Sustaining Teachers’ Engineering Development and Transfer Through a Dynamic, Adaptive Community of Learning and Practice

• In Event: Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: Learning and Motivation in Social and Cultural Contexts Poster Session 2

Abstract

The study tracked teachers’ motivation, learning and transfer from an engineering-based professional development experience across multiple social and developmental contexts. Sixteen secondary math and science teachers participated in a university-based, resident professional development opportunity in Engineering, followed by ten months of supported planning and classroom implementation of classroom action research. Outcomes included: individual and group learning, perceptions and engagement, and transfer of engineering through both whole-project and integrated strategies. Their contexts-of-development shifted over time, with progress-toward-goals supported by sustained functioning of a dynamic, adaptive community of learning and practice. Quantitative and qualitative data, from multiple sources, extended over the year-long project period. Analyses using traditional and non-traditional methods, including social network analysis mapping the formation and utilization of the community.

Author

• Patricia L. Hardre, University of Oklahoma