Tutors’ assessment practices and students’ situated learning in higher education: chalk and cheese

This article uses situated learning theory to consider current tutor assessment and feedback practices in relation to learning practices employed by students outside the overt curriculum. The case is made that an emphasis on constructive alignment and explicitly articulating assessment requirements within curricula may be misplaced. Outside of the overt curriculum students appear to be interdependent learners, participating in communities of practice and learning networks, where sense-making occurs through negotiation and there is identity development. Such negotiation may translate curriculum requirements articulated by tutors into unexpected meanings. Hence, tutors’ efforts might be better placed on developing students’ ability to self-assess and to effectively evaluate and negotiate information, rather than primarily on their own delivery of the curriculum content and feedback. Tutors cannot be fully effective if they fail to consider students’ learning outside the overt curriculum, and ways to facilitate such learning processes are suggested together with future research directions.     

Playin’ farmer: leisure experiences in a craft-based community of practice

The study applies situated learning and communities of practice concepts to an ethnographic study of volunteer farm work. In contrast to a traditional conceptualization of education for leisure, participation in farm work activities is understood as a form of education taking place in a leisure context. Analysis reveals that participation in volunteer farm labor may also be understood as participation in a craft-based community of practice. The Farm’s community of practice exhibits the use of embodied knowledge, intimate communication, a dialectic of innovation and preservation, and a hierarchical social structure. Differences between employment and leisure-based communities of practices are explored. Situated learning and communities of practice conceptualizations promise to expand both the analysis and practice of leisure education, thereby expanding its relevance in contemporary society.     

Re-contextualising TPACK: exploring teachers’ (non-)use of digital technologies

Technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) has been used by hundreds of studies as a theoretical framework to explore teachers’ technology use in classroom settings. While these studies have contributed to understandings of the interplay between these different knowledge domains and the differences between pre- and in-service teachers’ knowledge, little work has been done to examine the influence of teachers’ socially mediated workplace settings on TPACK enactment. This article begins to address this issue reporting findings from an eight-month case study involving 10 teachers in an Australian secondary school. Results reported in this article indicate that TPACK enactment is influenced by processes of identity development and practice. These findings challenge the established position of knowledge as an epistemological possession inherent in the TPACK framework rather than also considering knowing as an epistemology of practice. Implications for in-service teachers and school authorities are discussed and suggestions for future research considered.     

Interpreting a Community of Practice Perspective in Discipline-Specific Professional Development in Higher Education

Through this study we explored a community of practice framework applied to faculty professional development at a mid-size state university in order to examine the issues unique to discipline-specific professional development in higher education. Through content-focused professional development activities conducted by the authors, several key areas were identified that point to challenges in building a faculty community of teaching practice: (a) the need for a culture of professional development, (b) developing old-timers and recruiting newcomers, (c) the need for teaching scholars to coordinate professional development, (d) challenging the “culture of service”, and (e) the need for a language to mediate thinking about practice. Maria Blanton  received a Ph.D. in Mathematics Education from North Carolina State University. She is currently a Senior Executive Research Associate in the Kaput Center and an Associate Professor in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Dept at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Her research interests focus on applications of sociocultural theory in understanding teaching and learning mathematics in both elementary grades and higher education. Despina Stylianou  received an Ed.D. in mathematics education from the University of Pittsburgh. She is Associate Professor in the Department of Secondary Education at the City College of New York. Her research interests are in the area of mathematical cognition; her work explores the mathematical skills, sensibilities, and habits of mind and action that are critical to doing, learning, and using mathematics proficiently.     

Mucking in and mucking out: Vocational learning in Animal Care

The paper draws upon empirical material from a two year qualitative research project. The paper briefly outlines the key research questions, research design and data collection strategies. The following sections draw on observational, interview and journal data from the learning sites and the teachers and students who work and learn in them are used to show how college-based learning (CBL) is also work-based learning (WBL). We argue that to differentiate between CBL and WBL in this particular case is unhelpful and three separate contexts are identified to show where learning typically occurs for students of animal care. The discussion draws upon Lave and Wenger's ‘communities of practice’ and Fuller and Unwin's notion of ‘expansive learning environments’ to illustrate the ways in which full time students of animal care undertake valuable real work (albeit mostly unwaged) on farms, in stables and in reptile houses. Characteristics of communities of practice, namely, recognition of distributed expertise, inclusive language and interactions, ways of communicating about animals and nurturing teacher–student and student–student relations are identified.     

Trajectories in teacher education: Recognising prior learning in practice

This article analyses the trajectories into teacher education of a group of child minders who are studying to become pre-school teachers. The specific focus is what impact their prior experiences and learning from pre-school have on their trajectories, and how these experiences and learning are recognised in the first year of teacher education. A situated learning perspective is applied, with a focus on participation and trajectories in the two communities of practice in which teacher education is situated – the university and the pre-school. The data consist of transcribed interviews with ten student teachers, and additional data are gathered from stakeholders in the program. The results show that prior experiences and learning are given implicit and indirect recognition. In the practice of the pre-school, the trajectory means a shift in identity, from child minder to student teacher and pre-school teacher. In the practice of the university, prior experiences and learning help students in their trajectories from peripheral to fuller participation.     

