Science teaching strategies developed in an online community of practice: a case study

Abstract

Communities of practice (CoP) have been presented in the literature as potential promoters of the improvement of teaching strategies. However, there is scarce empirical evidence of that impact, namely in science education. Purpose: This study aims to present empiric evidence supporting the potential of online CoPs, involving teachers and researchers, for the development of effective science teaching practices – considering the literature on science education (SE) regarding strategies that can effectively promote pupils’ learning. Sample, design and methods: The authors conducted a single case study: a curricular module developed by a collaborative group of five teachers and three researchers, which formed a CoP under the Portuguese project IPEC1 . The CoP members interacted mainly through online communication tools; therefore, content analysis of the developed lesson plan, and associated teaching resources, was complemented with evidence from online interactions, as well as documents produced by the CoP as dissemination papers. Results and conclusions: The study showed that the CoP developed a field trip combining diversified teaching strategies, such as learning of contextualized phenomenon, small work group or questioning, referred in the reviewed literature as effective science teaching strategies. The results also point to the evolution of the teachers’ practices during their participation in this CoP. Hence, it provides empirical evidence that supports that online CoP of teachers and researchers can promote the improvement of science teaching practices. It also gives a glimpse of possible factors that can contribute to that improvement, which require further empirical study.