“I am so lucky to be part of this community”: Online professional learning communities to support teacher professional development (TPD) in higher education

Abstract

Few studies have examined how EFL teachers, as language teacher educators, perceive their participation in a particular online professional learning community (PLC) despite the growing body of research on PLC in educational settings. The current study delved into the teacher professional development of EFL teachers in higher education settings. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data and then narratively evaluated. The data were thematically analyzed. The results point to a few advantages teacher educators experience when participating in online PLC, which ultimately improves their competency in teacher professional development. The result brought to light that online PLC activities in Indonesia facilitated teacher educators' professional development in many aspects. Understanding the findings in the present study could motivate English teachers, be they in secondary or post-secondary education contexts, to always improve their pedagogical knowledge through PLC. Stories shared by the participants in this study inform pedagogical impacts for redesigning curricula that specialize in writing practice for PhD students. Policymakers could also take advantage of the present study's findings in the context of enacting PLC training for teachers on how to treat and make use of this PLC effectively.

Keywords

• online community of practice
• online professional learning community (plc)
• plc activities
• professional network
• teacher professional development (tpd)