Seto

Impact of Teachers’ Participation in Networked Learning

Community on Classroom Practices
Cynthia Seto
Academy of Singapore Teachers
<[email protected]>

Professional collaboration among teachers from different schools is generally recognised as

a conduit for teachers to improve their practice. This paper presents findings from a study
to investigate the impact of teachers’ participation in a mathematics networked learning
community (NLC) on classroom practices. Using a pretest – posttest quasi-experimental
design, statistical analyses indicate that pre–post changes in learning environment and
enjoyment scales were moderate to large in magnitude for all scales for the experimental
group as compared with the comparison group. Generally, this study provides support that
teachers’ participation in NLC has positive impact on their classroom learning
environment, especially in the scales on involvement and teacher support.

Introduction
Professional development is often the predominant strategy used by educational
systems to enhance teachers’ effectiveness in the classroom to improve learning outcomes
of students (Darling-Hammond & Lieberman, 2012). In Singapore, networked learning
communities (NLCs) are gaining prominence as a key teacher learning structure.
Networked learning is a process where teams of teachers from different schools learn
collaboratively to examine and reflect on their practice (Ministry of Education, 2017).
NLCs provide teachers with opportunities to interact with fellow educators, engage in
professional conversations about their practices, observe classroom lessons and receive
feedback on their teaching. In learning from one another and with one another, teachers co-
create and share new knowledge and practices to improve student outcomes (Stoll et al.,
2006).
The underlying objective of professional development is to help teachers to become
more effective in their practice in order to enhance student learning outcomes. Whereas
instructional practices need to be considered in terms of their impact on student learning,
professional development programs need to have an impact on teaching practices for them
to make a difference to student learning. Premised on this belief, a learning environment
framework was used to evaluate the impact of teachers’ participation in a NLC in terms of
the learning environments created by these teachers in their mathematics classrooms in
their respective schools, as well as their students’ attitudes towards mathematics. Hence,
the main research question is to investigate if there is any improvement in the classroom
learning environment and attitudes towards mathematics to assess teachers’ participation in
a NLC.

Theoretical Underpinning
The notion of networked learning is based on a situative perspective of learning. From
a situative perspective, learning is an individual process of coming to understand how to
participate in the discourse and practices of a particular community. It is also a community
process of refining norms and practices through the ideas and ways of thinking that
individual members bring to the discourse (Lave & Wenger, 1991). In this theoretical
framework, individual and collective knowledge emerge and evolve within the dynamics
2019. In G. Hine, S. Blackley, & A. Cooke (Eds.). Mathematics Education Research:
Impacting Practice (Proceedings of the 42nd annual conference of the Mathematics
Education Research Group of Australasia) pp. 652-659. Perth: MERGA.
of the spaces that people share and within which they participate. It is about forming a
community of practice (Wenger, 1998) with fellow educators that is held together by their
common pursuit of a shared learning experience. They develop practices (resources,
frameworks and perspectives) which help to sustain their mutual engagement in the work
or activity. Members in this community learn by “engaging in and contributing to the
practice of their communities” (p. 7). By engaging in meaningful practices, they become
involved in discussions and actions that make a difference to the communities that they
value. The concept of community is fundamental in understanding how professional
development can take place in a network.
For teachers to be successful in changing their practice, they need opportunities to
participate “in a professional community that discusses new teacher materials and
strategies and that supports the risk-taking and struggle entailed in transforming practice”
(McLaughlin & Talbert, 1993, p. 15). Conversations among teachers in these communities
should promote critical examination of teaching practice, enable teachers to collectively
explore ways to improve their teaching, and to support one another as they work to
transform their practice. As such, networks are locations in which specialized knowledge
can be created and transferred within collaborative contexts (Jackson, 2004). In the field of
teacher professional development, some key studies show that teacher networks add value
for the implementation of innovations, teacher development, school leadership and
improved teaching practices (Dresner & Worley, 2006; Katz, Earl & Jaafar, 2009).
According to Dewey (1896), human action is the transaction between a person and
his/her natural and social environment, and is in flux as he/she seeks to keep a dynamic
balance with the environment that is perpetually changing. He was of the view that “the
domain of knowledge and the domain of human action are not separate domains, but are
intimately connected: that knowledge emerges from action and feeds back into action, and
that it does not have a separate existence or function” (Biesta & Burbules, 2003, p. 15).
Based on this perspective that personal knowledge manifests in the way in which they
“transact with and respond” (p. 11) to changes in the environment, knowledge and social
practice are therefore intimately intertwined as well as mutually constitutive. Parallel to
this view is Lewin’s (1936) seminal work in non-educational settings, which recognised
that both the environment and its interaction with characteristics of the individual are
potent determinants of human behaviour.
Fraser (1998) conceptualised a learning environment as referring to the social,
psychological and pedagogical contexts in which learning occurs and which affect student
achievement and attitudes. The learning environment is the overall climate and structures
of the classroom that influence how students respond to and remain engaged in learning
tasks. It is also the context in which teaching acts are carried out (Arends, 2001). For
quality learning of mathematics in classrooms, teachers need to be aware of the learners
and the learning context and to deliver the mathematics curriculum through designing and
implementing lessons that have meaning and relevance for their students. This requires
teachers to have a repertoire of strategies and representations that engage diverse learners.
As a professional, the teacher enacts pedagogical content knowledge in the context of
learners’ individual differences and the changing dynamics of classroom life. Amid this
complexity, the teacher participates as a member of a community of practitioners who
collaborate in support of student learning and who have the habit of mind to inquire
continually into and improve their practice.
Learning environment instruments can be used to collect quantitative data for the
evaluation of educational programs. Because every student spends about 6000 hours in the
classroom during his/her primary (Primary 1 to 6) school years, students have a large stake
in what happens at school and hence their perceptions of classroom experiences are of

