{"id":5692,"date":"2018-03-20T20:25:10","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T03:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/?p=5692"},"modified":"2018-03-20T20:25:10","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T03:25:10","slug":"learning-communities-open-and-focused","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/2018\/03\/20\/learning-communities-open-and-focused\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning Communities: Open and Focused"},"content":{"rendered":"
According to Bielaczyc and Collins (1999): “The defining quality of a learning community is that there is a culture of learning in which everyone is involved in a collective effort of understanding. There are four characteristics that such a culture must have: (1) diversity of expertise among its members who are valued for their contributions and given support to develop, (2) a shared objective of continually advancing the collective knowledge and skills, (3) an emphasis on learning how to learn, and (4) mechanisms for sharing what is learned.” In what ways do the networked communities you examined represent this characterization of learning communities? What implications does this have for your practice and the design of learning activities?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

After investigating the platforms in this module including Globe and Exploratorium, I have a couple thoughts about learning communities in the current context of educational technology.<\/p>\n

(4) Mechanisms for sharing what is learned should be open<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

There is a noticeable difference in the ability for teachers\/students\/experts to (1) create an account, and (2) participate in the learning community. For GLOBE the pathway to create an account is relatively obvious; click on GLOBE Teachers and the information is readily available. In contrast, the pathway for students is not obvious; although, students can click on GLOBE Observer and participate directly by downloading the GLOBE Observer app (this requires an Android or Apple phone which is somewhat limiting). In contrast, joining and participating at the Exploratorium is difficult to find for all parties. Ultimately, organizations need to create clear pathways for people to join the learning community and make significant collaborative contributions. In addition, access should be device agnostic and include mechanisms and security for younger students to participate freely, and teachers to observe progress.<\/p>\n

(2) The shared objective of continually advancing the collective knowledge and skills should be focused<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

GLOBE has a primary mandate to build a learning community to develop knowledge on environmental issues. This creates a place for like-minded individuals with similar goals; newcomers immediately know what they are getting into and how they can contribute. In contrasts sites like Exploratorium, PBS, and Discovery Education have such a wide variety of topics that members can easily get lost. These sites\u00a0may have higher Internet traffic due to their strong brands, but the majority are transient visitors rather than actual contributors to the learning communities. In relation, informal communities of practice including the Scratch<\/a> community for coding, and the Thingiverse<\/a> community for 3D design, have very narrow objectives which create vibrant learning communities.<\/p>\n

The implications for my current practice in a K-12 school is primarily with point (1). We have made a concerted effort to create small learning communities between our current students, industry experts, and distinguished alumni who have been successful in various fields including math and science. We have used various platforms including webconferencing (Skype\/Google Hangouts) and video\/file sharing (YouTube and Google Drive), to enable mentorship and collaboration on culminating problem-based projects. It would be fantastic if the technology-based environment was more seamless and less make shift. It is possible that environments like Slack<\/a> could accommodate these interactions but I am not sure. If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them!<\/p>\n

Driver, R., Asoko, H., each, J., Scott, P., & Mortimer, E. (1994). Constructing scientific knowledge in the classroom.\u00a0Educational researcher, 23<\/em>(7), 5-12.<\/p>\n

Jessup\u2010Anger, J. E. (2015). Theoretical foundations of learning communities.\u00a0New Directions for Student Services<\/i>,\u00a02015<\/i>(149), 17-27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to Bielaczyc and Collins (1999): “The defining quality of a learning community is that there is a culture of learning in which everyone is involved in a collective effort of understanding. There are four characteristics that such a culture must have: (1) diversity of expertise among its members who are valued for their contributions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42803,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1669399],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-knowledge-diffusion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42803"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5692"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5726,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5692\/revisions\/5726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}