Facilitate communication, connectivity and collaboration
What Role Can Online COPs-Communities of Practice-Play in Achieving Teacher Excellence?
K-12 - Report; US Department of Education
The Department of Education continues to pursue an important question for closing the achievement gap: How can online communities of practice (COPs) best address some of the most pressing challenges in P-12 education? Research conducted for the Department of Education by the American Institutes for Research and five other organizations have uncovered consistent themes about how to scale-up pilot online communities and improve their quality. Some of these themes include: (a) an understanding that exclusively virtual experiences may not adequately address all professional development needs, (b) using multiple social media tools can increase teacher engagement, (c) in-depth conversations are strengthening teachers capacity to build neighborhoods of opportunity, (d) online connections play a critical role before, during, and after face-to-face meetings, (e) recognizing the value of allowing teachers to use in-school time for online professional development, and (f) online COPs offer new ways of recognizing online achievements. All of these preliminary findings and more as the project is unfolding will be published in "Connect and Inspire" over the course of 2012.Links: