Academic Exchange Quarterly
Winter 2010 ISSN 1096-1453 Volume 14,
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Building a Web-Based Community of
Practice
Elizabeth
L. Hardman, DePaul University
Elizabeth
Hardman, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Special Education
and Counseling
Abstract
This
paper examines the challenges specific to building communities of practice in
special education and describes how Web 2.0 technology was deployed to engage
distributed stakeholders in the reproduction of evidenced-based inclusive
practices in special education. The project met with moderate success during
its first year but also yielded some unexpected results that bear important
implications for teacher education in general.
Introduction
The
mastery of pedagogy is of critical importance in the development of quality
special education teachers (Blanton, Sindelar, &
Correa, 2006). Special educators are expected to be active and resourceful in
seeking to understand how language, culture, and familial backgrounds interact
with exceptional conditions to impact students’ academic and social abilities,
attitudes, values, interests, and career options in kindergarten through
twelfth grade classrooms that include students across thirteen disabilities
categories with widely ranging educational abilities (e.g., National Council
for the Accreditation of Teacher Education, [NCATE], 2008; Vaughn, Bos, & Schumm, 2011). The practice of special education is
defined by the principle of inclusion, a principle that is best satisfied when
general and special educators collaboratively engage in a shared practice to
meet the needs of every student in the general education classroom. That means
that special educators must claim membership in at least two professional
learning communities, one with their school-based general education colleagues
and another with their discipline-based colleagues (e.g., McKenzi,
2009; Vaughn et al.; Leko & Brownell, 2009). Yet
teacher attrition research indicates that this may rarely be the case since
large numbers of novice and experienced special educators leave their classrooms
annually feeling isolated and ill prepared to meet the demands of practice (Boe & Cook, 2006). In fact, the number of teaching
vacancies that occur each year is so large that it far outstrips the number of
newly qualified graduates to occupy those positions (McLeskey
& Billingsley, 2008). Novices are among the most likely to leave although
the probability of staying increases given opportunities to participate in
carefully designed professional development activities nested in a supportive
working environment (Little & King, 2008; Sindelar,
Brownell, & Billingsley, 2010). Without such support, they will probably
follow the many that went before them and leave their classrooms feeling
isolated and ill prepared for practice.
This
paper describes how Web 2.0 technology was deployed for the purpose of
community building in special education and discusses the project’s first year
results. Professional learning communities may
be built around any topic
or content area (e.g., content literacy,
assessment, classroom management, etc.) and used to engage students within and across program areas (general educators,
physical therapists, school psychologists,
counselors, etc.) and/or practitioners in the field to create multidimensional, dynamic projects and build supportive relationships among those
committed to improving the educational outcomes
for students with disabilities at at-risk peers. The primary advantage of
Web-based over school-based communities lies in
members’ ability to collaboratively solve their individual problems with practice and share what they have learned and are learning about the
practice across time and
distance, while Web 2.0 technology efficiently
records the community’s evolution and documents
the development of pedagogical expertise and collective knowledge. Regardless
of the
size or scope of the network, however, the
entire community must be prepared to actively participate in community work by
sharing artifacts and ideas for community
consumption via the Web (Hardman, 2010).
Building a Culture of Learning in
Special Education
The
research literature is unequivocal with respect to the processes necessary for
building expertise in special education. Throughout their careers, special
educators at every level of practice need liberal access to formal and informal
networking (Boe & Cook, 2006; Smith &
Ingersoll, 2004) and quality professional development that is tightly focused
on inclusive practices known to bring about significant and meaningful changes in
student learning (Sindelar, et al., 2010; Leko & Brownell, 2009). Expertise does not develop
quickly but evolves over time as teachers exchange ideas about what they have
learned and are learning from inside the classroom. Thus quality professional development
is that which flows from the ground up, when teachers are given a voice in
identifying and designing the content. Schools, on the other hand, tend to
select professional development topics that target the needs of the many rather
than the few and deliver that content via a top-down, unidirectional approach
toward teacher learning. Special education content cannot be delivered using
this traditional hub-and-spoke model, nor can it be constituted in a string of
disconnected one-day workshops but is realized as teachers critically reflect
on their practices and frame and reframe their own learning needs (McKenzi, 2009; Leko &
Brownell). The development of expertise is an iterative process, one that occurs
naturally as teachers seek out that which is most effective for students,
challenge established routines, and devise a more responsive curriculum. Professional
growth and work become inextricably entwined and a community of practice
emerges from the inside out (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2006; Leko & Brownell, 2009).
