Years of research on teacher quality indicate that the quality and effectiveness of teachers have a significant influence on learner achievements. The quality of teachers and their teaching practice is widely debated where quality may depend on the teacher having acquired sound and relevant knowledge and skills to ensure effective teaching. The continuous professional development of teachers is a key element in ensuring the required quality in teaching to enhance learners’ achievements. Utilising Wenger’s construct of a Community of Practice (CoP) as theoretical framework, with the investigation reported on here, we aimed to understand how natural sciences teachers, from a specific rural school district in the Western Cape province, South Africa, experienced a CoP as a continuing professional teacher development (CPTD) strategy. This investigation was informed by a naturalistic case study method where open-ended questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and observations were utilised for data generation during CoP sessions. Thematic data-analysis revealed themes (words/phrases) for interpretation and discussion. Preliminary findings highlighted some emerging characteristics that influenced the effective operation of a CoP and suggested that participants acknowledged the importance of a CoP, indicating that their natural sciences knowledge and skills had notably increased. We argue that emerging CoP characteristics can assist in the advancement of motivation, effectiveness and professional development of natural sciences teachers in rural areas, affording quality teachers and teaching practices.

中文翻译：

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自然科学教师通过实践社区持续专业发展

多年对教师质量的研究表明，教师的质量和有效性对学习者的成就有显着的影响。教师的质量及其教学实践受到广泛争论，其中质量可能取决于教师是否获得了良好和相关的知识和技能，以确保有效的教学。教师的持续专业发展是确保教学质量以提高学习者成绩的关键因素。利用 Wenger 的实践社区 (CoP) 构建作为理论框架，通过此处报告的调查，我们旨在了解来自南非西开普省特定农村学区的自然科学教师如何体验 CoP 作为持续专业教师发展（CPTD）战略。这项调查是通过自然案例研究方法进行的，其中开放式问卷、半结构化访谈和观察被用于在 CoP 会议期间生成数据。主题数据分析揭示了用于解释和讨论的主题（单词/短语）。初步调查结果强调了一些影响 CoP 有效运作的新兴特征，并表明参与者承认 CoP 的重要性，表明他们的自然科学知识和技能显着提高。我们认为，新兴的 CoP 特征有助于提高农村地区自然科学教师的积极性、有效性和专业发展，提供优质教师和教学实践。