Communities of practice are essential to the growth and development of a group of people in a common discipline or profession. Faculty need support in their teaching, development of new instructional approaches, and in publishing their scholarship of teaching and learning research. Similarly, students also benefit from a community of practice within their peer group. We explore various ways to establish communities of practice and their impact on participant development.
Novices begin at the outer edges of the community, engaging in legitimate peripheral participation. They move toward the center of the community as they grow in expertise through engagement in, interactions with, and collaboration inside the community. Both students and faculty need communities of practice to support them in becoming. We explore different factors in communities of practice:
- Development of different faculty communities of practice to support teaching innovation, scholarly writing, and inclusion.
- How students view themselves and their peers within the community of practice and the implications of those perspectives.
- Encouraging inclusive communities of practice, both within faculty and within students.