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Santosh Panda
Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India

Framework for Online Professional Development

Abstract: The author discusses the processes of change in cognitive structure as transformative learning and transformative professional development, and examines this in online learning contexts. A case for the role of reflection in online continuing professional development is presented, and online CPD is examined from the viewpoints of community of professional practice offline and online, professional culture, and transformation of professional identity and professional practices.

Introduction

The traditional notion of professional development as a one-time affair in one’s career (which relates to pre-service education) has undergone considerable changes in the past years to continuous updating and learning with a life-time professional development/learning schema. Professional development is seen as related to professional practice and culture of continuous learning within a learning organization. Guskey (1999) provides a sound conceptual clarification on professional development i.e. “those processes and activities designed to enhance the professional knowledge, skills, and attitudes of educators so that they might, in turn, improve the learning of students … it also involves learning how to redesign educational structures and cultures” (p.16). He also argues that the deficiency approach (i.e. professional development activities to contribute to make up one’s deficiencies of knowledge and skills) is itself deficient, and should cover a wider canvas of continuing professional development (CPD) which is intentional, ongoing and systemic, and so as to keep pace with the emerging knowledge base of the profession and its conceptual and craft skills.

This paper argues that such a continuing professional development in any profession including teaching, especially when it takes place online should clearly define and involve the community of professional practice, the online learning community of the professionals, and the professional culture through the thread of individual and collaborative reflection, and gear towards transformative learning, and transformation of professional identity and professional practice.

Transformative Learning and Professional Development

Transformative learning is a state where professional development is more reflective and intuitive, and which embraces transformation of professional identity and therefore professional practices. While professional development involves professionals as individuals, it is not clear if professional development leads to personal development, or vice versa. Harvey and Knight (1996) note that professional development is a matter of personal development; for Winter (1995) professional development depends on the development of self-awareness of a person; and Eraut (1994) posits that growth of individual professional behaviour is the result of use of self-knowledge through self-management. Personal development involves self-awareness, self-improvement, and empowerment and emancipation.

Harvey and Knight (1996) contend that the aim of professional development is transformative learning. and for Moon (1999: 82), “Transformative learning relates also to the meta-critical state necessary for emancipation and, in this second manner, also suggests the progression of self-development through the three elements of self-development; i.e. self-awareness, self-improvement, and empowerment and emancipation. Self-improvement/ growth further leads to empowerment and emancipation; and Habermas (1971) refers this to the third form of knowledge constitutive interests; Friere (1970) calls this the process of conscientization; and Mezirow (1990) in his transformative learning talks of perspective transformation in which there is critical self-awareness or critical reflection of their presuppositions (on which learning is based) so as to allow for more integrative and inclusive perspective.

These aspects of personal and professional development could be viewed from the prspective of transformative learning , and transformation in individual cognitive structure. One such comprehensive framework was discussed by Moon (1999) which was “based on the literature on reflection and student learning, supplemented by observation and personal reflection” (p.104). The modified map of learning presented in Figure 1 is based on: i) cognitive structure and assimilation of Piaget (1971); the work on cognitive structure by Ausubel and Robinson (1969); and constructivist view of learning; ii) critical reflection and transformative learning (Mezirow, 1990, 1991); and iii) approaches to learning developed by the Gothenburg School in the seventies and the University of Lancaster in the eighties (Marton et al, 1984; Marton & Saljo, 1997; Ramsden, 1992), and later by Richardson (2000).

The map of learning given in Figure 1 is grounded in the constructivist view of learning in that the focus shifts from the structured teaching of the teacher (where: content and organization of the curriculum is the basis of learning; knowledge is transmitted from the teacher to the learner; learners’ entry behaviour or prior ability and knowledge guide teacher’s teaching strategy; the learner accumulates new ideas and knowledge from outside and replaces with old ones) to learners’ construction of their own knowledge organized in a network called cognitive structure. The learner determines what is to be learnt, and the teacher facilitates that learning. The learner employs his/her cognitive structure to learn from the new materials, and therefore meaningfulness of materials and learning depends on the extent of matching between the material and the learner’s prior learning/cognitive structure. The role of the teacher, therefore, is to carefully design materials for greater liking of the learners, facilitate interaction for greater assimilation of materials, and provide appropriate forms of assessment. Brown et al (1989) point out that understanding is indexed by experience, and that cognitive experiences should be situated in authentic activities. These activities of the teacher greatly influence students’ approaches to learning, which in turn affect the use of cognitive structure and its movement across the ladder of various stages of learning (from ‘noticing’ to ‘transformative learning’). In case of learner-centered constructivist learning, there is possibility of application of reflection in the process of learning.

