Professional Learning Communities of Science Teachers: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives

Eylon, Bat‐Sheva; Scherz, Zahava; Bagno, Esther

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-29396-3_5

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…In collaborative curriculum development, teachers work with design experts, educational researchers, and content area experts to create innovative curriculum materials (Voogt et al, 2011). For example, Fulton and Britton (2011) found that when mathematics and science teachers participated in discussions with colleagues about their content and teaching practices, they used more diverse ways to engage students in problem-solving and were more attentive to students’ explanations. Further, collaborations are needed to push the boundaries of professional learning for teachers to include social justice in analyzing disciplinary content and pedagogical practices (Pantić, 2017).…”

Section: Promoting Culturally Relevant Stem Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Middle School Teachers and Undergraduate Mentors Collaborating for Culturally Relevant STEM Education

Kier

Johnson

2021

Urban Education

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This qualitative multiple case study explores the collaborations between three STEM middle school teachers and three STEM undergraduate mentors of color in an urban school district. Drawing on sociocultural theories and literature on culturally relevant education, we used a comparative thematic approach to explore how mentors contributed to culturally relevant opportunities in STEM curriculum and pedagogy. We found that the partners’ STEM identities, how the teacher positioned the mentor in the learners’ experience, and the teachers’ philosophy of the purpose of engineering influenced the contribution undergraduate mentors could make to rigorous and equitable engineering instruction.

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Section: Promoting Culturally Relevant Stem Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Middle School Teachers and Undergraduate Mentors Collaborating for Culturally Relevant STEM Education

Kier

Johnson

2021

Urban Education

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“…Moreover, the inquiry is empirical and focuses on a phenomenon that occurs in its natural context (Yin, 2009) while resulting in a thick description that articulates a full process (MacDonald & Walker, 1975). The case study will feature an analysis of the discourse between a group of OOF and IF teachers participating in an argumentative activity in a professional learning community (Eylon et al, 2020). The detailed analysis of this case will serve to test and refine our embodied conjecture (Cobb et al, 2003; Sandoval, 2004)—that the interdisciplinary dialogic argumentation activities proposed in this study would reveal and possibly enhance the epistemic practices of both IF and OOF physics teachers.…”

Section: Research Goal and Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interdisciplinary dialogic argumentation among out‐of‐field and in‐field physics teachers

2023

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Out‐of‐field teaching is a global educational challenge. In particular, many teachers whose academic background and main teaching experience is in biology are called to teach middle school physics and have limited opportunities for productive professional development. Based on previous studies, we expect these teachers to hold different epistemic cognitions from the in‐field teachers. The present study builds on this epistemic diversity and offers dialogic argumentation as a means to promote mutual learning among physics teachers from different disciplinary backgrounds. We describe guidelines for designing interdisciplinary dialogic argumentation activities that aim to encourage teachers to express their disciplinary perspectives in the context of inquiry‐based physics and to facilitate a deliberative discourse among them. We demonstrate in a case study the ways in which the discourse of a group of in‐field and out‐of‐field teachers unfolds under the proposed design guidelines. Using the Actor‐Network methodology and an analysis of power relations, we uncover a complex interplay between the social and the epistemic in the discourse: when interactions become more dialogic and power relations more equalized, the out‐of‐field teachers take an active role in the discussion, foregrounding their epistemic practices and enhancing the epistemic practices of the group, including the in‐field teacher.

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WhatsApp Discourse Throughout COVID-19: Towards Computerized Evaluation of the Development of a STEM Teachers Professional Learning Community

Scherz

Salman

Alexandron

et al. 2022

Int J Artif Intell Educ

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This two-year study followed a professional learning community (PLC) of STEM Teachers Leaders, referred to as L-PLC. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated changes in the focus of many professional development frameworks from face-to-face to online communication. We sought for new ways and tools to follow the professional development and the dynamics in our L-PLC. In particular, we explored professional knowledge development and social interactions, as derived from its WhatsApp group (43–48 participants) discourse, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were extracted from 6599 WhatsApp messages issued during four consecutive semesters (March 2019—March 2021), as well as from participant background questionnaires. The analysis incorporated both structure and content examination of the L-PLC WhatsApp discourse, using social network analysis (SNA), and a distinctive coding scheme followed by statistical analysis, heat map, and bar graph visualizations. These provided insights into whole group (macro), subgroups (meso), and individual (micro) profiles. The results indicated that over time, the participants gradually began to use the WhatsApp platform for professional purposes on top of its initial administrative intention. Moreover, the pandemic seemed to lead to a unique adjustment process, denoted by enhanced professional interactions, regarding content knowledge, professional content knowledge, and technological knowledge, and also accelerated the development of productive community behaviors, such as sharing and social support. The research approach enabled us to detect changes in key PLC characteristics, follow their dynamics under the influence of chaotic changes and navigate the community accordingly. Taken together, WhatsApp exchanges can serve as a rich source of data for a noninvasive continuous evaluation of group processes and progress. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40593-022-00320-3.

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Professional Learning Communities of Science Teachers: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives

Cited by 7 publications

References 32 publications

Middle School Teachers and Undergraduate Mentors Collaborating for Culturally Relevant STEM Education

Middle School Teachers and Undergraduate Mentors Collaborating for Culturally Relevant STEM Education

Interdisciplinary dialogic argumentation among out‐of‐field and in‐field physics teachers

WhatsApp Discourse Throughout COVID-19: Towards Computerized Evaluation of the Development of a STEM Teachers Professional Learning Community

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