Professional Learning Community: ASC Learning Community Collaboratory including teachers, students, scientists and educational researchers
The formation of a learning community of teachers, students, and scientists is essential to the success of the ASC Curriculum project. Because the field-testing sites are spread across the United States a virtual community called the ASC Learning Community Collaboratory will connect all of the stakeholders taking advantage of the powerful technological tools readily available to the members of the community. The formation of the ASC Collaboratory reflects the spirit of astrobiology.
According to the Astrobiology Roadmap, Astrobiology is multidisciplinary in its content and interdisciplinary in its execution. Its success depends critically upon the close coordination of diverse scientific disciplines and programs. http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/roadmap/
This education-focused collaboratory will serve as a model for scientific investigation in this emerging field. According to Kouzes, Myers, & Wulf (1996) a collaboratory is “a place where scientists and researchers work together to solve complex interdisciplinary problems, despite geographic and organizational boundaries.” This curriculum centered collaboratory will bring teachers in five minority serving settings into the realm of the scientists. The ASC project will make materials available on the Internet for teachers and students. The classroom activities will use “real” research data from scientists in the field of astrobiology.
The ASC Collaboratory will support a Learning Community of teachers, students, and scientists linked through this dedicated online resource. The project staff, through site visits and the development of a virtual collaboratory (Wulf, 1989), following the example of MIAC, would provide support and follow-up for the teachers. The ASC Collaboratory website will provide access for teachers, developers, and scientists to all materials, evaluation instruments, net-conferencing, web-based audio/video training materials (podcasts/vodcasts), data sets, and student resources used in the ASC curriculum. This website and other Internet tools will be used to form a virtual professional learning community based on the work of Schmoker (2006) and Dufour and colleagues (2006). All of the stakeholders will become partners in the revision process.
