Search results for: Online community

This article is based on the experience gained with an online learning community developed as part of a pilot project that followed a national research study of in-service career and technical education (CTE) administrators and teachers. The authors summarize the most salient points when designing a learning community website, the following features need to be in place to promote interaction: clarify the goals of the website, its function and limitations; ensure privacy from the outside and a psychologically safe environment; ensure that community members understand the features of the website; structure authentic learning tasks, dialog, and posting activity to match the goals of the course; a facilitator or moderator should encourage and reinforce the initial postings, especially from novices; encourage threaded discussion groups to form according to problem topic or academic area; and activities will need to have time limits.

This case study is the first phase of a large-scale design-based research project to implement a theoretically derived double-layered CoP model within real-world teacher development practices. The main goal of this first iteration is to evaluate the courses and test and refine the CoP model for future implementations. This article demonstrates the potential synergies between two major approaches to teacher professional development practices: i) teachers’ CoPs development and ii) online teacher education courses. The analysis of student inservice teachers’ CoPs experiences shows that the two layers of CoPs supported each other iteratively through the course period.

This article describes a mixed methods research study into preservice undergraduate literacy methods courses. This research examined how online, asynchronously conducted discussions influenced and impacted preservice teachers’ literacy understanding. The study demonstrated how asynchronously conducted discussions supported preservice teachers in acquiring and refining the content and pedagogical knowledge needed to teach literacy. This study has implications for how teacher educators prepare teacher candidates in the teaching of literacy for all learners.

This interpretive case study investigates an attempt to add an online component—the On-line Literacy Project—to a successful face-to-face professional development community. Six members of the Literacy Project, which was carried out in the school board of a western Canadian city., participated in the study. Analysis of data showed that although participants acknowledged the potential of the Online Literacy Project the concept was poorly understood, received little support, and was not deemed relevant for a number of reasons, many of which are reported in the information and communication technology literature.