Using a Community of Practice to Diffuse Instructional Improvements into the Classroom

Abstract

has been involved in engineering design and teamwork for over thirty years as a professional engineer, university professor, and researcher. He is the current Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington and teaches engineering design and teamwork courses. His two research foci are how students learn design and teamwork and how understanding of learning can be used to create more effective pedagogies. Prior to teaching Dr. Zemke was a professional product designer for over twenty years with emphasis on mechanical packaging of microwave circuitry.

Comunidade De Prática No Ensino Superior

“…Ele também pode ajudar na transposição de ideias dos referenciais teóricos para situações práticas. ZEMKE; ZEMKE, 2014;JANG;KO, 2010. STRAZDINS, 2008.…”

Insights into the Nature of Change and Sustainability in an Ongoing Faculty Development Effort

“…(most commonly used were [6], [7]), and discussion participants' teaching challenges/needs and strategies they might use (or had used) to address them. This is similar to a professional learning community model used in other projects [2], [3] where members develop understanding together and are working with common interests for their teaching even if they are teaching different classes.…”

“…However, despite advances in classroom design for interactive teaching and pockets of enthusiastic adopters, the challenge to bridge the gap from research results to common classroom practice remains. Workshops to introduce evidence-based teaching practices are prevalent, but one-time efforts rarely result in sustained change, and hence ongoing support is needed [2], [3].…”

Moving Toward Student-centered Learning: Motivation and the Nature of Teaching Changes Among Faculty in an Ongoing Teaching Development Group

“…Hence, identifying effective methods to bridge the gap between STEM education research results and classroom practice is a topic of significant interest. While a variety of workshops and similar one-time interventions have been developed to help STEM instructors adopt research-based teaching practices, research in professional development suggests that ongoing teaching development is much more effective than one-time efforts [2], [3], [4].…”