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prime importance. Aldridge et al. (2012) advocate that the perspectives of students can
provide a teacher with a valuable source of data for personal reflection and that seeking
alternative perspectives through the eyes of teachers’ own students can help teachers to
view their own practice through the eyes of others. In a similar way, the perspectives of
students can provide us with a lens for observing teaching practices that are taking place in
the classrooms and with a valuable source of data for assessing the effectiveness of a
professional development programme.
Perceptions of classroom learning environment have been consistently found to be
related to learning outcomes in past research (Aldridge, Fraser & Sebela, 2004) and
positive perceptions of the classroom are typically linked to higher achievement and better
attitudes (Chionh & Fraser, 2009). For example, Pickett and Fraser (2009) drew on the
field of learning environment to evaluate a two-year mentoring programme in science for
beginning elementary school teachers in terms of participants’ classroom teaching
behaviour as assessed by their school students’ perceptions of their classroom learning
environment.

Research Methodology
My study adopts a pretest–posttest quasi-experimental design to compare the changes
in classroom environment and attitudes of those classes whose teachers participated in
networked learning community with those classes whose teachers were not in networked
learning community. Data were collected from a sample of 375 students from 5 different
schools through the Mathematics Classroom Environment and Attitude (MCEA)
Questionnaire. The MCEA Questionnaire was developed from a modified version of the
What Is Happening In this Class? (WIHIC) (Fraser, 1998) and it included a scale from the
Test of Science Related Attitudes (TOSRA) (Fraser, 1978, 1981) to assess students’
attitudes to mathematics. To collect data from students, I invited five teachers from a NLC
who were, first, interested in participating in this research and, second, able to enlist
another teacher from each of their respective schools who was not in the NLC and who
would be part of a comparison group. Data collected from the experimental and
comparison groups were used to identify differences in the perceptions of students whose
teachers were in the networked learning community and those students whose teachers
were not involved in such professional learning.
There was no control over the teaching methods used by teachers in their classrooms.
Although there were no specific instructions that these five teachers in the experimental
group must teach differently, it was hypothesised that the teaching strategies learnt and the
exchange of instructional strategies, especially questioning techniques, with fellow
educators in the NLC would have some impact on their classroom practice. This change in
classroom practice was measured in terms of their students’ perceptions of classroom
learning environment and attitudes to mathematics before and after the teachers’
participation in the networked learning community. The five teachers in the comparison
group were left to teach as they normally would. The pretest data and posttest data were
collected within a period of thirteen weeks. Over this period, the teachers in the
experimental group had four sessions of networked learning.
To develop the MCEA questionnaire, three scales (Cooperation, Teacher Support and
Involvement) were chosen from the What Is Happening In this Class? (WIHIC) because
they best describe the expected classroom practices as a result of the professional learning
of teachers in the NLC. Developed by Fraser, Fisher and McRobbie (1996), WIHIC
measures a wide range of dimensions that are important in daily situations in classrooms.
Another scale of Problem Solving was constructed to reflect the level of engagement in
mathematics in the NLC and also in the teachers’ respective classrooms. Eight items were

