Developing Communities of Instructional Practice: Lessons from Cincinnati and Philadelphia
Author: Supovitz, J.A., Christman, J.B.
Publisher: Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE)
Publication Date: 2003, November
Publication City: Philadelphia
Publication State: PA
Full text available online at: http://www.cpre.org/images/stories/cpre_pdfs/rb39.pdf
Abstract (written by WestEd)
In reviewing large-scale reform efforts in Philadelphia, PA (team-based schools) and Cincinnati, OH (small learning communities), the authors investigated whether two assumptions about communities within schools were true. First, they found that the reforms positively impacted the communal culture of schools. Second, the reforms only influenced student performance when the communities focused on greater instructional focus. In other words, when the reform was focused on developing a community of instructional practice, and not just a community of practice, there were significant gains in student performance. A community of instructional practice is characterized by structured, sustained, and supported instructional discussions that investigate relationships between instructional practices and student work.
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