Education Focussed Communities of Practice : Online Interdisciplinary Learning Communities to Improve the Student Experience
Associate Professor Louise Lutze-Mann , Ms Jamie-Lee Burgess , Mr Collins Fleischner , Dr Iwan Kelaiah , Ms Tuhina Pandey , Dr Joshua Swift Office of PVC Education
Higher Education institutions house a wealth of knowledge on learning and teaching strategies that are often siloed into disciplines ( Backmore and Kandiko 2010 ). Although disciplines are important for knowledge creation and organisational structures , they can inhibit innovative practices and the transfer of knowledge across fields ( MacKinnon et al . 2010 ). The interdisciplinary Education Focussed ( EF ) led Communities of Practice ( CoPs ) at UNSW provide a method to generate , maintain and disseminate innovative practices that result from collaboration among academics and professionals focussing on educational initiatives .
CoPs possess three key attributes , namely domain , community and practice ( Cater-Steel et al . 2017 ). The ten EF CoPs comprise different domains , with each focusing on an element of learning and teaching such as Student Wellbeing , Digital Assessment and Student Feedback . Community is fostered within each CoP through regular fortnightly or monthly meetings and ongoing online collaboration using Microsoft Teams . The CoPs demonstrate impact through practice , positively influencing courses as a result of knowledge shared and generated in the CoPs . The EF CoPs cultivate domain , community and practice to positively impact education at UNSW .
The EF CoPs benefit the learning and teaching community at UNSW . The development of blended learning communities advances academic and professional staff capability by transferring tacit knowledge from one member to another , providing frequent formal and informal professional development opportunities , and increasing collaboration between UNSW ’ s student-centred services ( including Nura Gili , UNSW Health Services etc .) and academics . These benefits , deliberate in construction , result in the development of innovative practices and resources that benefit the wider education community .
Key features that have contributed to the success of these communities include support and opportunity . Support is provided to the CoPs through Academic Leads , a funded Project Officer and the EF Team . Opportunities include leadership roles , assistance with scholarly output , access to a wider audience , and frequent interdisciplinary collaborative experiences . Success will ultimately be measured by impact on the student experience .
Noting the significance of the student perspective , efforts are being made to increase student input in the CoPs . To date , real-time student consultation has been offered through an open EF forum at Term intervals in 2020 . However , with acknowledgement of our current limited student input , the formation of an EF student committee is in process , which we hope will provide a method to inform current learning and teaching practices .
References : Blackmore , P . and Kandiko , C . ( 2010 ), ‘ Interdisciplinary Leadership and Learning ’, in Davies , M ., Devlin , M . and Tight , M . eds . ( 2010 ) Interdisciplinary Higher Education : Perspectives and Practicalities , Bingley : Emerald . Cater-Steel , A ., McDonald , J ., Albion , P . and Redmon , P . ‘ Sustaining the Momentum : A Cross-Institutional Community of Practice for Research Supervisors ’, in McDonald , J . and Cater-Steel , A . eds . ( 2017 ) Implementing Communities of Practice in Higher Education , Dreamers and Schemers , Singapore : Springer . MacKinnon , P ., Rifkin , W . D ., Hine , D . and Barnard , R . ( 2010 ), ‘ Chapter 2 Complexity and mastery in shaping interdisciplinarity ’, Davies , M ., Devlin , M . and Tight , M . eds . Interdisciplinary Higher Education : Perspectives and Practicalities , Bingley : Emerald
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