ERIC Number: EJ1168016
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 9
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0009-1383
EISSN: N/A
Leveraging the Power of a Community of Practice to Improve Teaching and Learning about the Earth
Kastens, Kim; Manduca, Cathryn
Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, v49 n6 p14-22 2017
Faculty Communities of Practice (CoP) have been promoted as a way to improve education in both K-12 and higher education. Over the last two decades, faculty who teach undergraduate geoscience in the United States have built a thriving nationwide community of practice, characterized by individual learning, supportive colleagues, group accomplishments, and effective infrastructure. This article describes one such thriving community, the U.S. geoscience education community of practice (GeoEd CoP). The authors share observations and hypotheses about what makes the GeoEd CoP work and propose an explanatory model in which interconnected reinforcing feedback loops move the CoP toward higher levels of capacity and accomplishment. The authors also share lessons learned and ideas about what it would take to replicate this success in other domains and disciplines.
Descriptors: Communities of Practice, Feedback (Response), Instructional Improvement, Undergraduate Students, College Faculty, Systems Approach, Teacher Collaboration, Earth Science, Geology, Collegiality, Science Instruction, Science Teachers
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: DUE1125331