There is no doubt that the Covid pandemic, and the associated lockdown and closure of schools to face-to-face teaching, had a profound (and in some cases devastating) effect on our schools and their communities. Teachers responded to the immense challenge in exactly the way we would expect – with energy, care and professionalism, supporting their pupils by adapting to delivering high-quality online learning, providing much-needed pastoral support, and even providing meals and other resources to support those who needed them most.
But through and alongside this, teachers were also considering their own learning and development. Cancellation of conferences, the removal of face–to-face staff meetings and the loss of opportunities for informal collaboration could have meant that CPDL opportunities were limited, but instead something different and important happened. Online and blended CPDL is not new – I myself completed my Masters in Education through a blended model some 13 years ago – but during lockdowns it went ‘mainstream’. A plethora of free webinars were offered, covering a wide range of topics around every aspect of education; conferences were run in an online format; and projects like those supported by Paul Hamlyn Foundation enabled whole programmes of online and blended CPDL for teachers to emerge.
As well as moving traditional ‘event’ style CPD to online delivery with live webinars, more asynchronous approaches to digital CPD also emerged, with online communities of practice and social media debates and discussions abounding. This gave an ability to blend digital, informal and self-paced CPDL with live events, whether online or face-to-face, providing powerful opportunities to embed and continue learning over time.
Beyond simply the fact that it enabled learning to continue, benefits to this online form of CPDL rapidly emerged. (For more information, take a look at the Scoping Review, created for TDF Round 4 by Chartered College of Teaching and Sheffield Hallam University in their role as learning partners to the programme.)
Because of the lack of any other option, some teachers who might previously have been wary of online CPD tried it and, to their surprise, loved it. Those who already enjoyed it had a much wider choice to pick from. The advantages of online modes of learning included its flexibility, the lack of travel time, lower (or no) costs without venue hire and catering.
But crucially, in line with Tanya Ovenden-Hope’s excellent reflection in a previous newsletter, it also meant equitable access to CPDL for schools where teachers had often previously been isolated from a broad range of subject and phase–specific CPD options as travel to the nearest large city was impractical. As someone who lives in Cornwall, I’m extremely conscious that even ‘South West’ regional events are often held in Bristol – some three to four hours’ travel for those in the furthest corners of the county. As well as benefitting the participants in CPDL, this has also meant the potential for bringing in experts in the field, both nationally and internationally, much more easily.
Of course, there were notable downsides, too. A particular challenge lay in the loss of easy forms of conversation and informal collaboration, those ‘water cooler’ moments that happen at face-to-face events. And the flexibility that came with its online nature also meant that some CPDL was too easily pushed into teachers’ own time, rather than space and time being provided for them to complete it as part of their roles. For the arts and practical subjects, in particular, there could be a sense that something is lost without being physically in the same space. When teachers were working on screens all day, too, there was a definite sense of webinar fatigue.
So as lockdown ended and gradually face-to-face learning became possible again, what have we seen happening? What might we see happening in the future? Certainly, there is an appetite for face-to-face events, but the nature of these seems to be changing. Travelling for hours and paying a fortune to hear a ‘big name’ speaker perhaps does not hold the appeal it once did, when a similar experience can be gained online. But travelling to be part of a more interactive CPDL experience, to talk to and share with and learn from expert colleagues seems crucial in igniting the passion for our role and our subjects.
Alongside this, online CPDL seems here to stay as part of a blended programme of development for teachers. Advances in technology and in the technical expertise and confidence of school staff mean that collaborative, discursive online CPDL is increasingly possible; modern use of the web is frequently about co-creation rather than passive consumption of information, providing huge opportunity for artistic collaboration. The opportunity to engage in a digital community of practice over time can help CPDL be more effective through sustained, regular engagement, reflection and the opportunity to translate theory into practice.
Some small steps have even been made in looking at the use of Virtual Reality (VR) to provide a more immersive experience, and whilst VR teacher CPDL is perhaps a long way away from being something for all teachers, advances in VR tours and the use of AR technology in museums, for example, may mean that teachers in the arts are learning to embrace and utilise this technology more quickly than others.
As providers of CPD, we can embrace the ‘best of both’ in a blended approach to CPDL, thinking carefully about what learning activities really benefit from being face-to-face so we can make the most of that time, whilst using digital delivery for other activities. As Round 4 of TDF comes to an end at the end of this term, we can look forward to learning from the final evaluation published later in the year. With our understanding of effective blended practice improving we can ensure that high quality subject and context-specific CPDL delivered by arts practitioners and other experts is available to all teachers.