scholarly journals #iteachmsu Centering an Educator Learning Community (ELC)

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Skogsberg ◽  
Melissa McDaniels ◽  
Madeline Shellgren ◽  
Patricia Stewart ◽  
Makena Neal
Keyword(s):  
Social Networking ◽  
Learning Communities ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Teaching Assistants ◽  
Learning Networks ◽  
Scholarship Of Teaching ◽  
Faculty Learning Communities ◽  
K 12

Many scholars recommend preparing faculty for educator roles. Faculty Learning Communities, The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), and teaching centers represent common preparatory approaches. But faculty and teaching assistants report time, disciplinary disconnects, and lack of incentives as ongoing barriers. Inspired by K-12’s professional learning networks and “hashtag activism,” the authors’ university launched #iteachmsu. #iteachmsu combines practices of social networking with a digital and in-person teaching “commons.” Through #iteachmsu, the authors hope to further shift campus cultures in the age of COVID-19, centering teaching and learning as a valuable and ongoing focus for an educator learning community (ELC).

Increasing Global Awareness through Professional Learning Community: A Study from LATTICE

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-86
Author(s):  
Dion Efrijum Ginanto
Keyword(s):  
Learning Communities ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
School Quality ◽  
School Context ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
School Level ◽  
Global Awareness ◽  
Cross Cultural Education ◽  
K 12

Using three components of PLCs by DuFour (2004), I explored the learning communities at LATTICE (Linking All Types of Teachers to International, Cross-cultural Education). DuFour (2004) argued that PLCs is a form of learning communities held at the school level to improve the school quality. It means PLCs happen in the school context. However, Easton (2011) contended that learning community could happen inside or outside schools. This paper intends to analyze a learning community at LATTICE in creating more global perspective teachers. The study found that PLC s can also occur outside schools by including participants other than teachers. Based on the interviews and observations analysis, this study found that LATTICE did reflect PLCs and significantly helped K-12 educators foster their global understanding.

scholarly journals Emergent Professional Learning Communities in Higher Education: Integrating Faculty Development, Educational Innovation, and Organizational Change at a Canadian College

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 38-53
Author(s):  
Julie A. Mooney
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Faculty Development ◽  
Learning Communities ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Educational Innovation ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Interpretive Inquiry ◽  
Professional Development Needs

Centres for teaching and learning at postsecondary educational institutions in Canada seek to serve the professional development needs of faculty members throughout the college or university. Recognizing the limits of conventional frameworks for faculty development, such as one-time workshops, pedagogical conferences, and lunchtime discussion sessions, this interpretive inquiry explores learning communities as an additional framework for serving faculty development and cross-institutional professional development needs. The study asks: what does it mean for faculty, educational developers, support staff, and administrators to participate in a learning community at a college in Canada? Data collected through individual inquiry conversations (semi-structured interviews) and research memos were used to develop narrative descriptions representing the participants’ respective experiences of a learning community in a large, urban college context in Canada. These narrative descriptions offer portraits of the meaning that learning community members made of their own experience, revealing that the learning communities served not only as sites for professional development, but also formed microcultures within the institution, which, over time, influenced educational (academic) and organizational (administrative) change, both in policy and in practice. 

scholarly journals G+ COMMUNITY: MEASURING TEACHERS� READINESS AND ACCEPTANCE

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 361
Author(s):  
Mohd Faisal Farish Ishak ◽  
Rashidah Rahamat ◽  
Muhammad Hazrul Haris Fadzilah ◽  
Abdul Ghani Abu
Keyword(s):  
Social Networking ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Ease Of Use ◽  
Professional Collaboration ◽  
The Right

The purpose of this paper is to explore teachers� acceptance and readiness in using the cloud-based community as a platform for professional collaboration related to their teaching and learning. Familiarity with certain social networking platforms has made the preferable collaboration among teachers only limited to using Facebook, WhatsApp or Telegram. However, with time and space constraints in schools, some of the sharing sessions could not be done effectively most of the time. The study focuses on teachers� acceptance and readiness of having their community in the cloud when they were introduced to the platform during a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) course. A total number of 61 teachers used Google Community named as �Contemporary Children�s Literature (CCL) 2016� as a platform for their Professional Learning Community (PLC) during the course. Descriptive analysis was done using Google Sheets and the findings show that these teachers are receptive towards Google Community in terms of its engagement level, usefulness as well as ease of use. The introduction to Google Community has created a new pathway for their collaboration especially for teaching and learning purposes. In a nutshell, their acceptance towards the cloud-based community indicates that, given the right training channel, teachers are positive and opened to utilising and integrating the cloud-based technology in their current teaching practice.

scholarly journals CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF TEACHER PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITY: INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 493
Author(s):  
Justinas Monkevicius ◽  
Renaldas Čiužas
Keyword(s):  
Professional Learning Communities ◽  
Learning Communities ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Organisational Culture ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
Teacher Professional Learning ◽  
Organisational Structure ◽  
Teacher Professional

