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1. Two main ways in which interventions intended to change how teachers teach:

Top-down and strategic interventions to change management strategy (e.g. government initiative)

Interventions to change how teachers teach:

·To create an idealised type of practice to be planned and implemente

·Teacher representing their own practices to be shared, negotiated and revised

2. Six main ways in which practice has currently been modelled:

·Practice Models - describe/prescribe specific approaches by practitioners

·Other Practical Accounts - case studies /project findings/staff development

·Theoretical Accounts - cognitive/constructivist theories

·Taxonomies and Ontologies - systematic labelling/organising of learning situation

·Standards and Specifications - Instructional Management Systems / Modelling language models

·Organisational Models - institutions processes making use of best practice

3. Five main factors that Sharpe (2004) identifies as influencing the success of interventions intended to improve practice:

·Usability - known, accessible and understood

·Contextualisation - Customisation/adapting for the audience

·Professional Learning - Changing perceptions of learning and teaching

·Community - working with existing community

·Learning Design - helping practitioners base their practice on student learning

4. What do the authors mean by 'reverse engineering' of their practice by the participants on the workshops:

Deconstructing models to reflect upon and self-evaluate own teaching practice through collaborative work and the review of particular categories

5. Wenger's concept of reification:

The process of which communities take a uniform model and adapt to their own needs, be it using the language or the processes that represent their practices.Reifications 'emerge from practice but they do not define it'

Idiosyncratic Definition - 'pertaining to the nature of idiosyncrasy, or something peculiar to an individual' Dictionary.com

6. Why are reifications necessary for sharing practice, particularly between practitioners from different contexts?

It can help to review trends and share best practice.By sharing across contexts, it allows for the analysis to be based on the core of learning and teaching rather than the traditional and/or consistent barriers/challenges that are met.In essence going back to the central process of learning.

Additionally, the saying 'a problem shared is a problem halved' has some merit.By offering a forum where teachers can reflect upon, discuss but then move on to reviewing others experiences, takes the teacher away from one particular problem and instead places them in a community that initially may identify potential problems but also offer within some potential solutions.

Reference:

S. De Freitas, M. Oliver, A.Mee and T.Mayes. (2008). The Practitioner Perspective on the modelling of pedagogy and practice. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. 24 (1), 26-38.