Fostering communities of practice among in-service Science Education teachers: a proposition

Abstract

The literature on Science Education suggests that Communities of Practice (CoP) can be a powerful tool to integrate Schools and Universities, especially for In-service Teachers. However, fostering such social structures is still a vague notion. In this paper, we provide guidelines to address this issue, using a combination of concepts from Etienne Wenger's Social Theory of Learning and results of an educational study that applied a historical method to investigate a CoP focused on teacher education. These guidelines are presented in the form of questions, grouped in ten thematic categories, so that educational professionals can better create and maintain community-based relations for learning.

Keywords School-University partnership; Science education; Communities of practice; In-service teacher