Lee, Kyungmee and Brett, Clare (2013) What are student inservice teachers talking about in their online Communities of Practice? : investigating student inservice teachers’ experiences in a double-layered CoP. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 21 (1). pp. 89-118. ISSN 1059-7069
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Abstract
This qualitative case study is the first phase of a large-scale design-based research project to implement a theoretically derived double-layered CoP model within real-world teacher development practices. The main goal of this first iteration is to evaluate the courses and test and refine the CoP model for future implementations. This paper demonstrates the potential synergies between two major approaches to teacher professional development practices: i) teachers’ CoPs development and ii) online teacher education courses. The double-layered CoP model could provide a practical integration of the two approaches by providing student inservice teachers in an online graduate course with meaningful opportunities to participate in two different teachers’ CoPs: i) an internal course CoP and ii) an external professional CoP. Our analysis of student inservice teachers’ CoPs experiences shows that the two layers of CoPs supported each other iteratively through the course period. Several design considerations for the second iteration of the online course design are also addressed.