Obviously,
formal and informal networking plays a vital role in the development of professional
learning communities because it breaks down isolation and establishes forums
for thinking through the standards of practice (Leko
& Brownell; 2009; Hardman, 2010). Through networking, teachers create an
authentic process for posing problems, deliberating solutions, and constructing
new knowledge that is grounded in classroom based inquiry, reflection, and experimentation.
Although most professional learning communities are school-based and develop
informally around joint work or a particular project of interest (McLaughlin
& Talbert, 2006), the most effective ones are those that include general
and special educators at all levels of expertise, teacher educators, and school
and district administrators (NCATE, 2008). There are, however, significant
challenges to establishing learning communities in special education since most
schools employ only a few special educators, half of whom may be uncertified
due to teacher, and there is an overall lack of institutional resources
available to support teacher educators who wish to build university-school
partnerships across multiple school sites (Sindelar
et al., 2010). Nevertheless, teacher educators must become involved in
community development if research is to become a viable resource in the
education of students with disabilities and at risk peers (McLeskey
& Billingsley, 2008).
The
opportunity to initiate a professional learning community seems to materialize
quite naturally as teacher educators seek to form partnerships with
practitioners in the field to support the professional development and
induction of pre-service special educators (Hardman, 2010). Yet, capitalizing
on this opportunity for the purpose of community building represents no small
challenge, for it requires teacher educators to step out of the safety of their
own classrooms and into the realities of schooling (Bay & Parker-Katz,
2009; Jones, 2009) where the veracity of theory and research will surely be
questioned and tested. Yet, to establish the feasibility of research based
interventions as well as increase interest among practitioners in doing
school-based research, teacher educators must play a role in the work of school
based professional learning communities. Nevertheless, it is difficult to
imagine how this can happen when personnel and programs are distributed over
multiple school sites, the field is generally lacking in experienced teachers
to provide site based leadership, and there is little institutional support for
this kind of work. As a result, many personnel preparation programs remain
disconnected from the realities of schooling and produce little research about the
effectiveness of field experiences, student teaching, induction support (Sindelar et al., 2010), or the feasibility of research
based interventions in practical settings (McLeskey
& Billingsley, 2008).
The
solution for many of the problems associated with building community among
special educators may lie in Web 2.0 technology, a category of Internet tools
that are particularly well-suited for the purpose of community building
(Hardman, 2010; Sindelar et al., 2010). Tools such as
wikis, nings, blogs, and in browser chat allow individuals to move beyond passively absorbing
whatever is available on the Web and to become actively involved by customizing
media and technology for community building purposes. With Web 2.0 technology,
special and general educators at every level of practice can collaboratively
engage in the production and reproduction of evidenced-based inclusive
practices even though they may be separated by distance and time.
The Demon Strategic Instruction Network
The
Demon Strategic Instruction Network (SIN) is a technology supported, Web based
community of practice that was initially conceived as a teacher educator sought
to integrate professional development content on implementing the Strategic
Instruction Model (SIM) (University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning,
UK-CRL) into her special education coursework. SIM is widely regarded as an
evidence-based model that supports the inclusion of students with disabilities
and other struggling learners in the general education curriculum (Brownell, Sindelar, Kieley, Danielson,
2010). Problems developed when students tried to secure practical sites to
implement the model under the supervision of an experienced teacher. Understandably, potential cooperating teachers
were reluctant to supervise an assignment they knew little or nothing about. As
a result, the teacher educator and
several of her students agreed to form Demon SIN for the purpose of pairing
teacher candidates with graduates of the program who had already begun their preparation
in the model and wished to continue. Anticipating the many problems associated
with delivering professional development at several sites simultaneously, the
instructor solicited the advice of a technology consultant on designing Demon
SIN as a Web-based community of practice facilitated primarily by two
Internet tools, a wiki and a ning.
