Establishing a professional learning community for cultivating future design talents using a 'peer coaching' mechanism

Li-Yu Chen; Wei-Wei Zhou; Wen-Zhe Hsieh; Rung-Jiun Chou

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e20906

Establishing a professional learning community for cultivating future design talents using a 'peer coaching' mechanism

Heliyon. 2023 Oct 13;9(10):e20906. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e20906. eCollection 2023 Oct.

Authors

Li-Yu Chen¹, Wei-Wei Zhou², Wen-Zhe Hsieh¹, Rung-Jiun Chou³

Affiliations

¹ Dept. of Interior Design, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan.
² Dept. of Environmental Design, College of Science and Technology, Ningbo University, China.
³ Dept. of Landscape Architecture, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan.

Abstract

The Professional Learning Community (PLC) has an interdisciplinary focus on the humanities, arts, and technology. In order to explore the impact of peer coaching on the learning outcomes of eight university faculty members involved in the PLC for 'cultivating future design talents through inquiry-based learning', to develop an innovative approach for the university faculty members professional growth. A qualitative case study approach through six professional development courses with a dynamic revision process, participant observation and in-depth interviews to determine the potential of peer coaching as a tool for PLC teachers. It shows that peer coaching facilitated collaborative learning and positively contributed to PLC teachers' co-construction of knowledge in relation to Inquiry-Based Learning teaching approaches. The study found four processes of course-driven professional development and shows that multiple roles of PLC teachers, the PLC group dynamics, and online peer interaction are important issues in the post-COVID-19 era.

Keywords: Design education; Design pedagogy; Inquiry-based learning; SDGs; Service-learning.