Māwhai: Webbing a professional identity through networked interprofessional communities of practice

Professional identity is a frequently used term in teacher education although there is little consensus of what it means for practice. Drawing on research in the fields of professional identity development, communities of practice and interprofessional practice, this article presents a framework for interprofessional identity development that supports effective practice within and across different disciplines. The Māwhai framework, which translates as both ‘web’ and ‘net’, enables professionals to ‘web’ interprofessional identities through ‘networks’ of interprofessional practice. The framework is first described and then evaluated using data from three cohorts of professional educators.     

Exploring woman university physics students ‘doing gender’ and ‘doing physics’

This article explores what it can mean to be a woman physics student. A case study approach is used to explore how five women who are studying physics at a Swedish university simultaneously negotiate their doing of physics and their doing of gender. By conceptualising both gender and learning as aspects of identity formation, the analysis of the interviews with the five women offers insights into the nuances and complexities of how women relate to the gendered disciplinary culture of physics. This contrasts how research on gender and physics education has been predominantly concerned with comparisons of female and male students' attitudes and/or achievements. Furthermore, the analysis brings to the fore how it is not just the masculine connotations of physics that shape the experiences of the five women, but also the expectations on female physics students.     

Sustainable assessment?: Critical features of the assessment process in a modularised engineering programme

This paper reports a project researching the interplay between a formal assessment system on the one hand and the development of students’ and teachers’ work in the actual assessment process on the other. Applying a social practice perspective, empirical data from the first year of an engineering programme mapped the assessment process through documentary studies and qualitative interviews with students and teachers.     

Engaging student teachers in meaningful reflective practice

This paper examines the use of peer-videoing in the classroom as a tool to promote reflective practice among student teachers. Twenty pre-service teachers from a variety of subject disciplines participating in a Post-Graduate Diploma in Education programme in an Irish university participated in the study. The practice of encouraging student teachers working in the same school to participate in structured video analysis avoids the impact of external observers whose role is largely evaluative and endorses a collaborative model that promotes dialogue and shared learning. This practice promotes a culture of observation and critical dialogue in a profession which has traditionally been characterised by isolation, while at the same time fostering and validating the voice and experience of the student teacher. Locating the discussion within the framework of the theoretical literature on reflective practice, the purpose of this paper is to contribute to the international debate over best practice in supporting, encouraging and scaffolding reflective practice. It comments on the implications of reflective dialogue for the modernisation of teacher education and offers guidelines on how best to scaffold and promote reflectivity.     

情境学习:一种新的学习范式

情境学习作为一种新型的学习范式,是学习科学研究中的重要内容之一,其理论和实践研究的快速发展推动了现代学校教育和社会组织的变革。文章对情境学习研究的历史发展和主要流派进行了梳理,重点总结了情境学习研究范式的知识观和学习观,并对其理论的教育实践应用进行了探讨,最后文章提出了情境学习理论对学校教育的启示以及面临的挑战。     

Developing a communal identity as beginning teachers of mathematics: Emergence of an online community of practice

The aim of this study is to investigate how a community of practice focused on becoming a teacher of secondary school mathematics emerged during a pre-service teacher education programme and was sustained after students graduated and began their first year of full-time teaching in schools. Bulletin board discussions of one pre-service cohort are analysed in terms of Wenger’s (1998) three defining features of a community of practice: mutual engagement of participants, negotiation of a joint enterprise, and development of a shared repertoire for creating meaning. Emergence of the online community was associated with our own role in facilitating professional dialogue, the voluntary and unstructured nature of participation, initial face-to-face interaction that created familiarity and trust, and the convenience of using email rather than logging on to a website. The study shows that the emergent design of the community contributed to its sustainability in allowing the pre-service and beginning teachers to define their own professional goals and values.

Exploring diversity through ethos in initial teacher education

This paper considers whether there is value in introducing student teachers to schools of different ethos as part of their initial teacher education. A 2-year study of undergraduate post-primary student teachers at a university college in Northern Ireland reveals that encounters with schools of different ethos can help student teachers to understand differences between schools and their visions of education, as well as correcting misunderstandings and challenging stereotypes. It is argued that as a result of experiencing diverse examples of ethos, student teachers may also be helped to understand the complexity of schools as organisations and to position themselves and their professional practice within wider debates about the aims of education and schools as communities of practice.     

情境学习理论观照下的校长专业成长

运用情境学习理论提出的\"实践共同体\"、\"合法的边缘性参与\"、\"学习课程\"等关键概念对校长群体定位、成长历程和学习方式进行了重新的解读,并提出一些新观点。     

What is shared? A framework for understanding shared innovation within communities

The twenty-first century economy often requires the innovative production of conceptual and physical artifacts. These innovations frequently are developed collaboratively within communities of workers. Previous theories about the nature of work and learning within communities have emphasized shared meaning or shared practice, but now shared innovation is required. In this paper, I describe the development of a model for conceptualizing and studying shared innovation within communities. This model was created from merging elements of social learning and creativity/innovation theories. I explain that at an intersection of these two domains is a unique kind of social structure, called a Community of Innovation, or COI. I conclude by describing the characteristics of a COI and its implications for design and research.

Perspectives of Schooling through Karaoke: A metaphorical analysis

This paper plays with education through the analogy of karaoke to tease out the instructions of a situated educational practice. Here, Cremin's conceptualization of education as a deliberate, systematic and sustained effort is employed as a starting point to enable an understanding of educational practice between members elicited by karaoke. Using Garfinkel's ethnomethodological framework, the paper investigates modes of education through karaoke practice as part of the ‘live’ narrative, that of instructing and being instructed with the ‘curriculum’ of the event at hand.