Communities of practice in the school workplace

Purpose – The first aim of this study is to explore to what extent communities of practice occur in the school workplace. The second aim is to explore the relation between communities of practice and diversity in composition of teacher teams. Design/methodology/approach – Quantitative as well as qualitative data were gathered from seven teacher teams in a school for secondary education. Questionnaires and observation instruments were used to measure and analyze teacher teams’ collaborative activities and diversity in composition. Findings – Data suggest that communities of practice actually occur in the school workplace, but to a moderate extent. Also, communities of practice are related to four of the five diversity attributes that were investigated. Research limitations/implications – The current study is a snapshot measurement of communities of practice. Future research is recommended to focus on the development of communities of practice in the school workplace by including longitudinal measurements. Practical implications – Implications for teachers and administrators include follow-up activities aimed at stimulating and sustaining communities of practice as well as taking diversity considerations in team composition into account. Originality/value – Studies suggest that a community is a promising context for embedding collaboration into the culture of the school. However, empirical research that focuses on communities in the school workplace seems largely absent. This study provides insight in the occurrence of communities of practice from two perspectives: the perception of community members and the observation from outsiders.NWO-PRO

Community development in the school workplace

Purpose – The aim of this study is to explore whether and to what degree community development of teacher teams takes place and how community development comes about, that is, what community-building efforts teacher teams undertake. Design/methodology/approach – Using a multi method approach, quantitative and qualitative data were gathered from seven interdisciplinary teacher teams in a secondary school during one school year. Teachers’ perceptions of community development were complemented with video-observations of team meetings by relative outsiders. Findings – Data showed that the teacher teams undertook a wide variety and amount of community-building efforts. However, community development of the teacher teams as perceived by the teachers was limited. Relative outsiders observed some community development. Practical implications – From the findings the authors conclude that school managers could play a more proactive role in supporting teacher teams’ community-building efforts. Strategies embedding community-building into the culture and policy of the school, including diagnosing, custom-made support and making efforts explicit, could be effective. Originality/value – The current study takes a long-term approach, investigating the community development of teacher teams during the course of one school year. In addition, community development is measured using two perspectives, i.e. that of the community members and that of the relative outsider.NW

Measuring students’ self-regulated learning in professional education: bridging the gap between event and aptitude measurements

Self-regulated learning has benefits for students’ academic performance in school, but also for expertise development during their professional career. This study examined the validity of an instrument to measure student teachers’ regulation of their learning to teach across multiple and different kinds of learning events in the context of a postgraduate professional teacher education programme. Based on an analysis of the literature, we developed a log with structured questions that could be used as a multiple-event instrument to determine the quality of student teachers’ regulation of learning by combining data from multiple learning experiences. The findings showed that this structured version of the instrument measured student teachers’ regulation of their learning in a valid and reliable way. Furthermore, with the aid of the Structured Learning Report individual differences in student teachers’ regulation of learning could be discerned. Together the findings indicate that a multiple-event instrument can be used to measure regulation of learning in multiple contexts for various learning experiences at the same time, without the necessity of relying on students’ ability to rate themselves across all these different experiences. In this way, this instrument can make an important contribution to bridging the gap between two dominant approaches to measure SRL, the traditional aptitude and event measurement approach

Communities of practice in the school workplace

Purpose – The first aim of this study is to explore to what extent communities of practice occur in the school workplace. The second aim is to explore the relation between communities of practice and diversity in composition of teacher teams. Design/methodology/approach – Quantitative as well as qualitative data were gathered from seven teacher teams in a school for secondary education. Questionnaires and observation instruments were used to measure and analyze teacher teams’ collaborative activities and diversity in composition. Findings – Data suggest that communities of practice actually occur in the school workplace, but to a moderate extent. Also, communities of practice are related to four of the five diversity attributes that were investigated. Research limitations/implications – The current study is a snapshot measurement of communities of practice. Future research is recommended to focus on the development of communities of practice in the school workplace by including longitudinal measurements. Practical implications – Implications for teachers and administrators include follow-up activities aimed at stimulating and sustaining communities of practice as well as taking diversity considerations in team composition into account. Originality/value – Studies suggest that a community is a promising context for embedding collaboration into the culture of the school. However, empirical research that focuses on communities in the school workplace seems largely absent. This study provides insight in the occurrence of communities of practice from two perspectives: the perception of community members and the observation from outsiders.NWO-PRO