The cognitive structure given in Figure 1 (comprising guidance, assimilation, and accommodation) is spiral in nature, which goes on at every stage of learning (for its original version, see Moon, 1999: 110). The cognitive structure stores the newly learnt material, accomodates and readjusts itself in response to new ideas, and actively guides the individual in the learning of new material. Therefore, in the constructivist view of learning, cognitive structure is central to individual construction of knowledge/ meaning, and group negotiation of meaning. Mezirow (1990) uses meaning perspective to explain the role of cognitive structure, and points out that individuals who get trapped in their meaning perspective (and do not open up to new ideas and meanings) should be facilitated to be emancipated and that’s what transformative learning does, and this is where social construction/ negotiation of meaning assumes significance.

Based on the works of Habermas (1971), Mezirow (1990), and literature on student learning, approaches to learning, and theory of cognitive structure, Moon (1999) had presented five stages of learning ranging from noticing to transformative learn in a hierarchical manner. These stages can be related to the way adults learning and to transformative learning as professional development. These stages are briefly described as follows.

• At the first stage of learning, i.e. noticing, the cognitive structure facilitates the individual to notice what is to be learnt; and attitude, motivation and emotion play important roles in this task.
   
• Once noticed, one proceeds to the stage of making sense, i.e. keep aside the previous knowledge, find out coherence in the present material, try to organise it, and put together the ideas derived from the material.
   
• This leads to the third stage of learning, i.e. making meaning in which the new material is assimilated into the cognitive structure; one relates it to what is already known; and the cognitive structure accommodates the new meaning derived (i.e. meaningful learning), and relates to its established discipline.
   
• At the next stage of working with meaning, the learnt materials and the meaning derived become part of the cognitive structure; one reaches a stage where one does not need the learning materials at hand to be able to further think and reflect; this is what is called ‘manipulation of meaningful knowledge of a specified end’ (Moon, 1999: 144); it involves a private process of construction of meaning.
   
• This leads to the final stage of transformative learning that is more sophisticated than the fourth stage, and where there is extensive use of the cognitive structure. The learner becomes capable of evaluating one’s own frame of reference, and others’ knowledge and process of knowing.

The other aspect of the map is the approach to learning. Starting from the Gothenberg School in Sweden, the further works of Marton et al (1984), Marton and Saljo (1997), Entwistle (1988, 1997), Ramsden (1992), Biggs (1993), and Richardson (2000) have influenced the work on deep and surface (and strategic) approaches to learning, which affect individual learning. In the deep approach, the intention is to understand the ideas by oneself, relate ideas to previous ones, look for patterns and check evidence, critical examination of logic and argument, and get engaged actively. The surface approach propels one to try to cope with course requirements, by treating course contents as unrelated pieces of knowledge to be memorized (without making any sense) so as to meet the pressure of work.

The approach to learning adopted by the professional determines the best possible representation of learning (BPR) (Figure 1: from ‘memorization’ to ‘restructured reflection’) vis-à-vis the stages of learning. For instance, even if one has reached the second stage of ‘making sense’ (in the stages of learning), but due to a surface approach adopted, one will be simply reproducing unrelated ideas in the BPR since one cannot relate new learning to the existing one. Deep approach to learning will have greater use of cognitive structure to new materials of learning. Also, the maturity of individuals plays an important role in the approach adopted.

The process of professional development is contexualized in the sense that the new learning resources interact with the cognitive structure and relate to the existing knowledge/ ideas about that learning in the cognitive structure. Learning and thinking are not separate from the subject matter of learning, and as Marton and Ramsden (1988) write, “their character should be defined by the imperatives of that subject matter”.

Reflection in Professional Development

Cognition is a useful construct in psychology while reflection is not. Therefore, there has been very little research on reflection as such, except in areas of professional development. Reflection is applied to complicated or uncertain situations or tasks, though it has been associated with thinking. Swartz (1989) notes that it is concerned with thinking about the process of thinking, i.e. meta-cognitive thinking; and Brookfield (1995) uses it for critical thinking. While reflection could be some form of thinking or cognition, it is certainly narrower than these. However, reflection assumes importance in ordering and reordering of the cognitive structure vis-à-vis the new incoming information, and therefore, in making meaning/ transformative learning and professional development. Reflection works in situations of unstructure and complacency, and that it works with meaning — i.e. manipulation of meaning. Therefore, within various stages of learning, reflection is involved at stages of making meaning, working with meaning, and transformative learning. Another possibility is that reflection facilitates the cognitive structure to upgrade one stage of learning like making meaning (which has already taken place) to a higher stage of learning in which the cognitive structure further accommodates what is reflected and therefore re-interpreted/ re-learnt. The transformative role of reflection at the third and fourth stages of learning may be equated with reflection-on-action of Schon (1983, 1987), and that of its role as housekeeping where past experiences are brought in combination with some futuristic anticipation so as to derive more meaning or better/ different meaning. At the stage of transformative learning, it involves more critical overview of the situation, and relating it to professional or social situations, and facilitating transformation or, as Habermas (1971) noted, to emancipation (emancipatory human interests). Jonassen (1994) in the schematic web of constructivism underlines the role of articulation and reflection in both internal negotiation and social negotiation of meaning, and distinguishes between experiential knowledge and reflective knowledge (Jonassen et al, 1995). Garrison and Anderson (2003) further pursued education as inquiry and for inquiry (Lipman 1991), and based on reflective thinking of Dewey (1933), presented the practical inquiry model for online learning in which critical thinking is viewed as ‘an inclusive process of higher-order reflection and discourse’ (p. 56). While reflection is in the individual domain, discourse falls within the public domain.

