scholarly journals From science teacher to teacher leader: Leadership development as meaning making in a community of practice

2003 ◽  
Vol 87 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann C. Howe ◽  
Harriett S. Stubbs
1998 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grady Venville ◽  
John Wallace ◽  
William Louden

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Airi Rovio-Johansson

Purpose The paper aims to examine, within the context of professional practice and learning, how designers collaboratively working in international teams experience practice-based learning and how such occasions contribute to professional development. Design/methodology/approach The paper introduces the cooperation project between Tibro Training Centre and Furniture Technology Centre Trust and its workshop context organized as practice-based learning. Participants’ learning context consisted of a mixture of professional practices allowing different logics and different cultures make up an innovative working site. Qualitative analysis of semi-structured interview data suggests that three phenomenographic hierarchical categories constitute the learning process: getting a recognized professional identity; perceiving new elements and expanding knowledge and seeing new aspects of design work and new steps of development in profession. Findings Cooperative practice-based learning is understood as social practice in a community of practice, and as continuous changes of the learning object due to that new aspects are discerned by the learners. These categories illustrate how participants’ meaning making and understanding of the learning object were expressed in cooperation as doings and sayings, as translation and as situated activities in a community of practice. Accordingly, it contributed to participants’ professional development in spite of their different professional educations and professional experiences. Practical implications More studies of practice-based learning environments in work places are needed that could help societies and companies to advance integrative efforts of new employees and new immigrants into an increasingly diverse globalized labour market. Originality/value The results suggest that understanding as well as content structure and meaning making of the learning object are intertwined constituent aspects of practice-based learning.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ellen Barnett

NGSS provide a new vision for K-12 science education. Teachers need time and opportunities to collaborate with their peers in order to make changes to their views and practice. PLCs are a potential support structure for reform. However, there are few studies of mature, effective science teacher PLCs working without external support and few studies of teachers' efforts to negotiate the meaning of new standards and revise their curriculum. This instrumental case study framed by communities of practice investigated how secondary biology teachers within a mature, effective PLC negotiated the meaning of NGSS as they revised their curriculum. The study was guided by the following sub-research questions: 1) how do the Biology PLC's interactions with other communities influence how the biology teachers negotiate the meaning of NGSS as they revise their curriculum, 2) how do the biology teachers participate in their PLC as they negotiate the meaning of NGSS and revise their curriculum, and 3) how do the biology teachers describe their experience of negotiating the meaning of NGSS and revising their curriculum. The PLC was comprised of six secondary biology teachers at Cross View High, one of three high schools in the district. The state had not adopted NGSS at the time of the study, but the school district had. During the 2013-2014 school year, the following data sources were collected: 1) audio-recordings and observations of the PLC's weekly meetings, the PLC's pre-NGSS and revised curriculum, the PLC's professional email, one 90-minute focus group interview, and two 60-minute, semi-structured individual interviews with each teacher. Interpretative data analysis revealed the following themes: 1) the Biology PLC's historic participation with the World Studies and Language Arts PLC, and in particular their use of a revised World Studies Skills Rubric to assess students' science writing, influenced the biology teachers' prioritization of two science and engineering practices, 2) each biology teacher filled a unique, previously negotiated, clearly defined, and mutually agreed upon role within the PLC, 3) the teachers developed a road map -- a year-long plan of action that reified their meaning-making and became an enduring tool that guided their curriculum reform efforts, 4) the teachers revised each unit around a similar design structure, and 5) the teachers described their experience of negotiating the meaning of NGSS and revising their curriculum as stressful and exhausting, and marked by a central tension between content details and skills. They persevered because they valued the revisions they were making to their curriculum. This study provides implications for science teacher education, professional development, and future research.


Gesture ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Mihas

Based on extensive fieldwork in Peru among Ashéninka Perené Arawaks, this study is a preliminary report on ideophone-gesture composites, with special focus on the meaning and functions of ideophone-gesture couplings within participatory learning frameworks. In expert-novice learning environments, ideophone-gesture composites appear to carry a unique cognitive-communicative load by forming scaffolding knowledge structures on the basis of the conventionalized ideophone-gesture inventories. The data are illustrative of Streeck’s (2009) vision of the hands’ involvement in meaning-making, i.e., that some of the ways in which depictive gestures evoke the world ascend from a basic set of everyday activities of hands in the world, within particular ecological and cultural settings.


2006 ◽  
Vol 90 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Lewthwaite

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Gregory M. Zumach ◽  
Edward Portillo

While innovation in pharmacy education can be sparked through many avenues, the opportunity to learn and engage with others through practice communities is considered by many as a creative outlet for exchange and discovery. This commentary specifically describes a contemporary approach to promote such a dialogue globally through podcasting, which is a free and highly accessible medium for dissemination and exchange of innovative teaching practices. In 2018, two faculty from two colleges of pharmacy created a podcast titled Leadership Development in Pharmacy Education (LDPEcast), which provides a unique modality to stimulate discussion and disseminate ideas within the community of practice. This commentary provides a case illustration for how a podcast can be intentionally designed and implemented with the goal of inspiring engagement across a global practice community. Early results of the podcast have been largely successful with nearly 1000 episode downloads and an additional 445 episode streams from audience members. While this podcast was designed specifically to discuss leadership integration within pharmacy training, opportunities may exist for further exploration of podcasting to spread innovative ideas, practices, and evaluative approaches in pharmacy education, while strengthening connections and elevating communities of practice across institutions.   Article Type:  Commentary


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