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extracted from the Test of Science-Related Attitudes (TOSRA, Fraser, 1978) to form the
Enjoyment scale to measure students’ attitudes towards mathematics. These five scales
form the Mathematics Classroom Environment and Attitude (MCEA) Questionnaire.
Descriptive information for MCEA questionnaire (namely, scale descriptions and sample
items) is shown in Table 1.

Table 1
Descriptive Information for Five Scales in MCEA Questionnaire

Scale Name Scale Description Sample Item

Cooperation The extent to which students Students work with me to achieve
cooperate rather than compete with class goals in mathematics.
one another on learning tasks.

Teacher Support The extent to which the teacher helps, The teacher helps me when I have
befriends, trusts and is interested in trouble with mathematics problem.
students.

Involvement The extent to which students have I explain my ideas for solving
attentive interests, participate in mathematics problems to other
discussions, do additional work and students.
enjoy the class.

Problem Solving The extent to which students I know what questions to ask
experienced the processes in myself to solve a mathematics
mathematical problem solving problem.

Enjoyment The extent to which students enjoy Mathematics lessons are time well-
the mathematics lessons. spent.

Pretest and posttest data were used to ascertain the factorial validity and internal
consistency of the MCEA questionnaire in assessing students’ perceptions of the learning
environment and attitudes to mathematics in the Singapore Primary 5 mathematics
classrooms. Principal axis factor analysis with varimax rotation and Kaiser normalization
was performed separately with the pretest and posttext data for the 40-item, five-scale
version of the MCEA questionnaire. An item was retained if it had a factor loading of 0.35
or above with its a priori scale and below 0.35 with each of the other scales. This led to the
removal of 3 items, with 37 items being retained in the same 5-factor structure.
The ability of each learning environment scale of the MCEA questionnaire to
differentiate between perceptions of students in different classes was determined through a
one-way ANOVA. The ANOVA analyses revealed a significant difference (p<0.01)
between students’ perceptions in different classes for each learning environment scales,
with eta2 values ranging from 0.13 to 0.18 for the pretest and from 0.12 to 0.21 for the
posttest data for the different learning environment scales of MCEA. These results suggest
that the learning environment scales based on the WIHIC can differentiate significantly
between different classes in Singapore. Results of the factor analysis strongly supported
the factor structure of the refined 37-item questionnaire and attested to the independence of
factor scores on the five scales consisting of three learning environment scales based on the
WIHIC, a newly-constructed learning environment scale and an attitude scale based on the
TOSRA.

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 Findings and Discussions
A one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) with repeated measures was
used to identify whether pretest–posttest changes for those classes whose teachers
participated in the networked learning community were different from changes for those
classes whose teachers did not. The four learning environment scales and the student
outcome scale (Enjoyment) were the dependent variables and the testing occasion (pretest
and posttest) was the independent variable. Because the multivariate tests using Wilks’
lambda criterion revealed statistically significant pre–post changes in the set of five
learning environment and enjoyment scales as a whole, the individual univariate ANOVA
was interpreted separately for each dependent variable.

Table 2
MANOVA with Repeated Measures and Effect Sizes for Pre-Post Changes Separately for
Comparison and Experimental Groups for each Scale in the MCEA Questionnaire

Scale Group Mean SD Difference

Pre Post Pre Post F Effect
Size
Cooperation Comparison 3.46 3.41 0.78 0.83 1.01 -0.06
Experimental 3.22 3.69 0.77 0.84 2.71** 0.58
Teacher Comparison 3.54 3.20 0.95 0.89 2.42** -0.37
Support Experimental 3.35 3.71 0.80 0.79 2.62** 0.45
Involvement Comparison 3.22 2.84 0.84 0.83 2.85** -0.45
Experimental 2.82 3.43 0.76 0.91 3.21** 0.73
Problem Comparison 3.34 3.26 0.81 0.80 1.19 -0.09
Solving Experimental 3.26 3.90 0.73 0.69 3.79** 0.90
Enjoyment Comparison 3.61 3.37 1.08 1.15 1.40* -0.21
Experimental 3.39 3.90 1.00 0.95 2.25** 0.52
N: Total=375 students, Experimental=188, Control=187
*p<0.05, **p<0.001

