EDU 8869
Developing Communities of Professional Practice

Course Objectives:

Nine questions frame the topics students will investigate and answer in this course:

1.   How do teachers experience schools?

      Students will learn about how teachers experience schools from a sociological perspective and identify changes required in the culture of teacher learning to consider how teaching and learning might be improved.

2.   What practices do teachers suggest best promote teacher professional growth and development?

      Students will study, evaluate, and adapt “best practice” models published in professional journals and magazines to the various stages of teacher professional growth and development in their schools.

3.   What is teaching as a practice?

      Students will read, discuss, and evaluate Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics to envision how the metaphor of “craft” allows for more vivid and interesting conceptions of teaching that have the power to restructure professional development.  Building on this foundation, students will learn about how teachers have organized their professional development from a phenomenological perspective and identify changes required in the culture of teacher learning to consider the notion of teacher professional development.

4.   What constitutes the general trajectory of teacher professional development?

      Students will examine and apply the “learning to teach” literature to various stages of teacher professional growth and development.

5.   What is reflective practice?

      Students will study Sergiovanni’s theory of reflective practice to understand better the concept of “professional knowledge” and the process by which educators can develop this body of knowledge.

6.   What is a community?

      Students will read, discuss, and evaluate Aristotle’s Politics to identify the essential elements that constitute a community and apply these to their schools.

7.   What does research suggest teachers need to know to improve teaching and learning?

      Students will analyze the lessons from a study of comprehensive school reform programs to identify what is necessary to improve teaching and learning.

8.   What structural impediments present in schools stifle teacher learning?

      Students will assess what researchers suggest are the changes required in the culture of teacher learning if the hard work of improving teaching and learning is to succeed.

9.   What does all of this suggest about teaching, teacher professional growth and development, and how teachers are critical to developing communities of professional practice?

      Students will synthesize the course content through two projects: writing a statement portraying their school as a community of professional practice and formulating a comprehensive model of teacher professional development.