1. Connect and Inspire
Online Communities of Practice in Education
Highlights from the draft report
edcocp.org
#edcocp

2. Connect and Inspire
• Improving professional excellence and the
excellence of the profession
• Professional practice and research suggests
that we know a lot and there’s a lot we need
to know
• We need your help to learn what we don’t
know and put that knowledge to work

3. Online Community of Practice
• Domain – shared area of professional interest
• Community – online interactions around that
interest that build a collective identity
• Practice – shared experiences, stories, tools,
and techniques
• Generations – opportunities for experts and
novices to work together

4. • At scale
• Voluntary, free, and organic
• Experts and novices
• Primarily focused on meeting immediate needs
of individual teachers

5. • School team and district/state cohort based
• Formally supported by districts and schools
• Paid leaders and fee for participation
• Time limited with an external locus of control

6. We need both
Professional excellence Excellence of the profession

7. We need them connected
“Is texting writing?” “Is texting writing?”

8. Documented benefits
• Access knowledge
• Share knowledge
• Create knowledge
• Build professional identity and relationships

9. Key Elements
• Clear purpose
• Effective leadership and moderation
• Inclusion and opportunities for knowledge
sharing
• Clear policies and other methods to instill trust
• Sociability and social presence
• Organic growth and innovation
• Communication and integration

10. Leadership
What we know What we need to know
• It’s essential • How do we better identify
• Some characteristics of new leaders?
effective leaders • How do we train and
• Some effective leadership support them?
practices

11. Classroom 2.0

12. Incentives
What we know What we need to know
• Must address immediate • How can participation be
needs of day‐to‐day formally recognized?
practice • What kinds of policies for
• “Lead users” and supporting participation are
“influencers” respond to most effective?
regular, modest innovations • What other kinds of
tangible incentives are
desirable and/or effective?

13. NSTA Learning Center

14. Metrics
What we know What we need to know
• Some factors that correlate • How can we capitalize on
with community growth system‐captured data?
and impact on practice • Which quantitative
• Formative evaluation benchmarks measured
methods that can measure against that data are
them reasonable proxies?

15. Educator’s PLN

16. OCOP Project Activities
• Report and project • Testbeds
community – CAST UDL
– Multiple revisions • Case studies
– Briefs – Organizational
– Ideas – Individual
• Communities • Infrastructure
– Access4ed.net (CoSN)
– 2014 Assessment
(SETDA)
– Dropout (AIR)

17. Get Involved
• Participate in the COCP community
– Comment on the draft report
– Comment on the briefs
– Comment on the ideas and add your own
• Join the communities
• Discuss collaborating with us on testbeds and
case studies

18. edcocp.org
#edcocp
Innovation Pod 4
dcambridge@air.org
@dcambrid
202.270.5224

19. An online community of practice for
innovation in providing access to
technology and learning

20. • Online community of practice for innovative
approaches to providing access
• Student‐owned devices and BYOT
• Broadband
• Participatory learning

21. Who’s It For
• District leaders of innovation
• District technology leaders
• District leaders for curriculum, professional
development, assessment
• District leaders for vision and accountability

22. Making the Connections
What We Know What We Need to Know
• Start small • How do we make connections
across district leadership
• Participants shape the
roles?
community
• How can curated and user‐
– Design generated content be used
– Organic growth together most effectively to
– Active facilitation produce changes in policy and
practice?
• How can districts use the
online environment to
benchmark with each other
on key issues?

23. Make is Community Yours
• #access4ed – tweet your suggestions and
requests for community
• Create and account at access4ed.net
– Access resources
– Join conversations
– Rate ideas for future community development