Chapter 17
Networked Teaching and Learning
for Life-Long Professional Development
Mandia Mentis and Alison Kearney
17.1 Introduction
Our societies are in the midst of intense economic, social, and technological change,
and around the world educators and policymakers are being challenged to ensure
that education systems are cognizant of these changes and that education is relevant
for the demands of twenty-first-century citizenship. In particular, the democrati-
zation and changing understandings of knowledge; the growing connectedness and
diversity of societies; the need for life-long and life-wide learning; and the critical
role that technology will play, have been shown to be some of the important
considerations in the planning of twenty-first-century learning environments.
These changes have significant implications for teacher education and ongoing
teacher professional learning. A reconceptualization of the design and delivery of
teaching programs is required to prepare teachers for learning environments that are
interconnected, technology-enabled, and information-rich. In a 2012 OECD report
into preparing teachers and school leaders for the twenty-first century, Schleicher
( 2012 ) highlighted that, along with in-depth subject knowledge and a rich repertoire
of teaching and learning strategies, twenty-first-century teachers will require strong
skills in technology; the ability to be able to work in highly collaborative ways with
other teachers, professionals, and organizations; and the skills and dispositions to be
reflective practitioners. They will also need to be able to take responsibility for
developing themselves professionally and be instruments of innovation.
This chapter provides a case study of a professional learning program that
responds to these challenges by using a networked teaching and learning approach in
M. Mentis (&)A. Kearney
Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
e-mail: [email protected]
A. Kearney
e-mail: [email protected]
©Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017
M.A. Peters et al. (eds.),A Companion to Research in Teacher Education,
DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4075-7_17
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