Design principles to support student learning in teacher learning groups

ABSTRACT

This study presents design principles for student facilitation in teacher learning groups (TLGs), based on a systematic literature review searching for characteristics, conditions, and outcomes of students working in TLGs. Notions of team learning, network learning, community learning, and collective learning within teacher education were taken as the main components of the search. The review turned out to be very lean in terms of input; only 17 articles did justice to this theme. The exercise resulted in five main characteristics of TLGs (i.e. shared vision and goals; a project-based approach; shared responsibility and ownership; diversity and equality; supportive structures, resources and roles) and associated conditional factors. We combined these characteristics and conditional factors to formulate design principles, which can serve as a starting point for the supervision of students in TLGs. The limited number of search results shows that more research into student learning in TLGs is needed. Furthermore, the design principles yielded by the review are formulated in very general terms. In follow-up research, we will monitor four institutes for primary teacher education that enable student learning in TLGs with various social configurations. This study is expected to further concretise the design principles for student learning in TLGs.

KEYWORDS:

• Design principles
• social learning
• student learning
• teacher education
• teacher learning groups

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Netherlands Initiative for Education Research (NRO) under Grant 40.5.18650.047;NRO Programme Council for Applied Educational Research [40.5.18650.047];

Notes on contributors

Emmy Vrieling-Teunter

Dr. Emmy Vrieling-Teunter is an assistant professor of teachers’ professional development in social learning and regulation of learning at the Open Universiteit (the Netherlands). Her work concentrates on exploring social learning configurations as well as (socially shared) regulation of learning processes that facilitate professional development in educational institutes.

Rosanne Hebing

Dr. Rosanne Hebing is a teacher/researcher at Iselinge Hogeschool, a teacher training institute in Doetinchem (the Netherlands). She is responsible for practice-based research at Iselinge Hogeschool and researches the relation between networked learning, student wellbeing, and educational innovation.

Marjan Vermeulen

Prof. dr. Marjan Vermeulen is a professor at the Faculty of Educational Sciences of the Open Universiteit (the Netherlands) for the field of teacher education. Her expertise lies in supporting educational practice as well as educational research in the field of professional development of teachers, the school as a place where teachers work, learning organisations and school leadership, educational development, and innovation.