Teacher Professional Communities Research Articles

Conceptualizing Virtual Instructional Resource Enactment in an Era of Greater Centralization, Specification of Quality Instructional Practices, and Proliferation of Instructional Resources

This article conceptualizes the enactment of virtual instructional resources. We propose a framework that combines traditional concepts of curricular enactment (e.g., the designated, intended, and enacted curriculum) with concepts more salient to the implementation of virtual instructional resources. More specifically, we develop a model that considers the purpose of virtual instruction resources (core or supplemental), the social organizational contexts (e.g., district administrators, teacher professional communities, individual teachers) that shape the enactment of virtual instruction resources, and the process—from creation to enactment—through which virtual instructional resources impact classrooms. We first offer a brief overview of the greater specification of desirable instructional practices and greater centralization, because it is our assertion that virtual instructional resource enactment can best be understood in the context of other important changes and contexts in education more broadly. Next, we introduce our conceptual model of virtual instructional resource enactment. We then specify the concepts of purpose, social organization, and process and situate these concepts in our model. Third, we explain how purpose, social organization, and process influence different aspects of life in schools, including sensitivity to specific contexts, teacher learning, affordances for search and transfer, opportunities for participation in professional communities, and consistency of implementation. We conclude with a discussion in which we articulate the potential tensions and provide direction for future research.

CIDA: A collective inquiry framework to study and support teachers as designers in technological environments

The use of new technologies such as learning analytics by teachers is challenging due to the changes they bring to teachers’ practices and their pedagogical interventions. A design approach into teaching has been proposed for mapping pedagogy with technology to effectively integrate these changes. However, limited collective approaches exist in which teachers participate in professional communities to build knowledge for the design and implementation of learning scenarios with learning analytics. In this paper, we propose a framework (CIDA) for collective inquiry in such professional communities of teachers. Based on other collective inquiry frameworks for knowledge building, we propose three interconnected components: the inquiry process, the collective process, and technological support to facilitate and study teachers’ design practices in technological environments. We explain the framework with examples of implemented technologies and present empirical results of three cases; two High schools and a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). Results inform further how our framework can be implemented in practice and its required supports to facilitate knowledge building for inquiry communities of teachers.

Um estudo da inserção e integração de tecnologias digitais em uma comunidade de professores de um Curso de Licenciatura em Pedagogia

Este artigo tem por objetivo analisar a utilização, por parte dos docentes, das tecnologias digitais em sua prática pedagógica em uma instituição de Ensino Superior privada, de um Curso de Licenciatura Pedagogia. Optou-se por uma investigação de cunho qualitativo, em que os dados foram coletados em uma semana de planejamento em que os docentes tiveram a tarefa de socializar práticas que desenvolvem em sala de aula. A análise e a sistematização dos dados foram inspiradas na Análise de Conteúdo, em um caráter qualitativo, especificadamente os procedimentos de agrupamentos por meio de temas. Os resultados mostram que foi possível compreender que os conhecimentos referentes aos diferentes usos das tecnologias digitais nas práticas pedagógicas, ainda não compõe em completude o conjunto de conhecimentos da comunidade profissional de docentes, mas está em processo de integração. Nesse sentido, é de extrema importância que a instituição continue investindo na formação continuada dos professores, com o intuito de promover inovações nas práticas desenvolvidas em sala de aula.

Detecting cognitive engagement using word embeddings within an online teacher professional development community

Research states that effective teacher professional development (PD) engages teachers as active learners and co-creators of content. However, it is yet to be known whether such pedagogy impacts on cognitive engagement. We adopt the ICAP Framework to measure cognitive engagement in a teacher PD Massively Open Online Course (MOOC). We use word embeddings to automate the identification of teachers' community contributions as representing ‘active’ engagement by manipulating course materials, or ‘constructive’ engagement through the generation of new knowledge. We explored individual variation in engagement across units. Our findings demonstrated that the participants' cognitive engagement is influenced by the nature of MOOC tasks. We adopted a manual content analysis approach to explore constructive contributions. From 67 cases considered, all but one case was identified as containing ‘constructive knowledge’, providing a solid basis for replicating our proposed methodology to analyse cognitive engagement within the community-centric MOOC models.

