of linguistic aspects (e.g., English grammar, phonetics), the study of the culture of English-speaking countries, and pedagogical-related aspects (e.g., teaching strategies, educational theories) (Barahona, 2015). As a result of the global disruptions, all these modules were moved to an entire online setting where teacher educators had to rapidly adapt their practices of teaching about teaching. Indeed, some institutions encouraged student teachers to undertake teaching placements online, where student teachers and teacher educators had to adapt this key phase to the digital scenario (Sepulveda-Escobar & Morrison, 2020).

Participants of the study

A convenience sampling procedure was carried out to select the participants for this study. This type of sampling enables selecting participants based on their accessibility and willingness to participate (Teddlie and Yu 2019). The rationale for using a convenience sample is neither to represent the whole population of Chilean teacher educators nor to generalise the findings to other contexts; instead, it simply represents the sample itself. Six out of eight English language teacher educators from a private university accepted the invitation and voluntarily participated in the design, implementation and evaluation of the PLC. They were aware of and agreed with the goal of creating a PLC to promote collaborative reflection.

The participants all had a full-time contract (i.e., 45-hour contract) at a private university in Chile and work exclusively for the ELT programme. Education, teaching and work experience vary among them alongside the main activities and roles they perform in the ELT programme (see Table 2). They hold a bachelor’s degree in education with a major in English language teaching, and all of them hold a master’s degree in a wide range of areas, including linguistics, higher education and ESOL. To ensure the anonymity of the participants, pseudonyms were used throughout the presentation of the findings. The participants and the head of the institution gave their written consent to take part in this study.

Table 2. Participants of the study.

Pseudonym	Age	School Experience	Higher education experience	Role (s) they identified with	Pathway to teacher education
Tania	53	28 years	8 years	Teacher of teachers	National public job call in a newspaper
Pablo	42	10 years	10 years	Teacher of teachers	Invitation from the programme director
Luis	34	None	8 years	Teacher	National public job call in a newspaper
Karen	37	14 years	Less than a year	Teacher and teacher of teachers	National public job call in a newspaper
Juan	37	2 years	12 years	Teacher	Invitation from the programme director
Teresa	36	9 years	1 and a half year	Teacher	Invitation from the Dean

PLC design and implementation

Data for this study were drawn from a larger Design-Based Research (DBR) project examining the sustainability of building a PLC to foster teacher educators’ PDL and collaborative reflection practices. The exploratory phase (the author, 2022) provided the foundations for the design of the PLC uncovering ESOL teacher educators’ professional learning needs and preference for learning in collaboration with colleagues. Using these nationwide data and the extensive review of the literature, the participants of the study and I stated the initial design framework that guided the PLC implementation in the first iteration of the DBR project. This model did not only include widely known PLC characteristics, supportive conditions and structures but also context-based assumptions that the participants highly valued as requirements for a PLC in a context of uncertainty and change.

As is the case in most DBR projects, we also developed a conjecture mapping (see Figure 1). Sandoval (2014, p.30) argues that conjecture mapping ‘provide[s] a syntax for articulating hypothesised interactions between designed elements and the people who act within a designed environment', showing the processes and outputs that the intended design will generate. Conjecture, he argues, implies the tentative nature of ideas that emerge at the beginning of design research when planning an intervention. Thus, conjecture mapping refers to the presentation of the initial design features of the intervention, and how they are expected to function in the intervention and yield certain outcomes (Sandoval, 2014). Using the mediating processes and desired outcomes, the theoretical conjecture could be phrased as if teacher educators learn from and with others, building a PLC will be feasible and sustainable.

Figure 1. Conjecture mapping.

Initial design framework

Using the PLC literature and the participants’ insights, the initial design framework included the following aspects:

• The PLC must provide a safe space for teacher educators to reflect collaboratively in a culture of openness, professionalism, mutual respect, trust and support

• The PLC must be included within the participants’ weekly schedule to ensure a secure time and space

• The PLC should strive for a bottom-up functioning, a voluntary nature, process-oriented and independent from the university administration

• Horizontal relationships, shared leadership and shared vision

• Topics to be discussed have to be agreed upon by all the members of the PLC

• Feedback and interaction should be supported in the theoretical framework

The conjecture mapping and the initial design framework served as the basis to guide the development of the intervention. Some of these details were later modified during the enactment process as it is practically impossible to detail every single specification of the project ahead of time. With all these inputs, the designed PLC was implemented during the first half of 2020, which coincided with the outbreak of the pandemic and the beginning of local lockdowns. Six fortnightly sessions (see Figure 2) were held on Zoom wherein the participants used two strategies (written reflection and student teachers’ feedback) to promote the exchange of practices and collaborative reflection. These two strategies were used as input to encourage reflection and discussion, and therefore, they were not considered as part of the collected and analysed data. The data gathered during these sessions were not included in the analysis presented in this article as it focused primarily on teacher educators’ reflection process, while the main aim of this article is to explore how the PLC unfolded in terms of design, implementation, and evaluation. In addition, some of the participants were reluctant to share details of their individual reflections.

