Coming Together--Respectfully: Building Community in Teacher Education

Many researchers recommend building community to promote K-12 school improvement, noting the importance of teachers experiencing community in teacher education. This paper examines the concept of a learning community in the context of teacher education. It describes a 2-year qualitative study of community in a master's degree program. The program is a four-semester, cohort-based program of graduate study for practicing teachers. Content is integrated over time rather than divided into specific courses. The program begins with an initial retreat designed to build personal and professional relationships. Participants work on negotiation, consensus building, coaching, reflection, collegiality, participative decision making, and celebration. Data collection involved two cohorts of participants (university faculty and K-5 teachers), including observations of events and processes, systematic written responses from teachers, interviews with faculty, faculty ratings of teachers, and artifacts collected over 27 months. Results from the data analysis provide information on what community is in teacher education, the role of community in teacher education, what contributes to community, and what the struggles are in a community. Findings suggest that learning communities in the context of a program based on constructivist principles serve a variety of roles. (Contains 28 references.) (SM)