Confronting Mathematical Pseudo-Community: A Domain-specific Analysis of a Middle School Mathematics Department

Teacher professional community refers to the extent to which teachers collaborate to further their own and their students’ learning. Peck (1995) drew distinctions between pseudo-community and professional community, where pseudo-communities rely on suppression of conflict and the tacit understandings that it is “against the rules” to challenge others’ beliefs and ideas. The teacher education literature is predominantly composed of domain-general characterizations of teacher community. This study investigates the pseudo-communities of five middle school mathematics teachers’ through a domain-specific characterization of criteria of professional community. These characterizations are made using teacher responses to surveys and interaction analysis during a meeting between middle school mathematics teachers and researchers. These analyses allow for the investigation of why domain-general characterizations of pseudo-community may be limited.

A study of the professional community of teachers in equity of teaching quality

The high level of educational participation has not guaranteed the quality of education in a country. Especially developing countries, the issue of educational participation can be overcome with the maximum, but the problem that is still the agenda in various countries is about the equalization of the quality of education. This article is an article compiled based on literature review of the issues. One of the key factors causing inequality in the quality of education is the irregularity of the quality of educators which ultimately affects the inequality of teaching quality. The literature study conducted finding the teacher community is an effective solution to solve the problem. The professional community is an association of teachers to interact with each other and communicate in an integrated learning and teaching improvement. The professional community of teachers is considered to be able to overcome the quality of educators who are located in remote areas. The activities of this professional community of teachers can also be maximized by the use of various media such as internet network. Addressing the gap in teaching quality between remote and airspace will ultimately be able to address the inequalities of appropriate educational quality.Keyword: equalization of teaching quality; professional community of teachers

Desenvolvimento profissional docente: Reflexões sobre politica pública de formação de professores

O presente artigo tem como objetivo discutir sobre o Desenvolvimento Profissional Docente (DPD) frente à política pública do Plano Nacional de Educação (Lei13.005/2014). O texto examina conceitos, construídos porpesquisadores ibéricos (Garcia, 1999, 2009; Imbernón, 2004; Nóvoa, 1991, 2002, 2008) e nacionais (Almeida, 2000; André, 1999,2017; Gatti, 2017; Jardilino,2016; Oliveira, 2012; Ponte, 1998) sobre o DPD e empreende esforços analíticos em torno das metas do PNE (2014-2024), que dialogam com o desenvolvimento profissional dos professores.As reflexões apresentadas ocorreram em torno de estudos e pesquisas realizadas pelo FOPROFI – Grupo Formação e Profissão Docente e de pesquisa realizada em rede, que articulou experiências e estudos de grupos de pesquisa de três Universidades Públicas: Universidade do Estado do Ceará (UECE); Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto (UFOP) e Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). As análises apresentadas envolvem os resultados de entrevistas semiestruturadas, realizadas com noventa professores supervisores do PIBID da rede municipal e estadual de ensino nos estados de Minas Gerais, São Paulo e Ceará. Conclui, apontando as lacunas deixadas para o cumprimento das metas, a falta de articulaçãoentre os entes federados, responsáveis pela implementaçãodo plano e a necessidade da comunidade acadêmica e profissional de professores aprofundarem os estudos e a compreensão sobre os programas e as políticas de DPD, sobretudo, em relação aos pressupostos e concepções que as sustentam.

Досвід впровадження STEM-освіти у США та Канаді

With the development of digital technologies, globalization of society and fundamental changes in all branches of the economy began to take place at a rapid pace. To support the country's economic development, specialists are required, equipped with modern knowledge and ability to navigate and develop in a changing world of technology. The provision of the labor market by highly skilled professionals entirely depends on educational policy. But the decline of young people's interest in scientific and engineering activities is a significant obstacle to this process. Therefore, there is a problem of popularization and introduction of innovation activity in the educational process. The transition to new technologies should become an integral part of the learning process of future professionals, competitive in the labor market. Ukraine is now on the path to reforming the educational sector. The success of reform depends entirely on its support in society and in particular by teachers. Therefore, there is a need to learn the experience of teaching and supporting teachers, finding ways to systematically and successfully implement reforms, and the need to study the experience of countries that have already gone this way, with advanced technology and leadership in other countries. Studying the experience of changes in education and in the formation of the professional community of teachers in the United States and Canada, will help identify the most progressive and effective systems, tools and methods for preparing future teachers for professional activities. Using the USA and Canada as an example, modern approaches to the standardization of STEM distribution processes in educational practices are analyzed, documents defining the requirements for STEM implementation in teacher education programs, their place in education, are reviewed. Key words: STEM-education, STEM-learning, education reform, interdisciplinarity, pre- and in-service teachers, certification, standards, post-secondary education.