Figure 2. Overview of PLC session.

Data collection methods

After participating in all the sessions, the participants evaluated the design of the learning community and its contribution to promoting professional learning during the pandemic. The data were collected using a focus group and an individual semi-structured interview. A focus group can be defined as a group of individuals who take part in a structured discussion as a way of exploring a specific research topic (Liamputtong, 2011), usually accompanied by an interviewer or moderator that asks questions about a specific topic (Smithson, 2008). A focus group interview protocol was developed to prompt the discussion, which provided a space to evaluate collaborative learning, make changes for the next iteration, and brainstorm ideas to refine the PLC design.

The use of the interview was crucial for the deep exploration of the ways in which participants’ professional learning was promoted, providing them with a unique opportunity to describe their lived experiences and opinions (Brinkmann & Kvale, 2018; Miller & Glassner, 2011). I followed Brinkmann and Kvale’s (2018) guidelines for interview inquiry as I planned the interview structure considering the aim of this study and the intended outcome, which derived into an interview protocol.

Data analysis

The qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis deductively (Braun et al., 2019). The focus group and the interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim to later conduct a thematic analysis. These transcripts were then imported into Nvivo12 where I read them thoroughly to get familiarised with the data. Then, I identified codes which were later arranged into themes considering the examined literature, the research problem, and the research methodology. As the transcripts were in Spanish (the participants’ native language), the themes were developed in Spanish and sent out to two bilingual speakers to check the accuracy of the translation. Sections of the transcript from which these themes were generated were also back-translated. Once the themes were developed, they were revisited considering the initial design framework presented in this study, highlighting the new PLC characteristics mentioned by the participants. Some of the initial design principles were confirmed through the data analysis, while others came up as a result of the participants’ insights into the experience of participating in the community.

Trustworthiness

As in most DBR projects, procedures for trustworthiness included prolonged engagement and persistent observation in the field alongside triangulation of data sources (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2018). To increase the credibility of this study, the analysis of the gathered data was shared with the participants as a way of debriefing the analysis and the interpretation of the findings. As mentioned earlier, this study shows the first stage of a larger DBR study, where all these procedures were needed to refine the design before enacting the second phase. The use of different data sets in DBR projects generates a more robust data analysis and presentation of the findings (McKenney & Reeves, 2019). In this study, I used the two data collection tools (i.e. individual interview and focus group) to offer a broader picture of the participants’ experience as members of the PLC where data from both methods complemented each other. The ontological and epistemological underpinning of using DBR as the guiding methodology of this study enables others to adopt the outcome of this study to other contexts in order to enact it and refine its results.

Findings

Teacher educators’ insights into the contribution of the PLC for their professional learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and its features are clustered into three themes: (i) PLC characteristics and supportive conditions, (ii) professional learning during the pandemic, and (iii) Fine-tunning the PLC design. Excerpts from each of these themes will be presented below.

PLC characteristics and supportive conditions

Even though this kind of initiative was new to them, they valued it as an opportunity to disclose their practices, listen to others and reflect collaboratively about the transition to online teaching. Recognised characteristics of PLCs, such as shared vision, shared responsibility and reflection, were identified as crucial elements for the community.

The aspects embedded in the term ‘community’ were energetically highlighted as building blocks for the sustainability of the initiative. Participants stressed the importance of trust and social cohesion as the building of a stable community took some time to develop. Hence, building a PLC requires plenty of time to establish trust and group cohesion. The flourishing space of trust in the PLC sessions did not seem to be present in other meetings of the department, as Teresa declared, ‘[the space of trust] you could see it here, but not outside this activity. I think it was because here there was a clear goal'. Tania concurred with this argument and regarded this small group as ‘not considerably high in numbers, but that it actually enabled the establishment as a community of trust'.

