【Abstract】The benefits of students learning together in learning community （LC） programs have been widely reported. This paper explains how action research was used to design， trial and refine a same-year LC program to improve student motivation and demonstrates the value of action research for designing the LC program to increase students motivation. Key factors influencing the success of the program were： task-based learning activities; appointment of peer leaders; the provision of structured and unstructured student support; teacher assessment and peer assessment; and the use of interactive tutorials.

【Key words】action research; teacher leadership;  learning community

【作者簡介】文娟（1976-），女，汉族，安徽六安人，上海工艺美术职业学院，讲师，硕士，研究方向：英语教学法和二语习得。

Ⅰ. Introduction

In the past few years there has been a gathering interest in the concept of teacher leadership and learning community， as teacher leadership exerts a great influence on the effective learning of the students. Action research was employed in this study

Ⅱ. Implementing action research

The four action research phases were used in the three cycles to improve the LC program. In each cycle the phases progressed as follows：

Ⅲ. Reflect→plan→act→observe

1. Plan： improvements were planned.

2. Act： improvements were implemented.

3. Observe： observation data were collected， analyzed and interpreted.

4. Reflect： problems and opportunities for improvement were found.

The three cycles

Cycle one： The Middle Term of 2017

Plan

Task-based teaching activities were introduced through learning communities.

Act

The students（enrolled in 2017） majoring in product design participated in the Learning Community Program. There are 32 students in this class. The 32 students were subdivided into 8 learning communities with 4 students in each team.

Table One： Data from the student questionnaire for 2017， 2018： percentage of students who agreed or strongly agreed with each statement.

Year 2017 MT 2018 FT 2018MT

Class numbers 32 32 32

Response rates 75% 75% 81%

Benefits from learning community （LC） programme

1.The LC programme was interesting. 63% 75% 77%

2.The LC programme motivated me to learn more.

54% 79% 73%

3.The LC programme made me willing to attend the English classes.

67% 83% 88%

Your role in completing the tasks

4. In completing our shared tasks， both my English language skills and peer interactions improved.

67% 87.5% 85%

5. I built up my confidence because I solved the problems I had never done before on my own.

58% 71% 88%

6. I was more team-spirited than before because I had to cooperate with my teammates to finish the complex tasks.

71% 83% 77%

7. When I was working in a LC group， I appreciated the benefits of teamwork to carry out complex tasks.

63% 75% 73%

8. When I was working in a LC， I learned faster about English language skills than if I had simply studied on my own.

63% 75% 88%

9. I learned a lot about speech from my teammates in my LC when they made their presentations.

58% 75% 77%

Your role as a member of the LC group

10.  As a result of co-study in LC， I got more help from my teammates.

67% 79% 88%

11. While I worked as captain， I was encouraged to exert the influence of my leadership to motivate my teammates.

NA 87.5% 88%

12. While I served as a learner， I was motivated to learn more.

67% 92% 92%

13. We worked more efficiently with a peer leader because he/she worked as a coordinator in our group and helped us defining our priorities.

NA 83% 88%

The role of both peer assessment and teacher assessment

Year 2017 MT 2017 FT 2018MT

Class numbers 32 32 32

Response rates 75% 75% 81%

14. As a result of performing teacher assessment on learning activities of the LC， I felt a great sense of participation for it was a part of my final –term performance.

NA 75% 96%

15. In performing peer assessment I listened more attentively to my peers LC presentation.

NA 79% 85%

16. I enjoyed performing peer assessment of the LC presentations.

NA 96% 77%

17. I preferred teacher assessment based on our tasks for it was a small part of my final-term assessment.

NA 83% 88%

18. Knowing my peers would be assessing my groups presentation made me more responsible in contributing to the small group.

NA 83% 92%

Notes：NA，not available， MT， Mid-term， FT， Final-term

Table Two： The following figure indicates the overall satisfaction from the students on their subject of English （Middle term of 2017， final term of 2017 and middle term of 2018）

Year 2017 MT 2017 FT 2018MT

General satisfaction 50% 72% 81%

The positive response from the questionnaire was well shown in the first five items. Negative responses included lack of a peer leader to act as a leader to coordinate the whole task-solving progress.

In Table Two， in the middle term of 2017， the overall satisfaction of the English subject from the students was 50%.

Reflect

It was decided that a peer leader was needed to help his/her teammates settle on priorities and assign them different tasks to motive the students more.

Cycle Two

Plan

Select a peer leader based on various elements including his/her devotion， language competency and leadership skills for each group. Give tutorials to each peer leader collectively and individually. Employ teacher assessment on their learning tasks of each learning community.

Act

A peer leader was chosen for each group， who was responsible for the coordination of his/her teammates in completing their learning tasks.

Observe

The end-of-semester student questionnaire （Table One） indicated a statistically significant increase in the overall student experience of the learning community with a peer leader （Items 10-18） compared with Cycle One. The response rate for the standard school course evaluations was 75%. Overall satisfaction increased to 72% in this cycle （Table Two）.

Reflect

Students positive experience of LC programme suggested that working with a peer leader and teacher assessment as well could motivate students more in their learning activities. In the following cycle， the role of peer assessment in motivating learners was tested.

Cycle Three： middle term of 2018

Plan

Change the LC learning task from a task–solving activity by each group to an interactive tutorial. Increase structured and unstructured support for the more complex task of preparing and offering topic-based tutorials. Incorporate peer assessment of the small LC group work by individual members of the group.

Act

Each LC group selected one of 6 units on which to base an interactive tutorial for the class. Structured course support via briefing and debriefing sessions with each LC group was offered by me， and unstructured support via informal consultations.

Observe

Cycle Three saw an overall increase in the percentage of each Item. Compared with the middle term of 2017 and the final term of 2017， the response rate was 81% and overall satisfaction increased from 72% to 81% （Table Two）.

Key strategies to improve student motivation

Our experience in developing and refining this programme indicates the importance， having a peer leader in each learning community， teacher assessment and peer assessment for the full motivation of students in LC.

Conclusions and implications

The role of teacher leadership in creating a successful learning community could be indicated in the following aspects： first， teachers， as an instructor and leader initiate the programme of creating a learning community. Second， teachers serve as inspirations， which motivate learners to make more efforts. Third， teachers work as supervisors monitoring all the learning activities concerned. Finally， teachers act as role models with peer leaders to follow suit. However， the research span is quite short and data obtained could be not so reliable. Second， the intimacy among the students in this class makes peer assessment an important factor in a successful learning community. Further research is required to see whether the factors that contributed to the success of the LC program in this study are applicable to other vocational courses and other student cohorts.

References：

[1]Hord， S. M. （1997） Professional learning communities： Communities of continuous inquiry and improvement. Austin， TX： Southwest Educational Development Laboratory.

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[3]Northouse， P. G. （2013） Leadership： Theory and practice （6th ed.）. Thousand Oaks. CA： Sage.