The article presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of institutional factors of creation and development of successful teacher professional learning communities. On the basis of the conducted theoretical analysis, institutional factors were systemised and divided into four groups:factors related to organisational culture, to processes, to organisational structure, and factors related to financial and material resources.The empirical research reveals the relevance of theoretically distinguished factors to the practical processes of creation and development of successful teacher professional learning communities. It also singles out new factors that have not been investigated by other scholars and highlights the encountered barriers.

scholarly journals A case study of two teacher learning communities in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Free-Queen Bongiwe Zulu ◽  
Tabitha Grace Mukeredzi
Keyword(s):  
Professional Learning Communities ◽  
Learning Communities ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Teacher Learning ◽  
South African ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Basic Education ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Education And Development ◽  
Teacher Learning Communities

In the Integrated Strategic Planning Framework for Teacher Education and Development, a South African policy, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) and the Department of Higher Education (DHET) call for the formation of professional learning communities and envisage support for teachers and access to enhanced professional development opportunities at the local level. However, the formation and operation of professional learning communities in a South African context is still unclear. In this article we use the concept of professional learning communities to examine the extent to which 2 teacher learning communities operate as professional learning communities. We used interviews, observations, survey questionnaires and document analysis to generate data. The findings of the study reveal that the 2 teacher learning communities were initiated by the DBE and not by teachers. However, the size of 1 teacher learning community and the nature of its functioning seemed to adhere to the characteristics of a professional learning community while the other did not. The findings indicate that professional learning communities that operate in developing contexts might be functional when all the stakeholders play a meaningful role in supporting professional learning communities.

scholarly journals Blog-based professional development of English teachers in Mumbai: The potential of innovative practice under scrutiny

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atiya Khan
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Teacher Collaboration ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
English Teachers ◽  
Information And Communications Technology ◽  
Learning Networks ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Interactive Workshop

The professional development of teachers in India is still, by and large, based on formal and outdated professional learning traditions, often characterised by crash courses and one-off workshops. In education, blogs have proven to be an effective means of establishing and maintaining collaborative learning networks and helping members reflect on their professional practices. Information and communications technology (ICT) enabled practices of teacher professional development is still in its infancy in India. Moreover, there is limited research in India to secure foundational understanding of how and in what ways teachers of English in India use blogs for their professional development. This study explores the use of teacher reflective practice, teacher networking, and teacher collaboration, beyond formal ICT training, through blog-based professional development of English teachers in the Mumbai region of India. Using data collected from 32 teachers from three private schools in Mumbai, through ICT interactive workshop observations, questionnaires, interviews, and blog comments, this action case study explains whether and why blogging, as a learning community, has the potential to add significant value to existing professional development of English teachers in Mumbai.

scholarly journals Facilitators and Barriers to Engagement and Effective SoTL Research Collaborations in Faculty Learning Communities

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-72
Author(s):  
Claudia A. Cornejo Happel ◽  
Xiaomei Song
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Learning Communities ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
The United States ◽  
Faculty Engagement ◽  
Faculty Learning Communities ◽  
Academic Communities ◽  
Faculty Learning ◽  
Explanatory Sequential Design ◽  
Collaborative Structures

To determine factors that influence faculty engagement and success in faculty learning communities focused on collaborative Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), our project gathered information on (1) faculty motivation to engage with SoTL; (2) structures that support collaboration; (3) the perceived impact of SoTL on teaching, scholarship, and faculty engagement in academic communities on campus and beyond; and (4) the role of the teaching center in supporting collaborative faculty learning communities focused on SoTL. In this explanatory, sequential design mixed-methods study, participants were asked to complete a survey on their experience as participants in faculty learning communities at a large comprehensive public university in the southeastern United States; researchers then conducted one-on-one interviews with select participants to gain an in-depth understanding of trends and questions emerging from the survey data. Results indicate that personal, institutional, professional, and team factors contribute to participants’ perception of the success and effectiveness of collaborative research teams. Findings from the study offer guidance for setting up effective collaborative structures for SoTL projects and nurturing inter-disciplinary research among faculty members, thus providing insights that can inform the design and facilitation of similar programs in the United States and internationally.

A Model to Build an Intercultural Professional Learning Community in a Latin American Higher Education Network

2014 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Piergiuseppe Ellerani
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Human Resources ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Video Research ◽  
Education Network

This chapter concerns the research project carried out in a confederation of Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) in seven Latin American countries. Considering the intercultural background of IHE, the universities defined a new profile of their teachers and other human resources by setting up a new model of teaching and learning based on a “learning process” and shifting the paradigm of learning to “centered teaching.” In this chapter, three characteristics of this process are presented: the first one refers to the profile built as the “product” of an Intercultural Community of Thought; the second one refers to a participatory process, called “the value cycle,” as a working model that allows one to co-construct profiles of university teachers, administrative staff, and human resources staff; the third one presents the tools and the technologies using both of them (Personal and Social Virtual Learning Environment based on Web 2.0, the Human Resource Management Tool, Video-Research, E-Portfolio). The project, carried out through action-research, defines a shared idea of the quality of teaching, a research based and supported by tools, that allows teacher self-assessment as well as the possibility to monitor the quality of universities and to develop plans for continuous improvements by building a community of learning. Qualitative and quantitative studies' data are given.

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