Abstract

CORDERO, Silvina  and  MENGASCINI, Adriana. Building a community of practice: possible articulations between school and academy. Cuad. Fac. Humanid. Cienc. Soc., Univ. Nac. Jujuy [online]. 2016, n.50, pp.147-159. ISSN 1668-8104.

Two problems were the source of this research: the education of teacher-researchers of their own practice as a way for teacher professional development and for critical review of current practices in science education; and the gap between academic knowledge and the knowledge used in the classroom. We proposed to work on both problems through a participatory research project, which included university researchers and teachers of the provincial system. Our challenge involved establishing links between two communities of practice (CoP): the academic research in science education community and the teaching of natural sciences community at school. CoPs are groups that share an interest or set of problems, and deepen their knowledge and expertise by interacting on an ongoing basis. They combine three elements: joint enterprise, mutuality, and shared repertoire. From this perspective we analyzed the conditions and difficulties in the construction of this CoP, where features both communities of belonging are articulated. This allowed us to reflect on the interactions between groups that usually dedicate to different practices; to display mechanisms, modalities of participation and construction of products as reified experience; analyze the starting conditions proposed as mechanisms of incorporation, inclusion and working of a CoP; to identify the difficulties of teachers in these practices as part of the transformation of identities involving membership in a CoP. The innovations proposed, implemented and analyzed by the participants are achievements of this joint venture

Keywords : Communities' articulation; Community of Practice; Education in Natural Sciences; Teacher training; Participatory research.