We're in TITLE to dream: Envisioning a community of practice, The Intraplanetary Teacher Learning Exchange

There is a pressing need to reduce the isolation and disconnectedness of pr eservice teacher early field experiences. Three related but separate projec ts, Conferencing on the Web (COW), the Caseweb, and INSITE were designed to enhance the learning of preservice teachers in introductory educational ps ychology classes while promoting notions of a community of practice. In the fall of 1996, the COW project started with approximately 30 preservice tea chers at Indiana University discussing their early field experiences. Durin g the following five semesters, the project evolved to include students fro m other universities and countries and, eventually, became known as "The In traplanetary Teacher Learning Exchange" (TITLE). Adding students and instru ctors from other countries enhanced the discussion and dialogue in COW. The role of instructors and practicing teachers as electronic mentors was also vital. At the same time, interesting cases that students generated in COW/ TITLE were repurposed in a website called the Caseweb that is open to anyon e in the world to use. More recently, ideas from the COW and Caseweb projec ts fostered the development of INSITE-a sophisticated text support tool on the Web for instructors and students of educational psychology. INSITE cont ains useful course resources, experiences, and activities, as well as vario us opportunities to globally share knowledge. With the INSITE tool, ideas r elated to creating a community of practice can be extended to thousands of students and hundreds of instructors each semester all using a textbook cal led Psychology Applied to Teaching. While describing these projects, we poi nt to several potential advances in case-based learning and community build ing tools.