Teachers’ insights on the mathematics learning commons as a community of practice

Abstract

A suggested professional development activity for Mathematics teachers of the Cape Breton Victoria Regional School Board has been daily usage of the community of practice known as the Mathematics Learning Commons (or MLC). This research project was designed to answer the following question: “Which features of a community of practice are supported by the Mathematics Learning Commons?” This research study required Mathematics teachers of the Cape Breton Victoria Regional School Board to participate voluntarily in a quantitative case study that determined which features of a community of practice were supported by the Mathematics Learning Commons. Analysis of their responses indicated that these participants spoke favorably on behalf of the Mathematics Learning Commons for five of the six features; these were Domain, Practice, Motivation, Structure, and Mandate. The responses were inconclusive for the Community feature of the Mathematics Learning Commons as the data set generated a Mode response of Neither Agree nor Disagree, a Median response of Neither Agree nor Disagree, and 44.8% of their responses were Neither Agree nor Disagree. Hence, the results of this project indicated that the MLC supported five of the six features of a community of practice, Domain, Motivation, Practice, Structure, and Mandate; however, the findings were inconclusive on its Community feature.