Feasibility of a community of practice for learning

Abstract

Within a given department at a post-secondary college, small nuclei of teaching staff are observed to share, collaborate, and support each other in their professional practice in sporadic and informal ways. The concept of community of practice as a natural human approach for workplace learning and knowledge management has long been advocated. The potential and possibilities of digital technologies for connectivity and networked learning continue to increase rapidly. This scenario led to a preliminary research study exploring the idea of systematic pursuit fostering of a community of practice supported by the use of networked technologies for learning and teaching practice knowledge management. A semi-structured interviewing technique was used to capture the views of teaching staff members on their perceptions of learning as part of their professional commitment and the nurturing of a community of practice integrating the use of digital learning technologies for supporting their teaching practice. From the data analysis of the transcribed interview recordings it emerged that albeit learning being very important for these participants, learning teaching is not the primary focal element. To some degree a sense of community exists, and these academic lecturers recognise benefits of a deliberate effort to nurture a learning community for practice drawing on contemporary networked technologies for mutually supporting their professional practices but they also perceive several situational barriers.