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Learning Communities (learning + community)
Selected AbstractsLearning communities in remote retreat settingsNEW DIRECTIONS FOR ADULT & CONTINUING EDUCATION, Issue 95 2002Gretchen T. Bersch The formation of learning communities in remote retreat settings, specifically Yukon Island in Alaska, is the focus of this chapter. Testimony by learners and facilitators is included to enhance the discussion of the learning environment, the creation of community, and the learning process. [source] Learning communities and curricular reform: "Academic apprenticeships" for developmental studentsNEW DIRECTIONS FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES, Issue 129 2005Gillies Malnarich Developmental learning community programs that are respectful of students' circumstances, supportive of their educational aims, and thoughtful about the purpose of education can be extremely effective in helping developmental students achieve their educational goals. [source] Collaborative recommendation of e-learning resources: an experimental investigationJOURNAL OF COMPUTER ASSISTED LEARNING, Issue 4 2010N. Manouselis Abstract Repositories with educational resources can support the formation of online learning communities by providing a platform for collaboration. Users (e.g. teachers, tutors and learners) access repositories, search for interesting resources to access and use, and in many cases, also exchange experiences and opinions. A particular class of online services that take advantage of the collected knowledge and experience of users are collaborative filtering ones. The successful operation of such services in the context of real-life applications requires careful testing and parameterization before their actual deployment. In this paper, the case of developing a learning resources' collaborative filtering service for an online community of teachers in Europe was examined. More specifically, a data set of evaluations of learning resources was collected from the teachers that use the European Schoolnet's learning resource portal. These evaluations were then used to support the experimental investigation of design choices for an online collaborative filtering service for the portal's learning resources. A candidate multi-attribute utility collaborative filtering algorithm was appropriately parameterized and tested for this purpose. Results indicated that the development of such systems should be taking place considering the particularities of the actual communities that are to be served. [source] Enhancing learning ecology on the InternetJOURNAL OF COMPUTER ASSISTED LEARNING, Issue 1 2001C.K. Looi Abstract Recent notions view learning as participation in a learning environment or community where learners work together and support each other as they use information resources and tools to pursue their learning goals and solve problems. A broader meaning is to extend the idea of the learning environment to the overall setting in which learning communities come into existence, evolve, fade away, regenerate or transform. The advent of the Internet has brought about a powerful medium for creating and supporting such a notion of the learning ecology. Through the image of biological ecologies with their diversity, complex dynamics, and opportunistic niches for growth, learning problems and solutions on the Internet are explored and ways to enhance the ecology are suggested. [source] Case-based pedagogy as a context for collaborative inquiry in the PhilippinesJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 5 2001Elvira L. Arellano The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential for using case-based pedagogy as a context for collaborative inquiry into the teaching and learning of elementary science. The context for this study was the elementary science teacher preparation program at West Visayas State University on the the island of Panay in Iloilo City, the Philippines. In this context, triple linguistic conventions involving the interactions of the local Ilonggo dialect, the national language of Philipino (predominantly Tagalog) and English create unique challenges for science teachers. Participants in the study included six elementary student teachers, their respective critic teachers and a research team composed of four Filipino and two U.S. science teacher educators. Two teacher-generated case narratives serve as the centerpiece for deliberation, around which we highlight key tensions that reflect both the struggles and positive aspects of teacher learning that took place. Theoretical perspectives drawn from assumptions underlying the use of case-based pedagogy and scholarship surrounding the community metaphor as a referent for science education curriculum inquiry influenced our understanding of tensions at the intersection of re-presentation of science, authority of knowledge, and professional practice, at the intersection of not shared language, explicit moral codes, and indigenization, and at the intersection of identity and dilemmas in science teaching. Implications of this study are discussed with respect to the building of science teacher learning communities in both local and global contexts of reform. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 502,528, 2001 [source] Informing Theory from Practice and Applied ResearchJOURNAL OF SOCIAL ISSUES, Issue 3 2006Patricia Gurin Editors' introduction: Patricia Gurin grew up in southern Indiana where citizens split in support of the South and the North during the Civil War, and where the Ku Klux Klan was founded. After graduating from Northwestern University, she worked with the American Friends Service Committee (the social action voice of the Quakers). Later, after earning her PhD in social psychology at the University of Michigan, she (with Edgar Epps) conducted a study of students attending historically Black colleges, focusing on how the vast majority integrated collective and individual achievements, worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and stayed in college at the same time. That work initiated her life-long interest in personal and group identity. Most recently, Gurin presented expert testimony in the 2003 Supreme Court cases on affirmative action and the use of race in college admissions decisions. This social science evidence, providing strong support for the compelling interest for diversity in higher education, was widely cited in the majority opinion favoring race-conscious admission policies. Gurin brings this rich activist scholarship to her commentary and discusses the promise of practice and applied research for informing theory. She traces her own professional biography, one that evolved from being a researcher (using primarily national surveys) and teacher (primarily large lecture courses) to becoming intimately involved in teaching through interactive, small group learning communities. Gurin brings to light contributions from the articles that converge on theorizing about the social context such that the theorizing can take into account differences rather than be applied universally. [source] Organizational learning communities and the dark side of the learning organizationNEW DIRECTIONS FOR ADULT & CONTINUING EDUCATION, Issue 95 2002Phillip H. Owenby This chapter explores some aspects of learning communities in organizations, with a special focus on manager-employee power relationships and the challenges of establishing learning organizations in traditional hierarchical organizations. [source] Negotiating power and politics in practitioner inquiry communitiesNEW DIRECTIONS FOR ADULT & CONTINUING EDUCATION, Issue 95 2002Cassandra Drennon The extent to which practitioner inquiry groups function as democratic learning communities depends largely on how a facilitator negotiates the group's power relationships and politics. [source] Midwife to a learning community: Spirit as co-inquirerNEW DIRECTIONS FOR ADULT & CONTINUING EDUCATION, Issue 94 2002Whitney Wherrett Roberson Working within a liberal feminist Christian tradition, six women seek to nurture learning communities that empower and transform. Metaphor and laughter guide their way in realizing Spirit is their Co-inquirer. [source] Irish nursing students' experiences of service learningNURSING & HEALTH SCIENCES, Issue 4 2008Dympna Casey rgn Abstract Service learning is a teaching tool that facilitates students' ability to link theory to practice while simultaneously providing a needed service to the community. This paper describes Irish nursing students' experiences of a service learning placement undertaken in a developing country. The students complete 30 h of theoretical content, which includes lectures and workshops on such topics as personal safety, health, and human rights, as well as the preparation of students for the emotional impact of the experience. All the content is underpinned by a commitment to developing reciprocal relationships with the service learning communities. To explore these students' experiences, a descriptive qualitative study was conducted. The data were collected using interviews and were analyzed by thematic analysis. Four main themes were identified: developing cultural sensitivity, caring for people in different cultures, learning/knowing more, and the potential impact on nursing practice. The findings suggest that the students are more culturally aware and are becoming more responsible citizens. [source] A community of practice approach to the development of non-traditional learners through networked learningJOURNAL OF COMPUTER ASSISTED LEARNING, Issue 3 2006K. Guldberg Abstract This paper analyses a sample of online discussions to evaluate the development of adult learners as reflective practitioners within a networked learning community. The context for our study is a blended learning course offering post-experience professional training to non-traditional university students. These students are parents and carers of people with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). We use Lave and Wenger's ,communities of practice' as a theoretical framework for establishing how students develop a learning community based upon mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repertoires. Those three aspects are analysed according to two measures. The first focuses on learner appropriation of the professional discourse, values and goals of the ASD carer through the network. The second relates to changes in the quality of collaborative activity over time. Our analysis demonstrates that students belong to an overarching community of practice, with different subsets who work at sharing and co-constructing common understandings. This shared discourse and common notions of what constitutes good practice help create a safe interaction space for the students. Once group identity is consolidated, more challenging questions emerge and the group are able to define further common values, understandings and goals through processes of resolution. [source] Funds of knowledge and discourses and hybrid spaceJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 1 2009Angela Calabrese Barton Abstract The findings reported on in this manuscript emerged from a design experiment conducted at a low-income urban middle school intended to support the teacher in incorporating pedagogical practices supportive of students' everyday knowledge and practices during a 6th grade unit on food and nutrition from the LiFE curriculum. In studying the impact of the design experiment we noticed qualitative shifts in classroom Discourse marked by a changing role and understandings of the funds of knowledge students brought to science learning. Using qualitative data and grounded theory we present an analysis of the different types of funds of knowledge and Discourse that students brought into science class. We focus on how the students' strategic use of these funds augmented the learning experience of the students and the learning community as well as the learning outcomes. We discuss the implications these funds of knowledge and Discourses had on the development of three related third space transformations: physical, political, and pedagogical. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 50,73, 2009 [source] Inquiry in interaction: How local adaptations of curricula shape classroom communitiesJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 9 2004Noel Enyedy In this study, we seek a better understanding of how individuals and their daily interactions shape and reshape social structures that constitute a classroom community. Moreover, we provide insight into how discourse and classroom interactions shape the nature of a learning community, as well as which aspects of the classroom culture may be consequential for learning. The participants in this study include two teachers who are implementing a new environmental science program, Global Learning through Observation to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE), and interacting with 54 children in an urban middle school. Both qualitative and quantitative data are analyzed and presented. To gain a better understanding of the inquiry teaching within classroom communities, we compare and contrast the discourse and interactions of the two teachers during three parallel environmental science lessons. The focus of our analysis includes (1) how the community identifies the object or goal of its activity; and (2) how the rights, rules, and roles for members are established and inhabited in interaction. Quantitative analyses of student pre- and posttests suggest greater learning for students in one classroom over the other, providing support for the influence of the classroom community and interactional choices of the teacher on student learning. Implications of the findings from this study are discussed in the context of curricular design, professional development, and educational reform. ? 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 905-935, 2004. [source] Midwife to a learning community: Spirit as co-inquirerNEW DIRECTIONS FOR ADULT & CONTINUING EDUCATION, Issue 94 2002Whitney Wherrett Roberson Working within a liberal feminist Christian tradition, six women seek to nurture learning communities that empower and transform. Metaphor and laughter guide their way in realizing Spirit is their Co-inquirer. [source] To Be More Useful: Embracing Interdisciplinary Scholarship and DialogueNEW DIRECTIONS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION, Issue 110 2000Clifton F. Conrad A learning community that involves all the stakeholders,policymakers, faculty, administrators, and academic leaders,is an avenue for moving beyond the research-practice gap. [source] Reconstructing Rituals: Expressions of Autonomy and Resistance in a Sino-Indonesian SchoolANTHROPOLOGY & EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2002Assistant Professor Christopher BjorkArticle first published online: 8 JAN 200 This article examines the role that rituals enacted in an Indonesian school for Chinese play in shaping behavior, inculcating values, and sustaining a learning community. The analysis draws from research suggesting that school rituals may promote the interests of the dominant culture, but can also function counterhegemonically, creating opportunities for subordinate groups to promote their own interests. In the hands of teachers at St. Timothy's Junior High, activities designed to venerate national cohesion were revised to highlight the school's independence from the central government and the dominant culture. This evidence adds to recent literature suggesting that hegemony is not always unidirectionally imposed on students, and reveals formations of resistance that diverge from the common student versus school model. [source] | ||||||||||