Conceptualising professional communities among teachers

Abstract The purpose of this article is to suggest a conceptual framework for understanding professional communities of teachers, specifically those communities that extend beyond workplace, and in some cases national, boundaries. The nature of the paper is a theory-building paper informed by a review of literature in this field. The lit­erature that informed this paper is of two types: firstly, case study reports written by practitioners engaged in professional communities; secondly, academic papers that explore the nature of such communities. The use of the first of these genres means that the framework presented emerges from the experiences of teachers and other practitioners, rather than being imposed upon them. This article presents a conceptualisation of five aspects of professional communities. These are as fol­lows: the ways in which teachers’ self-efficacy may be shaped by their perceptions of membership of a professional community; the boundaries of such communities; the challenges posed by recognising community membership, and also by individuality; and in the final section, the potential for knowledge-sharing within such communi­ties. Its contribution to the wider academic debate is its potential to inform empirical research on communities that is currently taking place, by means of a wide range of projects, in universities across Europe and beyond.

De kunst van het onderwijzen

Abstract The art of teaching. About the promising future of literature education Literature as a serious art form is losing ground. Also in secondary education, literature has lost its sacrosanct position. Young people are reading fewer and fewer books. This also means that the functional illiteracy of socially vulnerable groups increases and the writing and reading skills of students is often below par. To reverse the tide, it is important to re-legitimize literature education. An overview of the functions of literature education shows that teaching of literature is of essential importance for language development, cultural socialization and personal education of students, and fits very well with the general aims of (secondary) education. Teachers see the decline in reading habits and motivation of many students as one of the greatest didactic problems. To turn the tide, it is therefore also important that the teaching of literature is at its best: that it motivates students to read books, that it enables them to develop their literary competence, and that it contributes to their cultural socialization. To this end, a didactic theory is set out in seven axioms that enables literature and reading of books to be firmly anchored in the curriculum. The article concludes with the axiom that for good (literature) education a strong professional community of teachers, teacher trainers and university specialists is necessary.

Situated teacher learning as externalising and mobilising teachers’ tacit knowledge through talk in a language teacher professional community

This paper reports on a study that looks at the micro-processes of teacher learning in a language teacher professional community in China. Following the tradition of ethnomethodology, teacher learning in this paper is conceptualised as interactional accomplishment of negotiation of practice through talk. Based on a purposively selected discourse sample, this paper illustrates the trajectory of how the differences in the understandings of creativity among a small group of language teacher educators (or ‘teachers’ thereafter) were taken up, talked through and finally resolved (or not). The research demonstrates that teachers’ tacit knowledge was distributed among individual members of the professional community where different pedagogical understandings existed. The micro-analysis also shows that teachers’ talk created a dialogic space for the participants to externalise and mobilise their tacit knowledge for negotiation. Implications are drawn which point to the importance of creating opportunities for teacher collaboration and teacher talk as part of professional development.

Mobile Technologies as a Catalyst for Pedagogic Innovation Within Teacher Education

This article reviews the use of mobile technologies within teacher education at the University of Northampton. In order to develop a strong commitment to digital literacy, the School of Education is using sets of teaching iPads with trainee teachers and has allocated an iPad to every member of the academic staff. Experiences from mobile technology projects involving ITT students, primary teachers and academics are shared to illustrate how mobile technologies have been a catalyst for new pedagogies based on a social constructivist model of learning in the teacher education programmes. The author aims to develop creative, self-directed learners who can work in collaborative teams within a professional community of teachers, academics and students. The author has considered ways in which mobile devices extend learning beyond taught sessions, and how the use of apps to make shareable digital artefacts can lead to purposeful engagement. To this end, the School of Education is focusing on a set of core apps that facilitate the creation, collaboration, curation, and capture of content.

