Promoting Sense of Community in an Early Childhood Care and Education Consortium.

Continued professional development is important for promoting quality early childhood care and education (ECE) programs. One approach to fulfill this need for professional development is through the creation of a community of practice, which brings together professionals with similar interests. In this investigation, we report the evaluation results for one CoP, called the Early Childhood Consortium, that included ECE center directors and teachers. We examine if members of the consortium formed a Sense of Community (SOC). Factors that may relate to SOC were also considered for both teachers and directors, including trust in information shared, workplace characteristics (e.g., perceived support, hours worked), and Consortium members' professional agency. Trust in the information exchanged within the Consortium and workplace characteristics within member centers were related to SOC, but differences, supported by t-tests, between director and teacher SOC did occur. SOC also significantly correlated with survey and activity measures of professional agency within the Consortium in that those endorsing stronger SOC said they would be more likely to share and adopt knowledge with one another. SOC also positively correlated with participation of center staff within the Consortium, but not with individual levels of involvement, suggesting that directors and teachers influence one another's participation in professional development activities. CoP leaders should be intentional in supporting directors' abilities to promote SOC within their own centers and to connect CoP professional activities with classroom practices.