Converging Communities of Practice: Promoting Equity Through Iterative Collaboration

• In Event: 72.018 - Teacher–Researcher Partnerships: Advancing Research, Practice, Ownership, and Agency in Disciplinary Literacy Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this session is to highlight the reciprocal learning that takes place when members of the research community work in tandem with practitioners in the field, sharing lenses of expertise in the creation and implementation of design-based research interventions.

Theoretical Framing
The Literature Design Team evolved into a community of practice as researchers and practitioners shared expertise, experiences, and collaborated to “inform each other, pull each other, and transform each other” (Wenger, 1998, p. 96) while engaged in the development of curricular interventions. These interventions, or modules, support students’ negotiation and engagement with the disciplinary practices of text-based argument grounded in iterative, design based research (Barab & Squire, 2004). The set of principles the modules embody serve as “humble (theories) in that they target(ed) domain-specific learning processes” (Cobb et al., 2003, p. 9).

Data Sources and Methods
Bi-monthly meetings focused on identifying sources of success and struggle for students engaged in inquiry-based learning tasks associated with the discipline of Literature. Ongoing formative assessment, reflection and analysis of the module implementation surfaced tasks and activities that were occasions of student success or struggle. Data sources included audio recordings of bi-monthly meetings, as well as field notes and artifacts shared and/or created during the meetings.

Findings
Changes to practice were concomitant with challenging belief systems. Bringing together distinct yet interconnected communities of practice highlighted the diversity and discontinuity in the epistemic cultures of knowing and practicing how best to support students engage in evidence based argumentation using multiple sources. Specific learning outcomes for practitioners included situating the role of disciplinary thinking in supporting higher order, meta thinking; leveraging cultural data sets (Lee, 2001, 2007) to draw on prior knowledge and make explicit students’ ways of knowing; understanding when to create and dismantle scaffolds; and transferring the intellectual work to the students. Researchers benefitted by deepening understanding of module design principles and how they can be translated across different contexts (i.e. grade levels, demographics); staircasing of curricular expectations across developmental trajectories; and knowledge building of different types of formative assessments and scaffolds to support student outcomes.

Importance
This work highlights the transformative nature of collaborative partnerships between researchers and practitioners toward improving student learning outcomes. Dynamic, iterative collaboration between the worlds of theory and practice creates a powerful lever to promote equity and knowledge production of students, who have been educationally marginalized and disenfranchised.

Authors

• Rick Coppola, Chicago Public Schools

• MariAnne George, University of Illinois at Chicago