Ensuring Educational Leadership in the Creation and Leadership of Schools

Researchers have grappled to speculate about why people in almost all societies share a concern with social justice and equity in education. It is increasingly recognized, internationally and in South Africa, that leading and managing teaching and learning is one of the most important activities for principals and other school leaders. This paper shows that managing teaching and learning are often inadequate, and largely fails to improve educational problems facing school communities. A lot was written about arguably the biggest challenge facing today’s teachers and principals. The question remains how schools could be made to work effectively and equitably for all learners in ever more diverse classrooms. This article will attempt to point the way to ensure that there is educational leadership in the creation and management of schools. Quality leadership skills and competencies for effective teaching and learning in schools are also highlighted. The rationale for this study is based on the growing concern that school leadership is not sensitive to the needs of the learners they serve and continue to experience unjustifiable expenditure in relation to community expectations in terms of teaching and learning. Equity theory underpinned this study. It is imperative to note that people feel most comfortable when their relationships are maximally profitable and they are giving and getting exactly what they deserve from their relationships; no more and certainly no less. The ethics of care theory is used as a lens to understand how principals lead and manage schools to improve learner performance. This theory is considered pertinent for this study due to the fact that leaders have authority and power over their subordinates. A leader should possess instructional leadership skills that emphasize the achievement of the core task, teaching and learning, in schools. Effective leaders understand their staff and learners’ unique needs, can create a supportive environment and engage in practices that build on employee self-confidence to enhance their performance. Ethics of care is deemed suitable for this study since school leaders should have a passion to care for teachers and learners they lead. Ethics of care is a suitable way to connect people and emphasize helping others. Leaders should go an extra mile to address, nurture and support the needs of the teachers. The role of caring in a school environment has a more specific aim, which is to establish an environment that is conducive to effective teaching and learning because an environment that is caring enhances productivity. An investigation was conducted to explore effective school leadership through teaching and learning. This effect presents an exhaustive review of the article and suggests a direction for future developments. Based on the study, a qualitative approach was employed to investigate effective school leadership practices as perceived by school leaders. The belief is that schools should be led by the quality of leaders in order to produce good results. It is on this backdrop that schools need effective, dedicated, responsible, accountable school leaders, and staff members, if they are to provide quality education for all learners. It became evident from the findings that effective principals locate learning at the centre of their daily activities and that this can only be achieved if the creation of a conducive environment plays a major role in developing a professional community of teachers who work as a team under effective instructional leadership. Recommendations evolved from the findings.

KARAKTERISTIKE SAVREMENIH MODELA LIDERSTVA U OBRAZOVANJU

Liderstvo je, posle kvaliteta poučavanja, najznačajniji faktor uspešnosti škole. U ovom radu analizirani su savremeni modeli liderstva u školi koji imaju podršku u rezultatima empirijskih radova. Predstavljeni su rezultati teorijskih razmatranja i empirijskih istraživanja o transformacionom, pedagoškom i distribuiranom liderstvu. Drugi deo rada posvećen je razmatranju osnovnih faktora koji posreduju u odnosu između školskog liderstva i uspešnosti školske organizacije. U tom smislu, govori se o ulozi profesionalnih zajednica nastavnika, profesionalnog razvoja nastavnika, školske klime i uključenosti roditelja u rad škole. Zaključuje se preporukama za školsku praksu i buduća istraživanja.

The role of online communities of practice in promoting sociotechnical capital among science teachers

This study explores the diffusion of Web 2.0 technologies among science educators and the ways that these technologies are used to build teacher professional communities of practice (CoP) in life sciences and physical sciences. We used surveys and web analytics collected over a 21-month period to examine factors that motivate teachers to collaborate in these CoPs and the extent to which collaborative participation contributes to the development of sociotechnical capital and job outcomes, such as instructional practices and self-efficacy for science instruction. Results showed that only the lack of co-located peers at teachers’ schools predicted CoP participation. Participation did not predict job outcomes, but it did predict some aspects of sociotechnical capital, such as a cohesive climate and situated knowledge. In addition, sociotechnical capital was associated with job outcomes, including use of inquiry-based instruction, use of inquiry-based classroom activities and teacher self-efficacy. The lack of effect of most of the antecedent variables in predicting participation and the relatively minor role of participation in contributing to sociotechnical capital and job outcomes may be explained by floor effects on participation due to infrequent and ephemeral engagement of CoP members. Although participation rates were generally low, the positive association of participation with sociotechnical capital as well as generally favorable ratings of sociotechnical constructs suggest that online CoPs may have value for distributed science educators. Future research should address whether persistent participation by individuals is needed to build and sustain sociotechnical capital in online CoPs and to enhance development of participants’ teaching attitudes/practices.

