Department of Educational Sciences, Vrije Universities Brussels, Brussels, Belgium
*Corresponding Author:
Brent Philipsen, Department of Educational Sciences, Vrije Universities Brussels, Brussels, Belgium, Email: Brentphilipsen@gmail.com
Description
Teacher Professional Development (TPD) ideas on how to teach in an online or blended learning environment are required to fully realize the promise of Online and Blended Learning (OBL). While many research look at the effects of TPD techniques, there are fewer that look at the exact components that make these tactics work. This study fills that need by providing a comprehensive review of qualitative data from 15 TPD papers that target OBL. Six separate synthesized findings were found and combined into a visual framework of the major components of TPD for OBL using a meta-aggregative approach. The action recommendations, which give concrete and contextualized proposals, are based on these synthesized findings. The findings can be used to influence in-service teachers and trainers, as well as future research and development activities involving TPD for OBL.
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the rise in popularity of Online and Blended Learning (OBL) has been particularly noticeable. As a result, many in-service teachers are expected to be partially adept in online teaching in addition to having a good understanding of pedagogical theories and their teaching subject. As a result, several Teacher Professional Development (TPD) initiatives are conceived, developed, and implemented to give teachers the opportunity to prepare professionally for teaching in an OBL setting. While much of the existing research on TPD for OBL focuses on the immediate changes that instructors experience, little is known about the importance of specific components of a TPD for OBL and why they are regarded relevant. As a result, the current research explores the key components of an OBL TPD and presents them in a comprehensive framework. The following six sections make up this research: A complete explanation of the important theoretical foundation of TPD for OBL, the study's goal, the methodology employed the findings, the debate and limitations, and ultimately the conclusions.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Teachers with prior experience at any educational level are obliged to stay current on the advancement of knowledge in numerous disciplines, and they must continue to professionalize themselves as a result. TPD can be approached and defined in a variety of ways, and educational research has made significant progress in improving our knowledge and understanding of TPD and its processes. Many TPD models and frameworks have previously been established, and they have contributed significantly to TPD understanding. The linear framework of Demimonde is the first conceptual framework presented in this research for explaining TPD. She claims that examining teachers' professional development should include at least two fundamental components: critical elements of effective professional development and an operational understanding of how TPD works. Five important features that determine good professional development are described in the first component. Content focus, active learning, coherence, duration, and communal engagement are the key characteristics. If professional development is to be effective, teachers should have the opportunity to experience these five fundamental elements. According to her paradigm, professional development improves teachers' knowledge and abilities while also influencing their attitudes and beliefs, which the teachers then utilize to improve their instruction and/or pedagogy, resulting in an increase in student learning. According to Demimonde, the context plays a crucial role in this process as a mediator and moderator. Demimonde recently updated their earlier insights to support the refinement of the five main aspects of professional development previously indicated. They, for example, place a greater emphasis on each teacher's unique professional development process as well as the critical role of leadership. Consumer and Engels expand on Desimone's work. Their concept takes a similar approach, with reciprocal components such as key TPD traits, changes in teacher professionalism, changes in teacher behavior and instruction, and, lastly, student responses to changing teacher behavior and instruction. They add three basic aspects to those of, namely, a strength-based rather than deficiency-based appreciating approach, a school-based strategy that is incorporated into teachers' everyday work, and an ownership approach that is sensitive to selfidentified needs and interests. In their conceptual framework, Consumer and Engels, like van, address the greater context of school organizational conditions. Many TPD programmers fail to explain the process of teacher change, which is a critical factor. As a result, this section finishes with a discussion of Evans' theory, which views professional development as a multidimensional process that includes behavioral, intellectual, and attitude components. Evans also explains the changes that occur within each component as a result of in-service teachers' personal internalization processes during professional growth. She also defines professional development as "the process by which people's professionalism may be considered to be enhanced, with a degree of permanence that exceeds transistorizes," as she writes: "professional development is the process by which people's professionalism may be considered to be enhanced, with a degree of permanence that exceeds transistorizes." According to Evans, the concept of professionalism is critical in this definition because one must continually ask, "What exactly are we developing or changing when professional growth occurs?" The answer, according to Evans, is people's professionalism.
TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR ONLINE AND BLENDED LEARNING
The fast proliferation of online and hybrid courses has been made possible by advances in Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Learning and teaching online is one of the most rapidly expanding areas of educational technology. The cost-effectiveness of online learning programmers, the way they make learning and educational experiences available to those who cannot attend face-to-face education, and the possibility they offer to make instructors and teachers available in places where they would not otherwise be available are all reasons for their development. Offering courses online can be seen of as a new approach of coordinating teaching and learning that falls under the umbrella of remote learning. However, there has been less agreement on how to define blended learning, which is also known as hybrid, mixed, or integrated learning. "Learning that takes place in an educational context and is characterized by a planned blend of online and classroom-based interventions to initiate and promote learning," said the authors.
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