Communities of Practice as Systems: The Case of TEALEAF

Thomas Mccloughlin

doi:10.3390/systems5020039

Abstract

This work provides an update to the Erasmus Plus TEALEAF project. The outcomes of a week-long EU-funded/Irish Government-recognized teacher course in July 2016 is described within the context of a qualitative small-scale study investigating teachers’ progress in the course. The explicit aim of the teacher course was to equip a diverse group of teachers with the initial tools to work to produce simple digital apps for learning about biodiversity in their respective domains. A community of practice seeks to establish a new concept of the pre-existing generalised collective conscience through triangulated conversation between the generalised and particularised collective and individual consciences; in particular, to revise the generalised collective conscience that teachers can program apps for learning about biodiversity. A number of features of teaching and learning were selected in general and their relationship to constructivism delineated. The teachers were prompted for their responses to each day of the course through a self-evaluation tool and the responses were ranked according to the rubric. The data was analyzed using multidimensional scaling—ASCAL procedure—in SPSS 23TM and within the repertory grid domain according to the RepSocio tool in Rep 5TM. The plots show a gradual development throughout the week in terms of specific features becoming ‘stronger’ or exerting more influence towards the middle of the course and fragmenting after that. Analyses were able to show which participants correlated most closely with the hypothetical ideal within the community of practice. Concerning this community of practice, the interrelationships within the community are determined using a social mapping exercise moving from the individual consciences to a particularised collective conscience.

Highlights

This work provides an update to the Erasmus Plus TEALEAF project which in turn is a continuation of that part of the SOPHIA project which addressed serious games in learning about ecology [1,2,3]
The explicit aim of the teacher course was to equip a diverse group of teachers with the initial tools to work to produce simple digital apps for learning about biodiversity in their respective domains
We found that for some, a more traditional-type lesson could stimulate a constructivist approach in some, whereas a novel, ICT-based lesson might stimulate the opposite response in others

Summary

Introduction

This work provides an update to the Erasmus Plus TEALEAF project which in turn is a continuation of that part of the SOPHIA project which addressed serious games in learning about ecology [1,2,3]. The explicit aim of the teacher course was to equip a diverse group of teachers with the initial tools to work to produce simple digital apps for learning about biodiversity in their respective domains. The everyday perception is that teachers might facilitate coding or app development in a passive supervisory role, but that they would be ill-equipped to produce an app themselves; this is substantiated by the preliminary background research which suggested at least a deficit in confidence to do so [6].

Methods

Results

Conclusion