PLEs for the PLCs: What Is Collaborative Capital?

• In Event: Varied Perspectives on Educational Change

Abstract

This paper presents a new idea for thinking about self-directed adult learning and educational change called collaborative capital. The concept of collaborative capital builds on the literature of professional capital (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012), andragogy (Knowles, 1989), self-directed learning (Smith, 2002) and the qualitative data collected from a recent longitudinal study looking at the factors and conditions a group of teachers utilized in the creation, curation, and sharing of instructional digital content. In a self-initiated plan, teachers gathered, organized, and shared online information and resources within their own self-created Personal Learning Environment (PLE). The process of content curation through sharing served as a foundation in this district’s elementary teacher development related to building individual and group professional capital.

Authors

• Samuel Stitcher, New Mexico State University

• David W. Rutledge, New Mexico State University

• Kristin L. Kew, New Mexico State University