Collaborative Learning through Online Professional Development

Figures & data

Figure 1. Data analysis map.

Table 1. Qualitative coding categories.

Coding categories		Definition	Examples
Professional capital	Human capital	Individual teacher’s disposition, knowledge, and skills based on TESOL standards	Valerie recognized the importance of advocating for her high school students and their families and recognized her colleagues who “act as brokers because they are the ‘community liaisons’” (Valerie, online discussion, 03/30/2020)
	Social capital	Teachers’ collective wisdom and collaborative efforts	Chase highlighted “discussion with colleagues” as one of the aspects she enjoyed through the PD engagement (Chase, survey response)
	Decisional capital	Teachers’ capacity to evaluate the situation to guide actions or adaptations, especially when facing uncertainties or dilemmas	“I'm already planning how to get families more involved and how to make them feel part of the community. And this online PD has given me the tools on how to do better.” (Beth, survey response)
Collaboration	Within the online PD	Collaborations among educators participating in the PD	“I would have given up on this online course because of time, but Mrs. K helped keep me in the ring.” (Carol, online discussion, 02/24/2020)
	Beyond the PD setting	Collaborations beyond the online PD setting	Sally and Kay met up beyond the online PD setting and shared resources and their application insights via emails to further discuss ways they can support ELs in content area instruction.
Dialogic interactions	Converging	Teachers share similar strategies or agree with the same solutions	“Just like you said I feel that we have the awareness as a school, but advocacy is lacking at the decision-making level. Our SIT [School Improvement Team] still lacks representation from our high need ESL families. Our special events team also mostly consisted of grade level teachers.” (Nora, online discussion, 11/23/2019)
	Diverging	Teachers share different perspectives on the same issue or explore multiple solutions to the same problem	“I don't think we can have the expectation that the EL teacher should also act as the only interpreter on staff.” (Chase, online discussion, 11/26/2019)

Table 2. Comparison of EL preparedness before and after PD.

	Pre-post comparison (n = 27)			Then-post comparison (n = 28)
	Mpre (SD)	Mpost (SD)	t (sig)	Mthen (SD)	Mpost (SD)	t (sig)
Language	3.73 (.86)	4.43 (.55)	5.47 (<.001)	2.99 (1.06)	4.38 (.60)	10.48 (<.001)
Culture	3.74 (.82)	4.46 (.50)	5.08 (<.001)	2.71 (.63)	4.43 (.51)	19.72 (<.001)
Instruction	3.91 (.77)	4.41 (.67)	3.43 (.002)	3.01 (1.07)	4.35 (.71)	8.59 (<.001)
Assessment	3.47 (.97)	4.35 (.60)	6.25 (<.001)	2.98 (1.06)	4.31 (.64)	9.29 (<.001)
Professionalism	3.64 (.90)	4.43 (.54)	5.94 (<.001)	2.96 (.97)	4.38 (.59)	11.15 (<.001)