Engaging in Communities of Practice Using Video Interview and High School Teachers as Leaders

Turn and Talk
How do you create spaces for community for and with your students?

What does community mean to you?

Our Challenge

Create a meaningful experience with high school teachers and our students

Untitled Slide

• literacy practices using Google Community
• Assessment using Wikispaces
• Engagement using video reflections

Our latest--Communities of Practice using interviewing, videoing and h.s. teachers as experts

Lave and Wenger,

Community of Practice are groups of people who share a concern or passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. http://www.ewenger.com/theory/

What is The Bluffton Experience?

IN PROGRESS
teachers
17 students
2 University Professors
share experiences
together

Video as a tool for collection and reflection

Dialogue or Moving a Conversation

The set up:
Arrange time to meet for a two hour block.
1st hour--Each teacher agrees to discuss a specific topic area

Our areas were:
1. technology
2. Activities for learning
3. Literacy approaches
4. Lesson Plan/Unit Planning

Teachers and students are not positioned in a hierarchy but instead in a shared exchange.

2nd hour--students gather with everyone and "move a conversation" based on what they learned or questions 1st hour

Moving a conversation is to not repeat what was learned but instead to use it to reflect. No hand raising, but again a shared exchange.

We also realize that teachers have more experience but also encourage our students to share their experience to help 'move the conversation.'

Once the 2 hours are up:

Students relate the advice that they received and compare it with their field experiences.

They create a reflective video based on both experiences.

Let us look at a video

In the instructions we inform the students that what is meant by "move a conversation" is to develop a deep reflection about an issue."

The video is more than recording information but instead creating a new instructional video for future pre-service teachers.

Ideas to guide our thinking:

1. Learning occurs in the same context where knowledge and skills will be utilized.
(Merriam, Caffarella & Baumgartner, 2007)

2. Actual learning occurs when learners construct their own meaning and application about new knowledge. (Candy, 1991)

3. Learners construct knowledge on self-directed and collaborative levels through experience (Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002)

Why Video?

Video is both a technical tool but how it is used it becomes a psychological tool.

"The most essential feature distinguishing the psychological tool from the technical tool, is that it directs the mind and behavior whereas the technical tool...

...is directed towards producing one or other set of changes in the object itself. --Vygotsky

Observations
Students said the experience is so much more involved than observing a class. You have "quality time" and you help direct.

Teacher Reflection
Scott Hoff said, "I liked the interview process thus far, primarily because it was a fluid process. While it began with a question, it often evolved into tangential questions, which led to a stream of consciousness about classroom teaching/learning. And while we always got back to the topic at hand, I feel that there was a lot to be learned from each other by exploring “problems” from all angles."
26 years as a teacher

Teacher Reflection
Jamie Erford said, "I think that a community has been created in some ways and is still developing in others. I feel that between the Bluffton teachers and ONU professors, the dialogue has developed from strictly professional to more personal. We inquire about each other’s lives and engage in conversations that expand beyond the immediate topics of discussion for our meetings. "

She continues, "It is different from student observation because the students get to lead the discussion and have more of an opportunity to take charge of what they are learning. Don’t get me wrong, student observation is important and students have an opportunity to see different pedagogies, classroom management strategies, etc., but it does tend to be more passive if the students are not teaching a lesson.

The interviews allow students to talk about these things they have seen. Like so often in education, and probably many other areas, the interviews give students the time to discuss what they are learning or observing so they can begin to think deeply about their own practices.
"

We have much to learn. We have limits, time, technology problems, limited experiences, ...but we are learning that community is not rushed, but built over time.

As Jamie notes, the teachers and university professors are building more community than the students. We think this will help the students overall.

Key to this work is reflection "The process of reflection for teachers begins when they experience a difficulty..that can't be immediately resolved.

Reflection commences when one inquires into his or her experience to find meaning in his or her beliefs. --John Dewey, 1933

We ask you, what might you use from this idea with your own extended community?

We thank you.
Dr. Kevin Cordi
Dr. Albert Akyeampong
Ohio Northern University
k-cordi@onu.edu
a-akyeampong@onu.edu