ComPratica: A Virtual Community of Practice for Promoting Biology Teachers’ Professional Development in Brazil

Teachers’ professional development is a key factor in improving science education, but it shows limited impact when only a small number of teachers is reached, or when it focuses on only one aspect of teachers’ development, such as learning science content, and is disconnected from teachers’ practice. In order to increase the impact of our work on teachers’ professional development, we implemented in 2007 ComPratica, an online network intended to establish a virtual community of practice involving biology teachers and biological education researchers. We present here the results of the first 2 years of this project, obtained through an analysis of the number and distribution of actions performed by the participants in the community, the kinds of activities in which they are engaged, and the themes addressed in their messages. From these data, we conclude that ComPratica is effectively functioning as a community of practice and is leading to changes related to both teachers’ and researchers’ professional development, which seem capable of reducing the research–practice gap in science education.     

Developing a Community of Practice to Support Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Nature of Science Instruction

This study explored ‘To what extent will preservice teachers with adequate nature of science (NOS) conceptions and who participate in a community supporting NOS instruction teach NOS in their internship settings?’ Using a combination of focus group discussions and peer feedback, five preservice teachers met with university personnel bi-monthly during their internships to share NOS teaching and assessment ideas and ask questions. Field notes and voice recordings were used to track conversations at focus group settings and videotapes were made of science instruction in each internship setting. None of the preservice teachers had cooperating teachers who taught NOS, yet results showed that all five preservice teachers were able to explicitly teach NOS in their science lessons, albeit in different ways and to different degrees.     

Strategies for Developing a Community of Practice: Nine Years of Lessons Learned in a Hybrid Technology Education Master’s Program

Between 2000 and 2009, 243 students in 11 cohort groups participated in the Internet-Based Masters in Educational Technology (iMet) Program. iMet is a hybrid masters program in education with an emphasis in educational technology. Students in the program work collaboratively in a problem-based approach to the integration of technology into instruction. The program completion rates are higher than other online programs and even higher than traditional face-to-face masters programs. In addition, program graduates go on to become successful educational technology leaders. A key to the program’s success is the use of a community of practice model for its participants. An analysis of 78 student course reflections and 92 post-program surveys revealed that the community building strategies used in the program were instrumental in enhancing students’ experiences and boosting program completion rates. This article describes the key strategies used to develop and maintain a successful hybrid community of practice.     

Moral Socialisation in a Multi‐Racial Community

Abstract:

Various claims have been made for a connection between moral education and science. The most prominent of these‐‐'evolutionary ethics’ ‐‐ is examined and found to be philosophically unjustifiable. However, after an analysis of the form and content of scientific reasoning, it is concluded that some other claims are justifiable, in that there are connections of identity between science and morality in terms of logic, relevant knowledge, perspectives, and certain virtues, especially virtues of the will. These connections can be of value for moral education.     

Using Community-Based Research to Improve BSW Students’ Learning in Community Practice: Bringing the Macro into Focus for Traditional and Distance Learners

This article describes community–university partnership building, course development/management, and evaluation outcomes related to an intensive community-based research project that was integrated in two sections of an undergraduate course on community practice. Pre- and posttest data were collected from 60 BSW students who were enrolled in community practice and who participated in a community-based research project with their state’s fair housing office. The evaluation outcomes focus on changes in professional interest in macro practice, students’ self-efficacy, and differences in students’ learning experiences, based on traditional bricks-and-mortar or distance learning contexts. Results show that students experience increases in self-efficacy related to community assessment and intervention. Qualitative results show that students experienced shifts in their professional goals related to macro practice, increased competence and understanding, and personal transformation. A number of differences emerged between traditional and distance learners. Results are discussed in the context of curriculum development and next steps for institutionalizing CBR in community practice courses.     

Putting the Capital “C” in Community College: Revitalizing A Community While Increasing Enrollment

Strong partnerships and external funding allowed San Jacinto College North to engage a declining community to transform into one valuing education. A community center, training classes, and student support programs contributed to this effort. The results included doubling Hispanic college enrollment, skyrocketing high school graduation rates, and increasing earning power.     

‘Practice in teaching should be practice in caring’ fidelity in teacher education

Abstract

As we move forward in the new millennium, the call for reform in teacher education programs increases. One reform model, offered by Nel Noddings, focuses on the students’ affect, emotion, and intellect. Noddings proposes the use of fidelity—focusing on the individual and the quality of relationships—as a cornerstone in teaching and teacher education. Fidelity in teacher education utilizes a process that includes modeling, dialogue, practice, and confirmation. This paper explores the fundamentals of a fidelity‐based approach to teacher education and examines a university course and its fieldwork component by analyzing the structure and methods of each using the fidelity framework. If we expect our pre‐service teachers to create caring learning environments, they must first be taught about caring environments by their professors. The use of fidelity in teacher education programs is one model that allows for caring environments as well as content application.     

Identity and Community in Toni Morrison’s Sula

Toni Morrison’s Sula was published in 1973.It portrays a black woman who quests for self under the strick doctrines of black community.The novel puts forward a complexed contradiction of identity and black community in the historical context of black community and protagonist Sula’s change,rejection,awareness of self and death.The overall challenges of Sula pays her life as a price.Morrison,through this piece of work,reveals the conflicts between Sula’s self and black community.Sula’s tragic ending voices an unchanged fact that self must be developed within the black community.     

Success in Community College: Do Institutions Differ?

Community colleges are complex organizations and assessing their performance, though important, is difficult. Compared to 4-year colleges and universities, community colleges serve a more diverse population and provide a wider variety of educational programs that include continuing education and technical training for adults, and diplomas, associates degrees, and transfer credits for recent high school graduates. Focusing solely on the latter programs of North Carolina’s community colleges, we measure the success of each college along two dimensions: attainment of an applied diploma or degree; or completion of the coursework required to transfer to a 4-year college or university. We address three questions. First, how much variation is there across the institutions in these measures of student success? Second, how do these measures of success differ across institutions after we adjust for the characteristics of the enrolled students? Third, how do our measures compare to the measures of success used by the North Carolina Community College System? Although we find variation along both dimensions of success, we also find that part of this variation is attributable to differences in the kinds of students who attend various colleges. Once we correct for such differences, we find that it is not possible to distinguish most of the system’s colleges from one another along either dimension. Top-performing institutions, however, can be distinguished from the most poorly performing ones. Finally, our adjusted rates of success show little correlation either to measurable aspects of the various colleges or to the metrics used by the state.     

Knowledge-Sharing and Potential Virtual Communities of Practice in the U.S. Coast Guard’s Afloat Community: a Qualitative Pilot Study

Virtual communities of Practice (VCoP) offer a flexible option for professional development that may be employed by geographically dispersed communities. Due to unique and dynamic operational demands and a reduced training budget, the United States Coast Guard’s (USCG) afloat community has limited opportunity for formal professional development, but alternative learning options have yet to be formally researched. This qualitative pilot study employed purposeful sampling to conduct 6 one-on-one interviews of afloat members with varying degrees of afloat experience and total time in service. The interviews were used to elucidate the knowledge-sharing culture of the afloat community, including the degree to which afloat members are willing to exchange knowledge and how trust, reciprocity, and disposition towards online learning influence this exchange. Interviews were digitally recorded and manually transcribed. Emergent themes included willingness and desire to share knowledge, concerns regarding service reputation, provisions for anonymity, and altruistic information exchange.     

The Importance of Community Knowledge in Learning to Teach: Foregrounding Māori Cultural Knowledge to Support Preservice Teachers' Development of Culturally Responsive Practice

Culturally responsive teaching is an essential component of reframing educator preparation for equity and has particular resonance when working in partnership with indigenous communities. As teacher educators in Aotearoa New Zealand, we continually seek to enhance our practices to ensure that Māori cultural values, pedagogies, and epistemologies inform all aspects of our teacher education curricula and support Māori educational aspirations. In this article we describe a preservice teacher education program co-constructed with our local Māori community that foregrounds Māori cultural knowledge. We focus particularly on two signature features of the program, a co-constructed framework for teacher growth and development and community-based learning experiences, highlighting the ways that these features engage preservice teachers in learning through Māori epistemological perspectives and pedagogies. We conclude by reflecting on the generative nature of engaging community expertise and knowledge to create contextually meaningful learning experiences for preservice teachers that support their development as culturally responsive teachers.     

