A needs analysis of an online community of teacher educatorsfor their continuing professional development

Teacher educators play an essential role to improve the quality of education; however, our knowledge of their continuing professional development (CPD) needs is based on very limited data. The aim of this research was thus to investigate the CPD needs of teacher educators in an online community of practice. The research was conducted with 94 teacher educators who were members of the Teacher Educator Community (TEC) that was founded by the British Council in May 2018. This was a descriptive study that used a qualitative method. Data were collected through a needs analysis survey which was developed by the researcher. Frequency and percentage were employed to analyse the findings, and mean scores led to the prioritisation of the needs. The study found that 'running teacher training', 'observing teachers' and 'giving feedback' were the three most common teacher training activities. The majority of teacher educators indicated their needs for more practical aspects of teacher training, such as 'being able to use different technologies (apps, web tools, webinars) in teacher education programmes', 'evaluating the effectiveness of a training programme' and 'organizing professional development activities for and with teachers, i.e. Teacher Activity Groups, workshops'. Much needed topics included 'digital literacies', 'curriculum design', 'assessment', and 'mentoring. As regards to their technical competencies in an online community of practice, majority of the respondents shared that they were confident in the basic use of the online platform, such as updating their profile, receiving forum post notifications to mailbox; however, they indicated their needs with regards to data protection, copyrights, and creating and participating in forum discussions. This study will serve as the basis for developing the curriculum of an online community of practice for teacher educators. We hope future researchers will benefit from the findings of the research to develop teacher educator programmes in the future.