The impact of the mobile phone to improve teacher competence through teacher working group to be a professional teacher In Indonesia

The purpose of this study is to propose a conceptual framework for continued professional development (CPD) using mobile phones in teacher working group in Indonesia. In Indonesia, teachers need to have four broad competencies that consist of (i) pedagogy, (ii) professional, (iii) social and (iv) personal competencies. To achieve these competencies, the teacher is recommended to improve their knowledge and skills by joining teacher working groups or “kelompok kerja guru” (KKG). These are semi-informal institutions for professional educational learning that have legal status from the government of Indonesia. A KKG provides workshops, training and discussions that are held each month. KKGs use a mobile phone application to communicate and to share ideas with group members. Previous studies have shown that there is a diversity in the capability of teachers to use mobile learning, principally between junior teachers and senior teachers in the profession, even while the level of mobile phone activity between junior teachers and senior teachers was broadly the same. Mobile phones also facilitate teachers in their teaching processes in class. However, little research has been carried out to investigate the impact of mobile phones in improving professional teacher competencies. The methodology of this study uses a qualitative case-study approach through a government project through a ‘zone programme’. The proposed conceptual model is developed to predict the professional teacher performance outcomes through three educational structures, namely surface, deep and implicit structures through the use of mobile phones in the teacher working groups.