The
Demon SIN wiki (see Figure 1) and Demon SIN-Ning (see
Figure 2) provide the basic infrastructure of the community. The Demon SIN wiki
is a private wiki that is accessible by invitation only. Since it can be viewed
and edited by any community member with Internet access, it empowers every user
in the creative production and design of Web page content. Introductory information about the purpose of the
wiki, its contents, and contact information are presented on the FrontPage,
which can be made public while locking down other pages that house material
users do not want publically available. There are two tabs at the top of every
wiki page, View and Edit. The wiki administrator assigns each person’s level of
use by granting either writer or reader privileges. Readers have access to View
mode only and can comment on page content but cannot edit or add content. Writers
have access to the Edit tab, which allows them to author or edit any page by
uploading documents, images, slides shows, videos, et cetera. In edit mode, the page becomes a composition system, a
discussion medium, and a repository that facilitates asynchronous communication
and group collaboration online. Wikis also have a versioning capability that
allows users to edit pages and then revert to earlier versions if they desire. As
members interact with each other, the site, and its contents, this versioning
capability allows the community to document the evolution of its thought
processes. There is also a navigation bar on the right side of every wiki
page that works somewhat like a table of contents, allowing users to locate
specific content of interest. For example, the Demon SIN navigation bar
displays folders for the Learning Strategies Curriculum, Content Enhancement
Routines, and a folder on Creating Wiki Content. On the top left of the
FrontPage, above the navigation bar, there are links that allow users to create
pages and upload files and below the navigation bar is a link to the Demon SIN-Ning.
[Insert
Figure 1]
The Demon SIN-Ning is also
private and the administrator has a great deal of flexibility in determining
the site’s appearance and functionality. After completing a simple setup
process, the administrator is allowed to choose a visual theme and customize
the functionality of the network using a drag and drop tool to select specific features
such as chat, events, forums, discussion
boards, and blogs.
The following tabs are located
at the top of every Demon SIN-Ning page to help users
navigate the site; Main, Invite, My Page, Members, Videos, Forum, Events,
Groups, Chat, and Blogs; although these tabs will vary according to the
features the administrator selects during setup. The network administrator has
an additional tab titled Manage that allows access to the tools that control
the site’s appearance, functionality and other settings. During the setup process, the network
administrator also determines the information users provide as they join the
network. This information is then posted on each member’s My Page where they
can also post videos, pictures, create a blog, and subscribe to updates
from specific parts of the social network using RSS feeds. Demon SIN users are
advised not use the Website to pose private or sensitive information about
themselves or others. It is a professional networking site only.
[Insert
Figure 2]
Demon
SIN was launched with the commencement of classes in the fall of 2009.
Membership in the network was entirely voluntary although all of the teacher
educator’s graduate and undergraduate students were invited to join the
community and to continue their membership beyond graduation as a way of
maintaining a relationship with the School of Education. By the third week of
the classes, a total of 53 graduate students joined the network. The founding
members included19 of 30 teacher candidates enrolled in a graduate program that
leads to dual certification in elementary and special education, 15 of 23
graduate students enrolled in a program for general educators seeking certification
in special education, seven novice elementary/special educators who had graduated
the previous year, and nine general and special education teachers located in
four partner schools. The partner schools included one public elementary school
in the large urban district and three private sectarian and non-sectarian elementary,
middle, and high schools. Three of the nine general educators were alumni who
had been teaching for five or more years. By the end of the first year, the
membership had grown to more than 100. Numbers, however, do not tell the entire
story.
Conclusion
From
its inception, Demon SIN was intended to be community owned and operated.
Members were expected to move beyond merely consuming information and to become
produces of knowledge, as well. This is where the network fell short of
expectations in the first year. The first users produced very little content
themselves and relied instead almost exclusively on the network administrator
to direct and manage all facets of community work. Certainly, unfamiliarity
with wikis, nings, and other hardware and software
tools contributed to the limited level of production in the first year, but lack
of technological knowhow also seemed to provide a convenient excuse to resist participation
in community work. In fact, many seemed to prefer the traditional top down
approach to professional development and actively resisted the notion of
producing content themselves. They were, quite simply, unwilling to participate
in their own learning. Yet, practicing the
pedagogy of inclusion enjoins active engagement in one’s own learning
throughout one’s teaching career. Lacking this commitment, special educators
place themselves at high risk for leaving the profession feeling isolated and
unprepared to meet the demands of teaching. There is no dispute about the
benefits that can accrue when special and general educators collaborate in the
production and reproduction of evidenced-based inclusive practices, but community
building in special education appears to be no simple matter. The idea of using
technology to facilitate the development of professional learning communities
in special education shows promise, but before that promise can be realized, more
research is needed on how technology can be used to build and maintain a
commitment to lifelong learning among teachers for the purpose of engaging them
in the kind of transformative practice known to bring about the most
significant and meaningful changes in student learning.
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