ROLE: An Infrastructure for Research on Online Teacher Communities of Practice

Sri International, Menlo Park CA

Investigators

Abstract

Researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers are converging on the view that online communities of practice (CoPs) in the teaching profession can be powerful catalysts for improving teaching and facilitating systemic reform. Although the promise of online CoPs is compelling and theoretically sound, the reality of online teacher communities has been less promising. The reason, we believe, is that research into the marriage of TPD pedagogy and online technology is missing a necessary third component-the infrastructure for online CoP (as distinct from particular online TPD strategies). Research cannot continue to treat community as a side effect of a TPD intervention or the inevitable outcome of a Web portal or electronic network. We must study online CoP as a valid component of the education system in its own right or risk continuing the same pattern of a few irreproducible successes and many redundant failures as practitioners and providers struggle to keep pace with emerging technologies and the rapidly changing Web landscape. To move beyond the CoP promise toward measurable benefits for SMET teacher professional development on a national scale, we must conduct the research needed to better understand the social and organizational structures of online CoPs as an integral component of the teaching profession. To embark on this research agenda, we must also break out of the constraints that popular "distance learning" technologies place on the research by designing and building technological infrastructures that reflect and augment the social and organizational structures of a CoP. We will apply what we and others are learning about online education CoPs and their applications to design and prototype a new technical infrastructure for supporting and studying online CoPs. We will adopt a participatory, scenario-based design approach to develop our prototype infrastructure. Our project brings together a design team representing researchers (SRI and Virginia Tech), teacher educators (Pepperdine University), technology developers (WebCT, PBS), regional education support providers (New England Aquarium, AEL, Inc.), national TPD organizations (PBS TeacherLine), and our core constituency, TAPPED IN members. The team will also include experts in Web-based systems development and graphical user interface design. The basic design will be modular to enable us to plug in new capabilities as they emerge. The prototype infrastructure will serve as a platform for online CoP research and further development by many different organizations over the next several years. We will also document the design process, artifacts, and commentary on a public Web site and solicit input from the research and practitioner communities to widely disseminate knowledge of online CoP design issues and generate design guidelines that will inform technology research and development aimed at supporting online education communities.