Teachers' professional development using cyberspace: The phenomenological study of Hamedan teachers

As one of the key components of the curriculum, the teacher has an effective role in teaching effectiveness and facilitating learning. The quality of teachers’ work is the most important factor influencing the quality of students' learning and the success of the educational systems. Teachers, as one of the complex components of the school ecosystem must be able to meet the expectations and demands of various admin administrators and stakeholders and have a deep understanding of social developments and future changes. Therefore, teachers must constantly seek to update their knowledge and skills and improve their professional development. The field of teacher professional development consists of various aspects such as perceptions, educational beliefs, epistemology, ideology, behavior, and practice related to teaching and learning. The present study seeks to investigate how Iranian teachers use cyberspace for their professional development.

In this study, qualitative research method with descriptive phenomenological approach used the subjects, who consist of 25 teachers who actively promote the educational applications of cyberspace, were selected from among the teachers of Hamedan Province and invited to an interview. Snowball sampling technique was used and the number of subjects was decided to be 25 according to the principle of theoretical saturation the reliability and validity of the data were determined by transferability and dependability.

By using information retrieval tools, they can access their required information in various fields, become informed about conferences and educational workshops, rethink their experience as well as improve their self-confidence in responding to students' questions. By using tools content production and presentation, they can produce high-quality multimedia contents, design various learning activities, encourage students to participate in activities, and adopt active teaching methods. Finally, teachers can make use of interactive tools to express their experience and receive feedback, exchange information with other teachers and scholars, improve their communication skills, get involved in participatory learning along with their colleagues and conduct team projects.

The findings of this study showed that Iranian teachers use three tools of information retrieval, production and presentation of content and interactive tools to develop themselves professionally with respect to content, pedagogical and technological knowledge. Based on the findings, teachers can use the retriveal tools to find the information they need in a variety of areas, such as information about the field of study and the latest changes in textbooks, information about students' educational issues, teaching methods, evaluation methods, research methods, learning theories, education in other countries as well as time, place and themes of wbinars and conferences. The results also showed that teachers can use interactive tools to express their experiences and use the opinions of others to improve them; create a participatory atmosphere; strengthen their critical thinking; improve their writing skills and promote their skills in using word processors; exchange information with experts and colleagues; strengthen their conversational skills; work with partners and experts on collaborative projects; and design individual and group learning activities. So teachers can use cyberspace as a platform to empower themselves professionally.