Intersecting communities of practice in distance education: the program team and the online course community

This article is a case study that aimed at understanding the dynamics of two complementary communities involved in a distance education graduate program: one community of practice formed by the instructors and instructional developers, who designed and developed the program, and another created by the students and instructor in one of the online courses. The relationship between both communities and the evolution that occurred within the online course are analyzed. Emergent themes are discussed and recommendations are made for similar contexts and communities.     

Urban educators’ perceptions of culturally relevant pedagogy and school reform mandates

In this article, we examine urban teachers’ perceptions of school reform models (SRMs) and culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP). In particular, we examined how urban educators altered mandated reform models in the best interests of their culturally and linguistically diverse students. We discuss data from a phenomenological study, which included in-depth interviews and a focus group with seven urban African-American educators. We explore three facets of the intersection of culturally relevant pedagogy and mandated school reforms: (1) Teachers’ use of CRP to empower urban students; (2) Teachers’ beliefs that SRMs hurt African American students more than help them; (3) Teachers’ adaptations of SRMs with culturally relevant practices. Finally, this article explores the implications for practice and policy when culturally relevant teachers struggle to utilize CRP in the implementation of SRMs.     

Correction to: What do upper‑elementary and middle school teachers know about the processes of text comprehension?

Reading and Writing -     

Formal rules and rules as reasoning-in-action: playing games with reality in science education

Bonne and Higgins (2022) explore game playing and fluctuations in emotional climate at a classroom level of analysis using a social and phenomenological orientation. My aim in this forum paper is to extend upon their work by exploring the nature of both formal game rules and practical game rules as reasoning-in-action where science reasoning may be embedded. Rules as reasoning-in-action are considered from the perspective of studies of ethnomethods, which are the interactional methods people use in everyday situations to make sense of social reality. I apply these ideas to compare gamification of science learning with learning through authentic science practices by discussing similarities and differences in the way we might regard reality in game play and the application of emotions to the design of learning contexts. I suggest the need for future research to embed gamification more routinely in science teacher education, including raised awareness about emotions and aesthetics in learning science.