The way of enacting this transformative initiative from a bottom-up and independent nature caused some difficulties regarding shared leadership. Teresa argued that it was because ‘[we] are not used to this kind of organisation. Maybe this new arrangement needs to be more explicit’. Luis added that ‘unfortunately because of our idiosyncrasy, we need someone to be pushing us to achieve a task; otherwise, we will not do it'. Teresa called for more active self-regulation and leadership skills claiming that ‘maybe all together [we] could work something out because if it was not for you that guided the discussion, we would have drifted away'.

The idea that this community of professionals was flourishing encouraged the participants to express their desire to continue with the sessions. Pablo suggested that ‘maybe all this process of adapting to sharing practices can become a common idea and this is just the beginning as I realised that changes were actually being made in the last sessions'. Teresa seconded this view, adding that ‘I believe this group needs to have more sessions like this, focused on dialogue and conversation’.

Professional learning during the pandemic

Teacher educators described their participation in the PLC sessions as an opportunity that went beyond discussing administrative tasks and technology-related issues. They primarily focused on the exchange of teaching practices and the process of adapting from face-to-face teaching to an online setting. The topic of the sessions, chosen by the participants, varied and enabled the participants to actively interact about their practices learning from each other. Karen argued that ‘it was important that from a professional perspective, we could listen to each other, converse and consider the other’s opinions'. Similarly, Juan acknowledged this opportunity despite his individual preferences claiming that ‘even though I prefer to listen, it was really good that everyone could talk and listen to each other'.

The implementation of the PLC during the health crisis offered them a space to learn professionally in collaboration with colleagues, which was unusual even before the pandemic. Recognising the difficulties of online interaction, Teresa claimed that before

there was never a culture of sincere exchange of practices and acknowledgment where we could all learn from the experience of the others. This [collaborative learning] must become a routine activity, but it is hard, and it is even harder doing it online.

Karen disagreed with this view since she thought that

[we] had the space to talk before, but not now. The online department meetings are aimed to get informed, but not to talk. However, in this space [PLC] we can discuss about our concerns not only as a teacher, but also as a person

Tania valued this experience as an opportunity ‘to consolidate teamwork, showing the colleagues that these experiences are for learning with others'. Pablo acknowledged that ‘thanks to the students’ feedback and what the colleagues said, I made changes to my practice'. Luis also decided to modify certain aspects of his online teaching based on these interactions; however, he argued that the results of these amendments ‘cannot be seen in the near future'.

Overall, the participants agreed that this project was vital in the transition to this new teaching setting as it enabled them to learn together to face the new scenario. Karen described it as ‘you are not alone in this process and you are not the only one learning about it, so let’s learn together'. This community also provided a space for teacher educators to emotionally support each other while also seeking and providing advice to face the challenges of online teaching. Karen described it ‘as an opportunity for catharsis'.

Fine-Tunning the PLC design

This theme highlights the amendments and slight modifications the participants acknowledged required for a subsequent PLC implementation. This was prompted by the nature of DBR studies that encourages further adaption and modification of the developed design, avoiding becoming a one-size-fits-all outcome.

As teacher educators serve many roles within the teacher education programme, the participants believe that other topics beyond what happens inside the classroom should be considered when revisiting the PLC design. According to them, a vast range of topics regarding their personal development can be used to promote their professional learning. Juan put it as ‘we could talk more about us, not what we do to improve our teaching practices, but something that benefits us'.

The participants also considered that the project should have lasted longer, as building the required environment of trust and respect took more time than we had anticipated. Tania summarised this by stating that ‘in order to consolidate the ability to reflect, there needs to be permanent training'. This necessity was also emphasised by the fact that opportunities to discuss their teaching practices with colleagues have never been facilitated as part of their professional learning'.

Even though this iteration was independent of the institution administration, the participants emphatically argued to keep this self-directed practice as it was a fundamental criterion for the participants to engage in the study. Juan claimed that ‘[participating in this PLC] should not be mandatory neither should it be dictated by the institution as this community is an independent one'. Therefore, enabling the institution’s administration to get involved in this initiative might have a detrimental impact on the participants’ motivation to be part of the community.

Discussion

In this research, a learning community was designed, implemented and evaluated to foster teacher educators’ professional learning during a health crisis. We argue that this type of initiative could contribute to teacher educators’ learning if the characteristics and supportive conditions embedded in the revisited design framework (see Table 3) are considered. Some of these aspects are widely known PLC characteristics, while others were incorporated based on the participants’ insights. This framework confirms the current movement towards paying greater attention to the community’s social cohesion and its relationship to professional and personal development. Nevertheless, the initial design framework offered a firm basis for the development of the community as it embedded key aspects described in the PLC literature, which were also confirmed in this study. For instance, a bottom-up functioning, a process-oriented initiative and an independent activity were paramount characteristics highlighted by the participants.

