Supported Open Learning Ecosystems (SOLE)

There is a growing body of evidence and broad consensus on the characteristics of effective CPD for teachers, i.e. CPD which helps teachers improve teaching and learning in their classrooms (see Power, 2019a for a summary). The TPD@scale coalition frame this as their core components (Wolfenden, 2022), which include:

• Access to new ideas (such as pedagogic content knowledge) and practically trying out new ideas and practices with learners in the classroom
• Focussed collaboration between teachers
• Expert support (i.e. coaching, mentoring, or facilitation) sustained over time
• The use of ICTs (i.e. to access open-learning resources and networks of support for CPD).

Sitting behind these characteristics, we see a theoretical view of teachers’ learning through participation (Sfard, 1998; Rogoff, 1995) in, and the development of, new forms of pedagogic practice in their classrooms. We understand teachers’ deliberate and agentive learning from and through their professional practice as a form of educational praxis (Freire and Macedo, 2000), which we define as:

Praxis = theoretically informed action and reflection, by teachers, to transform learning.

We argue that an emphasis on teachers’ professional learning by participation in praxis—actively exploring and evaluating more effective forms of classroom activity—is at the heart of effective continuing professional development programmes. Enabling teachers and learners to participate in more effective classroom activities is the driver of both teachers’ professional learning and of improving students’ learning. It is both the core process and the intended outcome of professional development—that teachers and learners participate in more effective teaching and learning activities, and thereby improve learning outcomes.

In relation to technology-enhanced professional development programmes, where digital devices provide access to educational resources for professional development, we theorise this as a particular form of supported open learning (Farrow et al., 2023; Bell and Lane, 1998) focused on encouraging and enabling teachers’ participation in praxis.

As shown in the figure, we see all three aspects of such professional learning:

• Open learning, through access to professional development resources,
• Supported learning, through peer-support, the actions of school leaders, and the activities of coaches, mentors, or facilitators, and
• Practical learning, or praxis, through cycles of action and reflection to improve teaching and learning,

not as discrete activities or ‘pots’ into which the professional development content or activities can be divided, but as part of a coherent and integral whole—intertwined and inseparable. In figure x, below, we represent this approach to professional learning as a trefoil—an ancient symbol (4000 BCE) of a three-cornered knot in which the three corners are all part of a single continuous line. The inter-dependencies between the three aspects of professional learning can be understood when we consider how open learning, support, and practical learning are woven together in cycles of collaborative action and reflection.

For example, when the primary purpose of open learning resources is to guide teachers (and those who support their professional development) through experiential learning cycles (Kolb, 1984, 2015)—in which teachers, possibly on their own, preferably with the support of others:

• see new ideas and approaches for teaching within the open learning resources,
• practice and plan how they can use or adapt those in their own teaching,
• do the suggested activities in lessons with their learners,
• then reflect upon and share their experiences with other teachers

—it is not possible to consider the open learning, supported learning, or practical learning as distinct entities separate from each other. Each aspect guides and supports teachers’ participation in the other two. At the same time, each aspect is dependent upon the other two for meaning and coherence. All three aspects are integral to teachers’ professional learning experience and no single aspect is properly understood except in relation to the other two. All are intentionally focussed on enabling teachers to transform learning through their development of, and participation in, improved teaching and learning practices.

It should be clear that such praxis does not take place as an isolated individual activity in a socio-cultural vacuum. Rather, praxis is situated (Mahon et al., 2020) within the classrooms, schools, and education systems within which teachers’ practices take place. Therefore we argue that it is crucial to examine the way in which CPD programmes nurture such praxis at the level of the classroom system, the school system, and through the actions of actors and institutions in the wider education system (Power, 2019b; Power et al., 2012).

The model causes us to ask to how teachers’ participation in activity—which is their learning and development—within any one of these systems influences their participation in activity in the others (see figure x below). In other words, how does professional learning and development cross the boundaries from one system to the next, and what more could be done to strengthen these boundary effects? Through the lens of Supported Open Learning Ecosystems (SOLE), we consider how teachers’ exploration of praxis in their classrooms can be encouraged and nurtured by top-down professional development programmes, and how professional learning can be shared from the bottom-up to other teachers in schools and to those supporting teacher development across the wider education system.

The SOLE model also highlights the importance of examining the role of the school system as a mediator between the classroom system and education system levels—examining the role of school leadership and teacher collaboration within or between schools—in the implementation of professional development programmes and in the sharing and co-development of professional learning(s) from practice(s) between teachers, schools, and the wider education system.