Import Test : Communities of Practice

COP Online Conference and Workshops

Matt Scales — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 14:30:00 GMT

Thanks to Vicki Suter (iCohere, Inc.) for forwarding the following information regarding upcoming online opportunities to learn more about communities of practice.

Collaborative Communities of Practice Conference
Length: 2 days
Date: September 27 - 28, 2005
Early Bird Deadline: 9/19/05
Notes: Etienne Wenger is keynote speaker; one of the sessions is on use of blogs, wikis, RSS, etc.
For more information: http://www.icohere.com/CCOP2005/

Creating Online Communities for Higher Education
Length: 4 week workshop (3 hours/week minimum)
Date: September 27 - October 21, 2005
Early Bird Deadline: 9/16/05
Notes: Participants have opportunity to design and build a prototype community (using the environment of their choice, including social media)
For more information: http://www.icohere.com/HigherEdWshp

Foundations of Communities of Practice Workshop
Length: 7 weeks (4-6 hours per week), with ongoing community, CPSquare
Notes: This is THE in-depth workshop for those who want to explore the topic deeply, and also have an opportunity to simulate a community and learn about CPsquare as a community.
For more information: http://www.cpsquare.com/edu/foundations/index.htm

Teaching in Community Online

Matt Scales — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 10:00:00 GMT

A Faculty Development Project

Northern Essex Community College's innovative TIC Online program was recently featured in NISOD's Innovation Abstracts. Building on their successful Teaching in Community program which focused on creating a supportive and reflective community for classroom teachers, the TIC Online program offers faculty teaching online courses similar opportunities, but with a focus on web-based teaching. Judith Kamber and Melba Acevedo of NECC co-authored the article.

The full article can be downloaded here: Download vol_xxvii_no. 9.pdf

Community of Practice Resources

Matt Scales — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 10:00:00 GMT

Judith Kamber of NECC has forwarded the following articles as resources for our cluster and other educators interested in communities of practice, community knowledge, and self-directed learning. While many examples are drawn from the corporate world, the ideas and insights are quite relevant to our work.

These attachments are articles concerning the Community of Practice-idea in Education. They were provided to me by my exchange partner from the Netherlands. His teams used these articles in their virtual CoP (with Etienne Wenger as facilitator). His favorite is Knowing is a Human Act. I thought they might be of interest to the group. --Judith Kamber

The People are the Company Download the_people_are_the_company.doc Self-Directed Learning Download self_directed_learning.doc Learning Across Teams Download learning_across_teams.doc Knowing is a Human Act Download knowing_is_a_human_act.doc From Training to Learning Download from_training_to_learning.doc Collective Learning Download collective_learning.doc

Getting to Know You

Matt Scales — Wed, 21 Apr 2004 10:00:00 GMT

One of our ongoing community goals is to make professional and personal connections. Ideally we should be able to associate a face and some information with the names that we see commenting on blog entries or contributing to our posts. Some of us have had the opportunity to meet in person, but a number of us have yet to meet. Northern Essex Community College has taken a first step in bridging this gap by creating a web page that provides a photo of group members, their positions at the college, and descriptions of each member's research project, as well as some personal information. NECC Participants Web Page

Themes Can Provide a Focus

Matt Scales — Mon, 16 Feb 2004 12:00:00 GMT

One of the challenges of developing a community of practice among members of one’s local Carnegie group is finding ways to share a common interest. While each college is approaching the development of their community in a somewhat different fashion, at Middlesex we faced the challenge of finding common ground while pursuing our individual research projects. We found that a shared theme was helpful in this regard. Concerned about the low levels of motivation exhibited by many of our students, we used the ideas presented in Edward Deci’s book Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation (Penguin, 1996) as a starting point for our joint conversations. This led to further readings and discussions on the topic and to the integration of the theme in many of our projects. The shared theme also assisted us in addressing our role in making contributions to our larger community, and led to two college-wide presentations centered on the topic of motivation. We made use of this theme for approximately two of the five years we have been in existence. Recently, several members have expressed an interest in choosing a new theme as a guiding and uniting force in our work. Mention has also been made about the possible value of a cluster theme that all our COPPER members might find of value. Early suggestions have centered on the issues of transfer of learning beyond the classroom, facilitating life-long learning, and creating intentional learners. To investigate these themes we are currently reading and preparing to discuss three articles which reflect the central issues of their respective author’s recent books. The first article is by Ellen Langer author of The Power of Mindful Learning (Perseus Publishing, 1998). A brief summary of her ideas can be found at http://www.newhorizons.org/trans/trans_review_langer.htm The other two articles are available at the following web sites: http://www.ou.edu/idp/significant/WHAT%20IS.pdf http://berger.research.claremontmckenna.edu/asl/applyingthesciencechange.pdf If you have any thoughts about the value of a shared cluster theme or any suggestions for specific themes feel free to include them in our comments area. In addition, we’re interested in posting any strategies or ideas you have for creating community within one’s local Carnegie group.