The present book addresses the following challenge: How do we create and sustain a teacher community? For practitioners, the main question in this handbook is: How do we build and facilitate teacher communities? The different chapters discuss teacher interaction for learning and professional development in light of three constructs: the group, the community, and the network.
There is a wealth of literature, especially on theoretical frameworks, success factors, and barriers to participation in teacher communities. However, this book addresses the need for a step-by-step guide with valuable suggestions for those who want to create (from scratch) and support a community of teachers brought together to deal with specific issues and, importantly, mediated by educational technology
Maria Antonietta Impedovo, Ph.D., is Associate Professor at ADEF Laboratory, Aix-Marseille University, France. Since 2014, she teaches at the School of Education (INSPE) at Aix-Marseille University, France. She held her Ph.D. about Educational technology in 2013. Her main research interests are identity, teacher agency, and teacher professional development. Since 2010, she has been actively participating in multiple national and international formative and research projects. She has written scientific papers in Italian, Spanish, French, and English.
Karen Ferreira-Meyers is the Coordinator Linguistics and Modern Languages at the Institute of Distance Education in the University of Eswatini (Eswatini, Southern Africa). She is also a research fellow of the University of the Free State (South Africa). She holds four Master's degrees and a PhD in French and Francophone autofictional writing. She is a keen translator and interpreter. She publishes widely and regularly in various fields of research, among which the teaching and learning of languages; Open, Distance and e-Learning; online instruction and facilitation; autofiction and autobiography; crime and detective fiction; African literatures in European languages.
Noriyuki Inoue, Ph.D. is a Professor at Faculty of Human Sciences, Waseda University in Japan. He specializes in educational psychology and educational research methods. His recent research projects include teacher expertise development, social-emotional learning, educational innovation, lesson study and action research methodology. He serves as a board member of the Japan Association of Research on Educator Transformation (JARET), and frequently serves as consultants and advisors for schools and organizations across the world.
