Community of Teachers

1
Community of Teachers

• Preparing Pre-Service Teachers
• Developing an Empirical Account of a community of
  practice
• Sasha Barab
• Michael Barnett
• Kurt Squire

2
Background

• Acquisition vs. Participation metaphors

• Educational potential of
• co-participation
• through a CoP

• Need to understand the advantages/ challenges of
  the learning-as-part-of-a-community approach

3
Research Goals

• Build an illuminative account of CoT
• Identify some of the core challenges
• Data collection
• Interviews
• Seminar observations and participation
• Sense of belonging forms
• School visitations
• Member checks

4
Community Life

• Ecology
• Social Organization
• (participant structures)
• Cosmology
• Developmental Cycle

5
Developmental Cycle

• Last semester, I got a little frustrated, because
  it was such a shift to be the kid in the family
  to being, the granddad, well, I guess Ivor was
  the grandpa, but he took off. Well, I quickly
  became someone who felt older and had a
  responsibility to the group and had to assume a
  role of leadership I guess as the semester went
  on, it felt like the group was heading in wildly
  different directions. Even though a lot of you
  have just joined it now, you are still a part of
  the people that were in this five years ago. I
  felt that we lost sight of what happened before
  us, and as the semester went on, the more and
  more I felt that it was out of sight, and I kept
  looking back over my shoulder wanting to bring
  that into the class. In reality we have a new
  group and there are different dynamics. I guess I
  should have been a little more accepting of that.

6
Instructor Facilitator or Gatekeeper

• Facilitator
• engage in dialogue concerning what is to be a
  teacher
• bringing education research in
• performing marriages

7
Instructor Facilitator or Gatekeeper

• Student
• in a sarcastic tone We had a theme? I didnt
  feel like there was a cohesive element. Alright,
  the curriculum unit. The key is direction. What
  do you want? If there is one comment I would
  like to make, tell us what you want.
• Facilitator
• It is easy to hold the theme too tightly, but
  also too loosely. The statement about what do you
  want is quite a strong statement. In a way I am
  trying to hold things together, and I often err
  one way or another, but when I do err I often err
  on the side of less direction. That is
  purposeful, because you need to provide your own
  direction, and I dont help you a lot when I just
  tell you here is the way to do it. There is a
  struggle in invention, I think. I cant protect
  you from that.

8
Instructor Facilitator or Gatekeeper

• Facilitator
• engage in dialogue concerning what is to be a
  teacher
• bringing education research in
• performing marriages
• Gatekeeper
• need for students to meet specified competencies
• reviewing portfolios
• requiring students to get a mentor

9
Authentic Assessment vs. Accountability Device

• Motivations change over time regarding the
  Portfolio
• Authentic
• At times viewed as promoting reflection
• Inform practice
• Reflective practitioner structure
• Accountability
• At times viewed as facilitators
• Requirement to get certification
• Accountability structure

10
Authentic Assessment vs. Accountability Device

• The portfolios belong to the students. We are
  less free in allowing students to control the
  pace of completion of the portfolio than we
  originally were. Initially, finishing it was the
  students responsibility and we supported the
  effort in a number of ways. But too many students
  were coming into student teaching with too little
  of it done for them to realistically finish it
  during the summer after graduating.

11
Authentic Assessment vs. Accountability Device

• Motivations change over time regarding the
  Portfolio
• Authentic
• At times viewed as promoting reflection
• Inform practice
• Reflective practitioner structure
• Accountability
• At times viewed as facilitators
• Requirement to get certification
• Accountability structure
• Both activities provided opportunities for
  professional development

12
Individual Ownership vs. Mandating Community

• How to increase participation, but not undermine
  ownership
• Lack of technical structures coupled with
  democratic governance allow for tension
  development
• Key not minimizing, but balancing
• Allow for revisions of existing structures

13
Individual Ownership vs. Mandating Community

• I propose introducing classroom management
  instruction into our seminar so we can all get
  some practice in how to manage a classroom full
  of students before we start student teaching. I
  found that was my biggest challenge when I
  started student teaching because I had no idea
  how I was going to handle a classroom full of
  thirty kids all at once.

14
Individual Ownership vs. Mandating Community

• How to increase participation, but not undermine
  ownership
• Lack of technical structures coupled with
  democratic governance allow for tension
  development
• Key not minimizing, but balancing
• Allow for revisions of existing structures
• Struggling with tensions gave rise to
  collegiality
• Belongingness questionnaires

15
Theory vs. Practice

• Larry
• The book Paulo Freires Pedagogy of the
  Oppressed it is a wonderful idealistic work, and
  it is all muddled theory with all these new
  different vocabulary words and new mix of
  Catholicism and Marxism, and it did not work. I
  wish that less time was taken up with less of
  that mess. I wish that more of my time was
  working on the portfolio. Actually working on
  things that are getting towards certification
  which I need.
• Bill
• Im sorry. I find that very narrow, idealistic
  stuff, useful! Who is to say something like
  that couldnt have good effects

16
Theory vs. Practice

• Seminar Conversations
• Sharing of stories, synthesis
• At times uniformed by literature
• New structures would be discussed to find a
  balance between theory and experience
• Worked best when readings, portfolio
  expectations, and seminar discussions to
  challenge existing practice and vice versa

17
Content vs. Context

• CoT eliminated the distinction between content
  and context
• Learning about practice through participation as
  part of a model community
• Created context to support practice
• Continuously changing and negotiated
• More meaningful than textbook or teacher owned
  descriptions of practice

18
Conclusions/Implications

• Educators can, to some degree, support structures
  that foster community
• CoT decoupled grades/learning
• Portfolio as a valuable structure
• Inherent challenges are part of community
  development/life
• Balancing tensions and student ownership
• Trust in the system

19
Questions?