This paper expands on Gee's (2004) notion of "affinity spaces" by placing them in the context of games, media stars, and their fans and combining cultural studies and new literacies approaches. The Guild, a web series about the misadventures of MMOplayers, written by and starring actor, writer, producer, and gamer Felicia Day, is…

The purpose of this text is to explore how schools can become professional learning communities, involving teachers who continuously engage in building and sharing knowledge. We use theory and a model of knowledge conversion from the field of organizational learning to explore knowledge sharing within schools. The presented findings are based on a…

The purpose of this study was to investigate relationships between FLC membership and faculty trust in higher education colleagues and faculty trust in higher education administration in public and private universities in the United States. This quantitative study examines trust in colleagues and trust in administration in higher education, two…

Higher education institutions in the state of Arizona have experienced a reduction in government funding due to the economic challenges the state is facing combined with an ongoing national recession. Three higher education institutions studied are located in Phoenix, Arizona. The three higher education institutions are Phoenix College, Arizona…

Hispanics in an overwhelmingly white organization will gather together, women of whatever "race" in male-dominated situations, poor people among the middle class. They find those with whom they believe they have a cultural or economic kinship and act accordingly. The author shares how he found a personal community in his professional organization.

Communities of practice offer reference librarians a conceptual model through which to develop and maintain general and subject specific knowledge. Reference librarians acquire general and subject-specific knowledge in many ways, sometimes independently and sometimes collaboratively. Applying the concept of the "community of practice" to reference…

This paper argues that research on the educational uses of technology frequently overemphasizes the influence of technology. Research in the field is considered a form of critical perspective, and assumptions about technology are questioned. Technological determinism is introduced, and different positions on this concept are identified. These are…

Prior learning assessment and recognition (PLAR) is the practice of reviewing, evaluating, and acknowledging the information, skills, and understanding that adult learners have gained through experiential or self-directed (informal) learning rather than through formal education (Thomas, 2000). As our current economy and workplaces experience rapid…

The focus of this commentary is the possibilities for learning communities in dropout prevention and their interventionist role in this problem. Educators are urged to develop advocacy for adolescents at risk of dropping out and failing to graduate. High school dropout has been described as a national epidemic, yet urban youth continue to be…

This paper reports on the work of a small group of Education academics to build a professional learning community in a regional university in the north of England. Their efforts form part of a "Leading Learning" school-university partnership serving schools in disadvantaged communities in inner city Leeds. This is designed to support…

This article draws upon research funded by the National Council for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) on trends in teaching and learning in vocational education and training (VET) in Australia and internationally in the United Kingdom and Europe and from a series of workshops on innovation in teaching and learning in VET which the authors…

More and more, social technologies and virtual work methods are facilitating new ways of crossing boundaries in professional development and international collaborations. This paper examines the peer development of higher education teachers through the experiences of the IVBM project (International Virtual Benchmarking, 2009-2010). The…

This paper presents the results of a study of interviews (N = 17) conducted with members of a community of practice (CP) comprised of school principals, vice principals, and department heads responsible for teacher supervision in their respective schools. This CP met once a month over the course of 2 years to work on adapting the New Brunswick…

Teaching students self-directed learning skills provides benefits that outlast individual courses. An individual self-directed approach is insufficient, however, given the fast pace of change students encounter in their professional lives. Communities of practice combine self-directed and collaborative learning to meet the challenges of today's…

In this paper plurilingual and autonomy building activities are described with reference to the CercleS European Language Portfolio and some parts of the original Council of Europe Language Portfolio. For this extracurricular plurilingual learning project in Portugal, eight second-year female students studying for a degree in Executive Secretarial…