Group items tagged

This webpage from the US Department of Education describes how Communities of Practice can improve education.

SUMMARY: The DOE gets behind CoPs as potential answer for achievement gap and underperforming teachers and leaders. Money, time, and resources were thrown at this initiative to see if online CoPs could become the missing link in the instructional shortcomings. Citing examples of success, one is drawn and intrigued to look further at the project as we are now 2 years later.

Finding and researching CoP sites I came across the Department of Education's answer on the Communities of Practice within education. The Department of Education has added the communities of practice within an initiative called the Investing in Innovation along with a series of other initiatives.

This article describes the features in communities of practice and provides a real life example of how it is used and what it looks like in an educational setting. The article also shows how communities of practice can be extended through the use of new technologies.

This article really captivated me, especially how it started with the vignette about the English teachers collaborating over how to mark their students' papers. I am an English faculty at a university and I have sat through collaborations on such things. I appreciated how such a simple paragraph on this collaboration could embody the three tenets of communities of practice.

The National Council of Teachers of English wrote this briefing with the intent of helping not just English teachers but any educator understand the alignment, implementation, and instructional support of a CoP. The comprehensive but short article is an easy read to get a basic outline of communities of practice.

SUMMARY: Connectivism teaches students skills that are not attached to time or space. Rather they are necessary in the fast-paced, ever-changing whirlwind we live in. The chart near the end clearly compares major educational theories and helped me see the connections and disconnects between them.

Great article. Chaos theory is so interesting. The study of pattern shifts is so real to this day and age. For example, I think the role of memes play a big part in our culture and this absolutely propels the chaos theory. Nice share Natalie!

Summary: The most useful part of this resource comes after the definition of Connectivism cited from Siemens. The author includes a graphic that compares Connectivism to other learning theories. In addition, a section is devoted to critics of Connectivism as learning theory who instead see it as a pedagogical view.

This is an example of how a science department is using wikispaces to organize the curriculum for many of their classes. I was hoping to find teachers using wikispaces the way I was originally taught to use them- as a place for students to collaborate and build a wiki together. You can see what I wrote for an assignment, but I don't have any students with whom to use it: http://learningsciencealacarte.wikispaces.com/Biological_Molecules

In January 2010, the Department offered a program of free, online conferences to support teacher professional learning. The program of web conferences covered the domains of Literacy, Maths, Science and ICT

This website is a presentation with an updated version of Bloom's Taxonomy for the 21st Century. It includes suggestions for web 2.0 tools for each department of the taxonomy.

This research was published by the U.S. Department of Education on the role on Online Communities. Essentially, the research found that online learning Communities of Practice produce a wide range of values for educators, including immediate and potential value. The primary focus of this research was the role of Community Designers and the questions, concerns, and topics that must be addressed when creating a successful learning community involving educators. While member participation is the key to a successful community, there are other factors that play a major contribution in a group's success as a learning community that are addressed in this research.

"Peggy Benton, an assistant professor in San Francisco State University's Department of Instructional Technologies, discusses the importance of integrating technology in both elementary schools and secondary schools."

This article cites the US Department of Education and explains what is true and what is myth when it comes to Internet filtering at schools.

This chart, organized by the Georgia Department of Education, provides a snapshot of the major assistive technologies available for English classrooms and what academic levels they are suited for.

The U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology published a 2017 update to their 2016 National Education Technology Plan Update (NETP): Reimagining the Role of Technology in Education: 2017 National Education Technology Plan Update. The Director of the Office of Education Technology at the time, Joseph South, noted in the report, " Feedback from our stakeholders indicates that the previous five year update cycle was not frequent enough. In response, with this 2017 update, we commence a pattern of yearly, smaller scale updates to the NETP to better account for the pace of innovation in the field."

The United States Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology has published a resource, Building Technology Infrastructure for Learning, that offers practical and actionable guidelines for educators and school leaders to help them provide Internet access to learners and make decisions regarding technology services. The guidebook is an excellent resource for anyone needing to understand or to create an acceptable use policy (AUP).

Standards, benchmarks, requirements

This is a more technical site that better describes CoPs.  It talks about what a CoP is and what the requirements are.  I particularly like that the it states that the learning is not necessarily the primary reason for the existence of a CoP.  It also gives some sources for further study.

This article is an outline of Communities of Practice with description of relevant terminology outlined and defined. Identifies the three components of CoPs - domain, community and practice. This article says that the central component of this learning theory is to draw participants deeper into the community through the attractiveness of developing skills relative to the domain.

This one I didn't summarize, only because I really had a hard time grasping the three elements of the CoP, and I thought this site encapsulated it nicely. Incidentally, my creative assignment for this week was inspired by the reference to Star Trek fans in this post. Here are the three elements make up CoP, and again, this information below is taken straight from the source (long quotes), because the definition is so good: 1. There needs to be a domain. A CoP has an identity defined by a shared domain of interest (e.g. radiologists, Star Trek fans, middle school history teachers, Seahawks football fans, etc.); it's not just a network of people or club of friends. Membership implies a commitment to the domain. 2. There needs to be a community. A necessary component is that members of a specific domain interact and engage in shared activities, help each other, and share information with each other. They build relationships that enable them to learn from each other. In this way, merely sharing the same job does not necessitate a CoP. A static website on hunting in itself is not a community of practice. There needs to be people who interact and learn together in order for a CoP to be formed. Note that members do not necessarily work together daily, however. Wenger points to the example of Impressionist painters who sometimes met in cafes to discuss their painting styles. He indicates that even though these men normally painted alone, these kinds of interactions were essential to making them a CoP. 3. There needs to be a practice: A CoP is not just people who have an interest in something (e.g. sports or agriculture practices). The third requirement for a CoP is that the members are practitioners. They develop a shared repertoire of resources which can include stories, helpful tools, experiences, stories, ways of handling typical problems, etc. This kind of interaction needs to be developed over time. A conversation with a random stranger who happens to be an exp

The Described and Captioned Media Program is a free-loan library of accessible educational media for use by teachers and family member of K-12 students with a vision or hearing loss. This U.S. Department of Education-funded program also serves as a clearinghouse of accessibility information and training resources as well as a gateway to accessibility information from partnering organizations.

Since learning of the NETP, I find myself coming back to it again and again. It is clearly presented and we are allowed to use the content, as long as properly attributed.

This downloadable handbook contains background articles and suggested practices on how to best engage families in their children's education. It was published in 2011 with funding and support from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Elementary and Secondary Education to the Academic Development Institute and the Center on Innovation & Improvement.