Introducing Communities of Practice
The LOFT Introduces Communities of Practice at San Diego Mesa College
What do you do when you learn something new? Have you wondered how you could share or apply this new information to your daily work? Creating Communities of Practice is a way to begin that conversation/process.
What are Communities of Practice?
"Communities of Practice (CoP) often focus on sharing best practices and creating new knowledge to advance a domain of professional practice." Communities of practice share three characteristics (Wenger-Trayner, 2015)--domain, community, and practice-- to engage in collective learning on a specific topic.
Resource: Introduction to Communities of Practice
Why are we launching Communities of Practice?
Mesa College is the leading institution for equity and excellence; we collectively recognize the value of supplying knowledge to the students. The CoP is a part of the value exchange of knowledge to redesign and expand the learning and non-learning student experiences. The expertise, experience, and knowledge available within our community and the Communities of Practice create a structure for the "intersection of fields, disciplines, or cultures, [to] combine existing concepts into a large number of extraordinary new ideas,” to improve student success (Johansson, p. 2).
Using a CoP model, we can immerse small interdisciplinary groups to focus on a topic of shared interests, foster collaboration, and encourage shared practice. Research reveals that CoPs are effective when structured correctly.
The objective of each CoP is to:
- Membership to the community will cultivate a shared competence.
- Members will engage in activities, help each other, and share information.
- Members of the community of practice are practitioners. They develop a shared repository of resources.
Who?
Mesa Campus Employees are invited to participate in CoPs.
When?
Spring 2020
How?
Please complete this interest form if you would like more information.
Benefits?
- Flex/Payscale Advancement
- Problem Solving
- Coordination and Strategy
- Discuss developments
- Document projects
- Mapping knowledge and identifying gaps
- Building relationships across organizational boundaries
- Create a direct link between learning and performance
Topics?
The topic areas for the communities of practices are aligned with campus initiatives. We are open to your thoughts, experiences, and suggestions, please add topics that are of interest to you and others in your network to the interest form. <here>
Interested in being a CoP Lead?
We need you and your expertise to make Communities of Practice at Mesa College successful. Please indicate your interest on the form.
Selected CoP leads will be eligible to receive a stipend.
The Campus Employee Learning Committee will open nominations for individuals to apply
to lead a CoP. The CoP lead will collaborate with a group of 10 -15 participants and
provide leadership throughout the experience.
More information will be announced in Fall 2019.