Professional Development Online

Given the descriptions of continuing professional development, transformative professional development, and the role of reflection as discussed above, these need to be examined in a context of networked online situation. Online learning involves online learners, online learning resources, online mentors, online collaboration and reflection, online evaluation, and online professional development and transformation. However, online is not always online, and many things happen offline and which affect individual cognitive structure and collaborative social discourse. Continuing professional development in such a context involves offline professional community of practitioners, online professional community, professional and social culture, collaboration, reflection, and individual transformation. Based on the discussions in the preceding section, in the framework of online CPD given below, we contend that reflection takes care of both the roles of individual and social discourse in both online and offline contexts leading to enhancement of individual cognitive structure. The role of reflection in distance learning is suggested in Figure 2 in which both individual presence and curriculum design presence determine the learning approaches adopted. These significantly influence the stages of learning one is going through as also how learning is being represented. Both mentoring and individual/group reflection facilitate appropriate learning approaches, stages of learning and upgradation of learning. Reflection plays a critical role in the change of cognitive structure through independent study, online collaboration and negotiation, and knowledge construction and negotiation in the community of practice.

Professional development is a continuing process and that much of this development takes place offline, and this suggests that there is the necessity of offline individual reflection and collaborative negotiation in the community of professional practice. How do independence and interaction fit into this interpretation? Thorpe (2002) contends that while interaction was earlier used to foster independence, now one has immense possibility of online interaction while still maintaining one’s independence, and that independent study is used to support and sustain interaction. Garrison and Anderson (2003) take the discussion on discourse and meaning making in online learning community further through their framework of cognitive presence, teaching presence and social presence. In their online community of inquiry, cognitive independence and social interdependence occur simultaneously. In this community, individuals have full responsibility and control of their learning while diagnosing misconceptions, challenging accepted beliefs, and negotiating meaning. Their model suggests to us that within the individual cognitive structure, one can maintain independence and employ reflection even while undertaking online and offline collaboration.

Even if professional practitioners interact online and undertake individual reflection, their interaction should take place in the community of practice. While there is no denying the fact that the community of practice by itself exists, what is important is organised effort to develop the sense of community in the professional community of practitioners. Wenger’s (1998) social theory of learning advocates legitimate peripheral participation in which the participation leads to transformation of identity in a community of practice. Identity of participation is required for learning, and learning leads to formation of professional identity. For him, learning as social participation comprises meaning, practice, community, and identity; and shared enterprise is the motto the community of practice. Based on this concept of community of practice, as also the conceptual formulation of situated cognition and situated learning (Brown et al, 1989), a framework for online constructivist continuing professional development is given in Figure 3.

Figure 3 articulates a transformative learning environment in which reflection plays a critical role. In transformative learning, one must be aware of one’s own and others’ assumptions, and transform one’s own frames of reference so as to best appreciate one’s own experiences. It may be noted from Figure 3 that course design and course content constantly interact with the individual cognitive structure and learning, and individual reflection facilitates transformative learning, and personal and professional development and identity. This process both takes place and is facilitated by community of practice and situated learning on the one hand, and online collaboration, interaction and mentoring on the other. What is important is that for online constructive professional development to happen, the course design presence, individual cognitive presence, social interaction presence in both online learning community and offline community of practice, mentoring presence, and ongoing framework of transformation of professional identity need to be designed.

References

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Professor Santosh Panda (pandasantosh@hotmail.com) is professor of distance education (and former director), Staff Training & Research Institute, Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi 110068, India. He has earlier been Director of Research & Policy Division of Association of Indian Universities, and a Fulbright Scholar at University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

Professor Santosh Panda
e-mail: pandasantosh@hotmail.com

Spring 2004
ISSN 1477-1241