‘An Invested Interest in Language’: Literary Practice in Secondary Classrooms

This essay draws on the work of Raymond Williams in identifying a shift from the attempt to have students engage with literary texts in personal terms to a concern, founded on theoretical innovation, that they should read at a more sophisticated level in order to discern the ideology of a given text. It argues that what Williams calls an ‘expressivist’ view of texts needs to be reconciled with, rather than displaced by, a ‘formalist’ conception of them. It finds that high-stakes examinations reward a focus on abstracted ideological concerns at the expense of responsiveness to language and form. Exploration of the work of a teacher whose career has spanned this shift identifies ways in which she has, in meeting the challenges of the classroom and of theory, sustained a professional practice that has informed and motivated her students’ engagement with literary texts.     

The “New Environmental Paradigm” in a Mexican Community

Abstract

A sample of 422 Mexicans from a medium-sized city responded to the New Environmental Paradigm-Human Exception Paradigm (NEP-HEP) scale, which assesses peoples' beliefs about human-environment relations. The NEP scale contains questions referring to the need for a “natural balance” and “limits to human impact on nature.” In contrast, implicit in the HEP scale is a view of humankind as different from and with control over nature. The responses of the interviewees revealed higher levels of adherence to the NEP than to the HEP. However, confirmatory factor analysis showed the covariances between pro-NEP and pro-HEP factors to be high and significant, indicating that the participants did not see the two paradigms as mutually exclusive, as do members of some industrialized societies. The results point to a more holistic view of human relations with the environment, in contrast to the dualistic vision of some western countries.     

A Practice of Cooperative Learning in EFL at College Level

This essay analyzes the current situation in EFL and discusses the research into cooperative learning conducted by the author. Through the practice of cooperative leaming, some important con clusions have been reached which verify the advantages of this method for EFL teaching and learning-especially with regard to student improvement rates.     

Kindergarten Teachers’ Beliefs Toward Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Jordan

The objective of this study was to examine the beliefs of Jordanian kindergarten teachers toward developmentally appropriate practices (DAP). The sample consists of 285 (14.9%) randomly selected teachers working in public and private kindergartens. A questionnaire with two parts, (1) general information and (2) teachers’ beliefs regarding DAP, was developed to answer the research questions. The items were distributed into the five dimensions of early childhood professional practice that were published by the National Association for the education of young children (NAEYC). The findings indicated that the overall mean score of kindergarten teachers’ beliefs on the five dimensions was 4.08, indicating high beliefs toward (DAP). Teachers endorsed DAP on all dimensions except establishing reciprocal relationships with families. The findings also indicated that there are no significant differences between the means of teachers’ beliefs toward teaching children according to teachers’ level of education, years of experience, or teacher’s age (except in the caring community of learners and the development and learning domains). In the light of the findings of this study, some recommendations are presented.     

Community‐level Responses to Disability and Education in Rwanda

This article explores the meaning of community and perceptions of disability in Rwanda, as revealed through a community‐based ethnographic study. This study took place in Rwanda in an educational policy context driven by international rhetoric about human rights, inclusion and the arguably unachievable Education for All targets. We argue that the emphasis on the inclusion of marginalised groups in Rwanda’s current education policy is a reality on paper, but not in practice. However, we explore the potential for a deeper understanding of community responses to disability, and ways in which the rhetoric and reality gap can be bridged. We consider some of the attitudinal and infrastructural barriers in educational settings and argue that Rwandan communities are resourceful, and can be supported to respond appropriately to children with disabilities.     

Moving Science Off the “Back Burner”: Meaning Making Within an Action Research Community of Practice

In this study, the participants conceptualized and implemented an action research project that focused on the infusion of inquiry principles into a neglected science curriculum. Specific objectives were to find (a) What factors challenge and support the evolution of an action research community of practice? (b) How are teachers’ beliefs about science teaching and learning transformed? and (c) How does teachers’ knowledge of curriculum, instruction, assessment, and student learning change as a result of learning within a community of practice? In this instrumental case study (Stake 2000, In N. K. Denzin, &; Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 435–454). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage), a range of data collection sources and methods were adopted. Outcomes focus on how the design principles for cultivating a community of practice emerged in the action research group, as well as the types of teacher learning that occurred by engaging in action research.