Goal orientations of health profession students throughout the undergraduate program:a multilevel study

Background: The achievement goal theory defines two major foci of students' learning goals (1) primarily interested in truly mastering a task (mastery orientation), and (2) striving to show ones competences to others (performance orientation). The present study is undertaken to better understand if and how health profession students' goal orientations change during the undergraduate program and to what degree gender, academic achievement, and self-efficacy are associated with mastery and performance orientation between students and within students over time. Method: By means of an online questionnaire, students of medical, pharmaceutical, and veterinary sciences (N = 2402) were asked to rate themselves on mastery orientation, performance orientation, and self-efficacy at the beginning of five consecutive semesters. Data on grades and gender were drawn from university's files. Multilevel analyses were used for data analysis. Results: Students' goal orientations showed relative stability over time, but substantial fluctuations within individual students were found. These fluctuations were associated with fluctuations in self-efficacy. Students' gender, high school grades, study grades, and self-efficacy were all associated with differences in mastery or performance orientation between students. Self-efficacy was the strongest predictor for mastery orientation and grades for performance orientation. Conclusions: The relatively strong association between the goal orientations and students' self-efficacy found in this study emphasizes the potential of enhancing self-efficacy in health profession students. Also, for educators and researchers, fluctuations of both goal orientations within individual students are important to consider

Real-time teacher–student interactions: A Dynamic Systems approach

AbstractTeacher–student relationships develop from real-time teacher–student interactions. These real-time interactions can be characterized by interpersonal content, structure, and complementarity. We studied how teacher–student interactions measured in terms of these characteristics differed for two teachers with distinct teacher–student relationships. A computer joystick device enabled us to measure teacher and student interpersonal behavior as a two-dimensional construct, a blend of Agency and Communion. Our results indicated that interpersonal content and complementarity discriminated between teachers, and that interpersonal structure did not. Measuring these characteristics seems promising to understand differences in teacher–student relationships

Картографический метод в изучении территориального рекреационного неравенства

This article investigates the link between teachers' appraisal of specific interpersonal situations in classrooms and their more general interpersonal identity standard, which together form their interpersonal role identity. Using semi-structured and video-stimulated interviews, data on teachers' appraisals and interpersonal identity standards were collected and analyzed using appraisal and interpersonal circumplex theory. Results show a variety of interpersonal identity standards, although the majority of the teachers mentions standards focusing on the codes steering and being friendly. The situation “reacting to student positive behavior” evoked most appraisals that confirmed identity standards. For 13 of the 29 teachers, their identity standard matched with their appraisals. In most cases, however, this match was only to some extent (10 teachers) and sometimes not at all (six teachers). The results suggest that teachers can enhance their relationship with students by becoming more aware of the meanings teachers attach to this relationship in specific situations

The CHEK2 1100delC mutation identifies families with a hereditary breast and colorectal cancer phenotype

Because of genetic heterogeneity, the identification of breast cancer-susceptibility genes has proven to be exceedingly difficult. Here, we define a new subset of families with breast cancer characterized by the presence of colorectal cancer cases. The 1100delC variant of the cell cycle checkpoint kinase CHEK2 gene was present in 18% of 55 families with hereditary breast and colorectal cancer (HBCC) as compared with 4% of 380 families with non-HBCC (P<.001), thus providing genetic evidence for the HBCC phenotype. The CHEK2 1100delC mutation was, however, not the major predisposing factor for the HBCC phenotype but appeared to act in synergy with another, as-yet-unknown susceptibility gene(s). The unequivocal definition of the HBCC phenotype opens new avenues to search for thi