Session Information
32 SES 02, Cooperative Learning: Schools as Learning Communities (Part 1)
Paper Session
Contribution
The community of practice (CoP) are social interaction processes identified and studied for the first time by Lave and Wenger (1991) at the end of the ‘80s. It is a situated and social theory of learning that Wenger (1998) developed by deepening the theoretical topics that make explicit the concept of community, and by making comparisons with data taken from field research. The authors found that learning mechanisms depend on the interaction between experts and novices, and are connected to the participation in the social practices of the newcomer, and shared with the other actors in the context.
This learning theory entails a new general theoretical conception of learning as social practice emphasizing: the relational features of knowledge, the comprehension and learning; the negotiated construction of meaning; the focused learning activity from a cultural and socio-historical perspective.
How can schools improve the collaborative practices? How can schools promote collaborative learning processes? How can schools facilitate the entrance and belonging of newly employed teachers, thus making them part of daily life of the school?
Since a special sensitiveness in the school world has always characterized the educational community and the sharing of the choices made, it seems that there is a good ground to develop communities of practice in school.
The research has been conducted by the Department of Educational Sciences of Roma Tre University from 2010 to 2012 – with the scientific responsibility of Prof. Giuditta Alessandrini & Giovanni Moretti –, and aimed at detecting the professional representations and beliefs of a sample of permanently newly employed teachers. The hypothesis leading the research is the following: “within the Italian context of school autonomy, the school management able to promote a distributed leadership (Spillane, 2005; Domenici & Moretti, 2011; Serpieri, 2012; Gunter, Hall, & Bragg, 2013) finds ways to recognize, support and develop the communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998; Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002; Alessandrini, 2007, 2013)”.
The research also investigates the way expert teachers and the whole school supports the newly arrived teachers. The research also seeks to investigate:
a) the inclusion processes that school and teachers put into place to assist the integration of the newly employed teachers;
b) to what extent the communities of practice improve the efficacy and support the motivation of the school personnel;
c) the role of tutoring and mentoring (Bubb & Earley, 2010) when the experienced teachers learn new practices from their newly employed counterparts;
d) the influence of the school principal’s leadership style on the teachers’ sharing processes.
Reflecting on the data gathered will make it possible to focus on the conditions allowing for the development of the communities of practice in the school as well as the possible limitations of the communities of practice.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Alessandrini, G. (2007). Comunità di pratica e società della conoscenza. Roma: Carocci. Alessandrini, G. (2013). La formazione al centro dello sviluppo umano. Crescita, Lavoro, Innovazione. Milano: Giuffrè. Bubb, S., & Earley, P. (2010). Helping staff develop in Schools. London: Sage. Domenici, G., & Moretti, G. (a cura di). (2011). Leadership educativa e autonomia scolastica. Il governo dei processi formativi e gestionali nella scuola di oggi. Roma: Armando. Eraut, M. (2008). Learning from other people in the workplace. Pedagogy and practice: Culture and identities, 40. Gunter, H., Hall, D., & Bragg, G. (2013). Distributed Leadership: a study in knowledge production. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 555-580. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: legitimate peripheral partecipation. Cambridge: University Press. Lom, E., & Sullenger, K. (2011). Informal spaces in collaborations: exploring the edges/boundaries of professional development. Professional development in education, 37 (1), 55-74. Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative dimensions of adult learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Mortari, L. (2003). Apprendere dall’esperienza. Il pensare riflessivo nella formazione. Roma: Carocci. Rosenholtz, S. J., Bassler, O., & Hoover-Dempsey, K. (1986). Organizational conditions of teacher learning. Teaching and Teacher Education, 2 (2), pp. 91-104. Sergiovanni, T. J. (1994). Building Community in Schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Serpieri, R. (2012). Senza leadership: la costruzione del dirigente scolastico. Dirigenti e autonomia nella scuola italiana. Milano: Franco Angeli. Spillane, J. P. (2005). Distributed leadership. In The Educational Forum (Vol. 69, No. 2, pp. 143-150). Taylor & Francis Group. Vieluf, S., Kaplan, D., Klieme, E., & Bayer, S. (2012). TALIS Teaching Practices and Pedagogical Innovations Evidence from TALIS: Evidence from TALIS. OECD Publishing. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice, learning and identity. Cambridge: University Press. Wenger, E., McDermott, R. A., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Harvard: Business Press.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.