Teacher Job Satisfaction and Student Achievement: The Roles of Teacher Professional Community and Teacher Collaboration in Schools

AbstractStudies have not conclusively established whether teacher job satisfaction improves student achievement or whether the advantages to students from having satisfied teachers vary with the broader school culture. In this article, we investigate two research questions: (1) Is there a relationship between teacher job satisfaction and students’ math and reading growth in elementary school? (2) How do schools’ organizational cultures moderate the relationship between teacher job satisfaction and student achievement growth? We examined these questions using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey and found that teacher job satisfaction has a modest but positive relationship with students’ reading growth but no relationship with students’ math growth between kindergarten and fifth grade. However, school culture and teacher job satisfaction interactively affect student achievement in both math and reading. We argue that future education reforms should place special emphasis on improving teacher job satisfa...

Refiguring a Caribbean school within and across local and global communities

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the case of a school on the Caribbean island of Sint Maarten that was created to serve students who had experienced educational and other injustices in the broader society. Design/methodology/approach Using qualitative methods, the paper explores two research questions: how did Triumph Multiage School (TMS) conceptualize community and the goals of education, and how did these perspectives reflect or diverge from those of the local, national, and global educational communities to which TMS was connected? What was the nature of curriculum knowledge at TMS, and what points of alignment and difference existed among TMS’ curriculum knowledge and those of its local, national, and global educational communities? Findings Analysis found points of symmetry and disjunctures among TMS’ conceptualization of community, purposes of education, and curriculum and those of the local, national, and global educational communities to which it was connected. However the strength of ideological and sociopolitical boundaries separating TMS and its local and national communities constrained opportunities for building professional community and curriculum knowledge across them. Originality/value The paper contributes to research on the creation of new schools and teacher professional communities by demonstrating the need to expand the construct of community to include local and trans-global dimensions. Such a reconceptualization of community is essential for building professional capital and community that will equip schools and teachers to meet the social and educational needs of student populations in a globalized world.

The emotional geographies of language teaching

The paper reports on an in-depth narrative case study of an immigrant background English as a Second Language teacher’s emotional experience in a teacher professional community in England. The data are derived from the teacher’s ‘emotion diaries’ and six interviews during the three-month period when she taught on a pre-sessional English programme at an English university. The data were analysed with Andy Hargreaves’s emotional geography framework which focuses on the physical, moral, sociocultural, professional and political aspects of schooling. Through five stories that recount her experience in different emotional geographies, the paper demonstrates that the teacher had understandings and misunderstandings of different aspects of schooling, which gave rise to various emotions, both positive and negative. In order to survive, she also needed to adopt a wide range of strategies to manage her emotions. The study has implications for both teachers and administrators by stressing the need to engage in emotional understanding of each other’s work.

Effects of Instructional Leadership, Distributed Leadership, School Climate on Teacher Professional Community

Effects of Instructional Leadership, Distributed Leadership, School Climate on Teacher Professional Community

Participatory media for teacher professional development: toward a self-sustainable and democratic community of practice

Financial and political pressures on the compulsory education teacher corps in the United States, as well as US higher education, demands a new approach to teacher professional development that shifts the focus away from repeated short-term university-based teacher professional development programmes and toward the nurturing of self-organized and self-sustaining teacher professional development communities of practice. The authors draw on six years of experience providing area studies teacher professional development to multiple cohorts of in-service and pre-service teachers in a hybrid environment to demonstrate a replicable approach to assisting teachers in building an evolving network of professionals in a self-sustaining, democratic community that can assist in the development of voice, agency, and capital for the participants.