Dr. Ruth Brown
associate professor, Department of Communication, 308-325-1111 or brownr@unk.edu
Dr. Ruth Brown, associate professor of communication at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, will present a one-day professional development workshop on Communities of Inquiry and Practice (COIP) at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., in March.
“A Community of Inquiry and Practice is a group of professionals connected to one another through common problems and common pursuit of solutions, who, themselves, represent an accumulation of knowledge,” Dr. Brown said.
The presentation is for recipients of regional and national Rehabilitation Service Administration grants for interpreter training. Twelve colleges and universities are part of a network of program administrators who use the grants to prepare students to work as American Sign Language-English interpreters. The workshop will be a portion of the group’s annual meeting at Gallaudet, which is a four-year liberal arts university for students who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Dr. Brown was selected because of her research on community building in computer-mediated distance learning courses. She will explain the theoretical framework of COIP and guide discussion about applying the theory to online as well as face-to-face classrooms, professional collaborations and networks.
“Particular attention will be given to ways COIP can help translators transition from school to practice,” she said.
