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A member of the community of practice
August 15th, 2007 by Frank LaBanca, Ed.D.

As I continue to painfully transcribe interviews (will I ever be done?), I continue to notice that students talk “shop” with me. They use scientific vocabulary freely, without defining it. I translate this to mean that they feel I understand exactly what they are talking about, and do not feel obligated to talk “down” the information. In general this is truly the case. If a student is talking about potassium nitrate as an oxidizer (the case today) – I know what he or she is talking about. And conversely they know I know.

I think this is good, because it certainly establishes that there is fairly high rapport, but it also says that I am a member of the scientific community. Brown talks about the community of practice and bringing neophytes into that community – a situated cognition theory tenet. This is almost a reverse application.

I would also say that, in terms of qualitative methodology, this demonstrates prolonged involvement. In this case, it is with science and the precollege science research process.


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