Table 3. Design framework revisited.

General	Principles
Professional	The PLC must ensure a secure time and space to reflect collaboratively.
	The PLC must strive for a bottom-up functioning, a voluntary nature, process-oriented and independent from university administration.
	The PLC must be characterized by horizontal relationships, shared leadership and shared vision.
Learning	Conversations and reflection should not only revolve around in-the-classroom aspects, but also they should include other professional activities teacher educators undertake as part of their role in teacher education.
	Teacher educators’ PDL is promoted when reflecting collaboratively on teaching and professional practices.
	Systematic collaborative inquiry is at the heart of the process.
Community	The PLC must provide a safe space and a culture of openness, professionalism, collaboration and mutual respect, trust and support.
	The low-risk collaborative space required in a PLC takes time to settle.
	The atmosphere in a PLC should also enable teacher educators to solicit and provide emotional collegial support

While the PLC literature is inundated with studies focusing on the success of PLCs regarding student achievement, this study highlights the relevance of focusing on teachers’ selves and their social relationships as a pivotal element in supporting professional growth. Here, we argue that professional learning could be fostered in a PLC as long as a strong sense of community is rooted in its implementation. If this aspect is not already present within the group, sufficient time should be allocated for its development. As shown in Table 3, three principles highlight the sense of community

While widely recognised PLC characteristics and supportive conditions were confirmed in this study, other aspects took a more dominant role. For example, time is an essential element to consider when creating a space of trust and respect within a community. Even though the relevance of time was brought up at the beginning of this project and included in the initial design framework, time for building trust within the community came up later in the project. It took some time for teacher educators to trust the online collegial environment to feel comfortable and willing to share teaching practices, especially if this was a new activity for them. In this sense, Maloney and Konza (2011) argue that teachers need to build stronger professional relationships in order to feel safe in exchanging teaching experiences. Durksen et al. (2017) suggest that successful PLCs need a supportive, trusted and open environment that contributes to teachers’ motivation to interact and collaborate with others. Indeed, Woolway et al. (2019) found that how much teachers participated in a PLC highly depended on the trusted environment.

The design and enactment of the PLC during the health crisis opened new avenues to promote teacher educators’ PDL. Consistent with previous studies (e.g. Borko, 2004; Doğan & Adams, 2018; Feger & Arruda, 2008; Vescio, Ross & Adams, 2008), this research found that participating in a PLC has excellent possibilities for enhancing teachers’ educators’ continuous learning. PLCs can then be considered an effective bottom-up activity to promote teacher learning, demonstrating that self-directed learning is a powerful model of teachers’ professional learning (Anwaruddin, 2015). Louws et al. (2017) suggest that teachers are more likely to engage in professional learning initiatives when they take control of their learning. The central idea of this PLC remained at the heart of the ongoing and sustained inquiry into the life of these professionals as a basis to continue learning. The implementation of the PLC showed that teacher educators’ PDL could indeed be fostered through the deprivatisation of practices in a low-risk and online genuine collegial environment. This situated, social and transformative view towards teacher continuous learning emphasises that professional learning would be more effective if teachers were given the opportunity to build relationships with each other.

Due to the unprecedented times of the COVID-19 pandemic, the building of the PLC provided a space not only to learn about the conversion of teaching practices but also to seek and provide emotional support. Bronfenbrenner’ (2005) exosystem comes into play as the larger social system affected by COVID-19 impacted teacher educators individually and professionally. This new scenario brought additional stressors that influenced teachers’ well-being, such as the lack of resources and skills for online teaching, the rapid conversion to online teaching and the unclear lines between work and home (MacIntyre, Gregersen & Mercer, 2020). Here, the PLC provided a special place to seek comprehension and support from colleagues considering that all of them were experiencing the transition to online teaching. It was in this scenario when teacher educators valued the creation of the PLC as a site to solicit and provide emotional collegial support. This study brings to research the importance of considering teachers’ well-being as paramount in building a PLC, acknowledging their professionalism as an emotional practice.

The emergence of the emotional aspect within PLCs agrees with Webb et al.'s (2009) findings that showed the centrality of emotions for the stability of PLCs. As teacher educators struggled when teaching remotely, they experienced frequent emotional episodes that were shared, discussed and reflected on in the PLC sessions. From these ‘periods of catharsis', the participants were able to provide collegial support that influenced their teaching practices and professional learning. Some reassured their teaching practices when releasing their emotions while others enhanced their strengths by advocating for support and care. Finally, this aspect supports Owen’s (2016) call to build and analyse PLCs from the lenses of positive psychology, where teachers’ positive emotions are nurtured alongside the development of their learning.