Table 2 presents the F value and statistical significance from ANOVA, effect size,
average item mean and average item standard deviation for each learning environment and
enjoyment scale separately for experimental and comparison students and separately for
pretest and posttest. The average item mean (or the scale mean divided by the number of
items in that scale) permits meaningful comparison of the means of different scales
containing differing numbers of items. It also reports, separately for experimental and
comparison groups, the statistical significance of pre–post changes for each scale based on
ANOVA, as well as the magnitude of the pre–post difference for each scale expressed as
an effect size in standard deviation units. To further clarify the patterns of similarities and
differences between experimental and comparison students, the effect size for pre–post
differences for each scale is graphed separately for experimental and comparison groups in
Figure 1.

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 1

0.8

Effect Size for Pre–Post Changes 0.6

0.4

0.2 Comparison
Experiment
0

-0.2

-0.4

-0.6
Cooperation Teacher Involvement Problem Enjoyment
Support Solving

Figure 1. Effect Sizes for Pretest – Posttest Changes

For the comparison group, Table 2 and Figure 1 show that pre–post changes in learning
environment and enjoyment scales:
• were statistically non-significant for two scales (namely, Cooperation and Problem
Solving), but statistically significant for the other three scales (Teacher Support,
Involvement and Enjoyment).
• represented a decrease between pretest and posttest for every scale.
• were small in magnitude for four scales (0.06 standard deviations for Cooperation,
0.09 standard deviations for Problem Solving, 0.37 standard deviation for Teacher
Support and 0.21 standard deviations for Enjoyment) and moderate for
Involvement (0.45 standard deviations).

On the other hand, for the experimental group, Table 2 and Figure 1 show that pre–
post changes in learning environment and enjoyment scales:
• were statistically significant for every learning environment and enjoyment scale.
• represent an increase in scores between pretest and posttest for every scale.
• were moderate to large in magnitude for all scales (ranging from 0.45 for Teacher
Support to 0.90 standard deviations for Problem Solving).

Overall the graph in Figure 1 illustrates that pre–post changes were larger in
magnitude for the experimental group than for the comparison group for every MCEA
scale. Also, scores for every scale increased between pretest and posttest for the
experimental group, but decreased for the comparison group. This suggests that when
teachers were collaboratively engaged in conversations about the use of questions to probe
students’ understanding and cooperative learning strategies to structure group activities in
the networked learning community, they were more likely to ask questions to elicit
students’ ideas for classroom discussions (Involvement Scale). When teachers were more
intentional in structuring group processes for pair work or small-group discussions,
students were more productively engaged in learning from one another and, there was
stronger teamwork.

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 Through discussions in networked learning community, teachers were also more
prepared to provide scaffolds during small-group work and whole-class discussions. This
led to students experiencing greater teacher support. When students were engaged in
explaining their thought processes and building on their classmates’ thinking, they were
more likely to put effort into mathematics work and find learning mathematics enjoyable.
These changes in teaching behaviours could lead to the positive change in learning
environment experienced by the students in the experimental group. The changes perceived
by students in terms of Cooperation, Teacher Support, Involvement and Problem Solving
could lead to students having a more enjoyable experience in learning mathematics
Therefore, the results in Table 2 and Figure 1 generally provide support for the positive
impact of teachers’ participation in the NLC in terms of classroom learning environment
and students’ enjoyment of mathematics.

Implications and Conclusion

The NLC provides opportunities for teachers to articulate what they know (and
what they need to know) and helps teachers to reflect on their teaching practices with
fellow educators from diverse expertise. In this collaborative learning model of
professional development, teachers share their instructional strategies and learn with
teachers from other schools. Hence, good practices such as use of questioning techniques
and the ways to structure group work were disseminated across schools and were
associated with changes in classroom learning environment and enjoyment in the
mathematics classes in the experimental group.
Findings from my study suggests that teachers’ participation in a mathematics
networked learning community made a difference in their classroom teaching in terms of
their students’ perceptions of their classroom learning environment and attitudes to
mathematics. It also provides empirical evidence that the practices which occurred during
the NLC facilitated teachers to translate their professional learning into classroom
teaching.

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