ROLE: An Infrastructure for Research on Online Teacher Communities of Practice

研究人员、从业者和政策制定者都一致认为，教学行业的在线实践社区（cop）可以成为改善教学和促进系统改革的有力催化剂。尽管在线cop的前景令人信服，而且理论上是合理的，但在线教师社区的现实却不那么乐观。我们认为，原因是对TPD教学法和在线技术结合的研究缺少了必要的第三个组成部分——在线CoP的基础设施（与特定的在线TPD策略不同）。研究不能继续将社区视为TPD干预的副作用或门户网站或电子网络的必然结果。我们必须将在线CoP作为教育系统的一个有效组成部分进行研究，否则，在从业者和提供者努力跟上新兴技术和快速变化的网络环境的步伐时，就有可能继续同样的模式，即一些不可复制的成功和许多多余的失败。为了超越CoP的承诺，在全国范围内实现SMET教师专业发展的可衡量效益，我们必须进行必要的研究，以更好地了解在线CoP作为教学专业不可分割的组成部分的社会和组织结构。为了启动这一研究议程，我们还必须通过设计和建设反映和增强缔约方会议的社会和组织结构的技术基础设施，打破流行的“远程学习”技术对研究的限制。我们将运用我们和其他人正在学习的关于在线教育cop及其应用的知识，设计和原型化一个新的技术基础设施，以支持和研究在线cop。我们将采用一种参与式的、基于场景的设计方法来开发我们的原型基础设施。我们的项目汇集了一个设计团队，代表研究人员（SRI和弗吉尼亚理工大学），教师教育工作者（佩珀代因大学），技术开发人员（WebCT， PBS），区域教育支持提供者（新英格兰水族馆，AEL, Inc.），国家TPD组织（PBS TeacherLine），以及我们的核心选区，TAPPED IN成员。该团队还将包括网络系统开发和图形用户界面设计方面的专家。基本设计将是模块化的，使我们能够在新功能出现时插入新功能。原型基础设施将在未来几年内作为许多不同组织在线CoP研究和进一步开发的平台。我们还将在一个公共网站上记录设计过程、工件和评论，并征求研究和从业者社区的意见，以广泛传播在线CoP设计问题的知识，并生成设计指南，为旨在支持在线教育社区的技术研究和开发提供信息。

Researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers are converging on the view that onlinecommunities of practice (CoPs) in the teaching profession can be powerful catalysts forimproving teaching and facilitating systemic reform. Although the promise of online CoPs is compelling and theoretically sound, the reality of online teacher communities has been less promising. The reason, we believe, is that research into the marriage of TPD pedagogy and online technology is missing a necessary third component-the infrastructure for online CoP (as distinct from particular online TPD strategies). Research cannot continue to treat community as a side effect of a TPD intervention or the inevitable outcome of a Web portal or electronic network. We must study online CoP as a valid component of the education system in its own right or risk continuing the same pattern of a few irreproducible successes and many redundant failures as practitioners and providers struggle to keep pace with emerging technologies and the rapidly changing Web landscape. To move beyond the CoP promise toward measurable benefits for SMET teacher professional development on a national scale, we must conduct the researchneeded to better understand the social and organizational structures of online CoPs as an integral component of the teaching profession. To embark on this research agenda, we must also break out of the constraints that popular "distance learning" technologies place on the research by designing and building technological infrastructures that reflect and augment the social and organizational structures of a CoP.We will apply what we and others are learning about online education CoPs and theirapplications to design and prototype a new technical infrastructure for supporting and studying online CoPs. We will adopt a participatory, scenario-based design approach to develop our prototype infrastructure. Our project brings together a design team representing researchers (SRI and Virginia Tech), teacher educators (Pepperdine University), technology developers (WebCT, PBS), regional education support providers (New England Aquarium, AEL, Inc.), national TPD organizations (PBS TeacherLine), and our core constituency, TAPPED IN members. The team will also include experts in Web-based systems development and graphical user interface design. The basic design will be modular to enable us to plug in new capabilities as they emerge. The prototype infrastructure will serve as a platform for online CoP research and further development by many different organizations over the next several years. We will also document the design process, artifacts, and commentary on a public Web site and solicit input from the research and practitioner communities to widely disseminate knowledge of online CoP design issues and generate design guidelines that will inform technology research and development aimed at supporting online education communities.