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Four structural features plus one instructional choice that foster a classroom community of practice in an advanced laboratory

Design · All designs
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 qualitative), q2 · 1 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description

The article identifies four structural features of AdLab: "Paucity of instructor time", "All in the room together", "Experiments long and hard", and "Same experiments at different times". These are supported by one primary instructional choice: the instructor "deliberately encourages the sharing and developing of knowledge and understanding between lab groups". The authors argue all four structural features are necessary for the enculturation elements to develop, reasoning counterfactually about what would fail if each were absent.

Design Implications

Context

Requirements

  • All four structural features must be present; the authors argue that with enough instructor time students would turn to the instructor rather than peers
  • Instructor support for inter-group collaboration

Constraints

  • The authors state an accelerated-trajectory classroom would be inappropriate in introductory physics, where students already face great shifts

Target Learners

  • sophomore and junior physics majors and minors in advanced laboratory courses

Target Goals

  • enculturation into the community of practice of physicists
  • collaborative troubleshooting and experiment-specific expertise

Claims

Examples

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Key Sources

  • Irving, P. W., & Sayre, E. C. (2013). Conditions for building a community of practice in an advanced physics laboratory. https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.1953. doi:10.48550/arxiv.1312.1953
Page metadata
Field Value
type design
id adlab-structural-features-community-formation
title Four structural features plus one instructional choice that foster a classroom community of practice in an advanced laboratory
description The article identifies four structural features of AdLab: "Paucity of instructor time", "All in the room together", "Experiments long and hard", and "Same experiments at different times".
status review
generated by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-09-26
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — irving-2013

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