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ENT Gallery: Developing a Community of Practice
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| Shared Language |
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Plimoth Plantation's proposed Online Learning Center was intended to provide both effective educational resources and an environment for learning modeled on the Teaching for Understanding (TfU) framework and the Education with New Technologies website. Working together in the online course, Teaching to Standards with New Technologies, and using the resources of the website, both museum and school educators became familiar with the TfU framework. The online course modeled the TfU elements through explicit learning goals, active online performances of understanding, and ongoing assessments with feedback from WIDE World coaches and fellow learners. Participants also used the TfU elements as a structure for designing their curriculum unit together.
 During the online course, the terms and elements of the TfU framework were a mixed blessing for Plimoth's diverse group. In the first sessions of the course, participants began to develop an informal shared language as they clarified their individual perspectives on education and curriculum development. As they explored the language of TfU, however, some participants struggled. Most of the group was unfamiliar with the framework, although they embraced its overall focus on developing students' understanding of key concepts through performance.
For some museum educators, the framework was the first explicit educational model they had studied; for some teachers, the TfU model conflicted with other curriculum design frameworks they were required to use in the school. The unfamiliar concepts and terms of the TfU language might have made more sense if participants had had more time to discuss them in relation to their existing ideas and practices. Despite these challenges, the participants found that the model served to focus their attention during the process of collaborating on curriculum design. Most believed the framework would continue to guide their planning of educational materials and activities.
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