Despite the lack of consideration in the reviewed PLC literature, the emotional element in learning communities must be brought to the surface as this type of initiative goes beyond enhancing student achievement. It also addresses, perhaps indirectly, teachers’ selves. For example, Avidov-Ungar et al. (2021) assert that learning communities can be used as a place for acquiring knowledge, providing consultation, problem-solving and supporting professionals emotionally and socially. This is consistent with claims made by Brody and Hadar (2018), who showed that participating in a learning community does provide social and emotional support. Hence, this study showed that teachers’ professional learning can be promoted in a learning community as long as attention to their personal self and well-being is also considered. Teachers’ professional and personal development should form an integral baseline for professional learning.

These results expand previous research as it shows the nuances of designing and implementing a learning community, which is quite often overlooked in past studies. Despite the high number of studies about PLCs, not much attention has been provided to the specific features of its implementation and how they contribute to professional learning. This study offered a detailed account of how the PLC was designed and implemented to promote professional learning highlighting the features that made this a possible learning activity for teacher educators. However, following the fundamentals of DBR, the design framework is not set in stone, and it is open for further refinement, adaptation to other contexts and additional evaluation.

Conclusion

This study addressed two main areas: teacher-educator learning during the pandemic and PLC characteristics. In terms of teacher professional learning, teachers’ selves played a key role in the implementation of the PLC during the COVID-19 pandemic, which showed the importance of integrating their personal development as a pillar of their professional learning. Understanding teachers’ personal selves as the individuals’ self-image and personal life in contrast to their social self (i.e. being a teacher) encourages to acknowledge the former as crucial to understanding the latter. This suggests that the professional component of the PLC term should go beyond detaching teachers as professionals from their individual selves. Instead, the professional construct should function as an umbrella concept that acknowledges teachers’ personal selves as equally important as their professional counterparts. Thus, teachers’ emotional, intellectual, and social characteristics and demands should also be considered as important when designing and implementing professional learning initiatives as the pandemic exposed how difficult separating these two teachers’ identities (i.e. personal and professional) is. The health crisis also showed us that space to release emotions must be included in a learning community’s conceptualisation, characterisation, implementation, and evaluation. Thus, professional learning initiatives should find a balance between the personal and the professional to enhance teachers’ professionalism, agency, and empowerment.

When referring to the refinement of PLC characteristics, this study provided vast details about the development of the PLC, which could facilitate its implementation in other settings. Nevertheless, this does not mean that this design could be labelled as a ‘one-size fits all’ initiative for professional learning or the panacea for teacher educators’ PDL. Though, it could serve as a foundation for future revisions and modifications. Indeed, one of the limitations of this study was that there was a small number of participants; this could suggest that more cycles of design, implementation and evaluation could be enacted with a larger sample of participants. This might mean that the design framework could undergo more changes as there would be more input to evaluate its principles. Likewise, we need to keep in mind that the participants are teachers of teachers who had to adapt the teacher education courses to an online setting. Hence, the design framework could also suffer modifications if the context of the participants was different.

The revisited design framework (Table 3) shows the main outcome of this study and offers the potential for its adoption and adaptation in other settings. Some principles became of paramount importance as the contextual conditions given by the pandemic primarily encouraged the establishment of social relationships and collegial support. The low-risk space presented in the community promoted the participants’ willingness to exchange not only their online teaching practices but also their reflection on their work as teacher educators during a pandemic and their personal experiences during this crisis. While the professional aspect shown in this framework confirmed previous research on PLCs, it also highlighted the need to build communities independent from administrators and, therefore detached from a performativity agenda. Hence, this article offers the possibility of revealing the specifics of building and enacting a PLC in a real context and under uncertain circumstances, which could allow others to refine their principles.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by ANID (Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo/National Research and Development Agency) Doctoral Programme N. 72190352.

Notes on contributors

Paulina Sepulveda-Escobar

Paulina Sepulveda-Escobar is an EFL teacher educator at Universidad Autónoma de Chile. Her main research interests include teachers’ professional learning, initial teacher education, teacher educators' professionalism and professional learning communities.

Notes

1 https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/navegar?idNorma=1087343

2 https://estandaresdocentes.mineduc.cl/Categoria-p/pedagogias/