Local Communities Of Practice Research Articles

Grassroots Professional Development: How Teachers Use Twitter

In an exploratory study, we used survey, interviews and content analysis techniques to understand how educators appropriate Twitter and other social media in their practice. We report on teachers’ use of Twitter, structural features of their on and offline professional networks, and the institutional policies that shape their appropriation of social media for professional use. Most importantly, our analysis suggests teachers on Twitter tend to be eager adopters of technologies and well positioned to broker information as bridges between members of their local communities of practice and other networks of educators. Based on these findings, we discuss teachers on Twitter as participants in grassroots professional development efforts and the potential for them to be powerful fomenters and enactors of reform in educational communities.

Commoning toward urban resilience: The role of trust, social cohesion, and involvement in a simulated urban commons setting

ABSTRACT In this paper, we investigate the potential of urban commons for building community resilience. We focus on the issue of adaptability to socio-ecological issues, which depends on the social capital built by the local community of practice. We measure this capital through the variables of volunteer involvement, perceived trust, and social cohesion in an agent-based model, which simulates the dynamics of participation in collective activities. We anchor our model with the case of KasKantine in Amsterdam, a cooperative and restaurant run by volunteers. Our model shows that both trust and social cohesion emerge from the interactions in the cooperative, especially when group sizes are kept small. This contributes to the adaptability of such social-ecological systems, helping their communities build social resilience.

Governing the circular economy: Assessing the capacity to implement resource-oriented sanitation and waste management systems in low- and middle-income countries

Transitioning to a circular economy requires strategic investments in infrastructure, but it also requires policy coherence, coordination and collaboration among stakeholders across sectors and governance levels. In this paper, we aimed to identify the factors that facilitate or impede governance capacity to adopt circularity in the form of resource recovery from urban organic waste streams. We conducted a literature review and semi-structured interviews using the ‘Governance Capacity Framework’ in a case study of Naivasha, Kenya. Our findings emphasize the importance of leadership from the public sector in co-developing visionary strategies for circularity and using their convening power to facilitate cross-sectoral collaboration. Moreover, we identify a need for bridging theoretical circular economy concepts to initiatives in local communities of practice. The insights in this paper are relevant for advancing the understanding of challenges for governance of the circular economy especially in low-and middle-income country contexts.

‘This was different’: transferring climate mitigation knowledge practices south to south with the MAPS programme

ABSTRACTThis article is a case study of the Mitigation Action Plans and Scenarios programme (MAPS) which worked in climate change mitigation and development policy-making spaces in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru and South Africa from 2010–2015. The MAPS programme was focused on achieving change in the commitment of southern decision makers to mitigate against climate change through government-mandated, stakeholder processes which generated evidence making a case for a low carbon transition. The article draws on reflective materials generated in the last year of the project. The value of MAPS was found in the well-tested data and evidence-driven scenario building; locally specific and country-driven processes; a culture of knowledge sharing through facilitated communities of practice; the role of professional facilitation in process design and in conducting stakeholder processes; shared experiences of working in the south, and particularly with cultural differences and conflict; and new ways of working south–south with each other, and with donors. These MAPS programme experiences stood in contrast to previous north–south knowledge sharing involvements. Theoretically, the article asks whether MAPS represents southern theory-making (after Connell, 2007). It concludes that through the action-oriented, facilitated co-production way of working on climate change in the south, MAPS represents an understanding of southern theory that challenges the orthodoxy of global knowledge production. MAPS emphasizes the need for theorizing in, and of, the south, and connecting policy and practices.Key policy insightsClimate change mitigation work in the south faces poorly resourced, fragmented, under-capacitated governance structures, often in conflicted settings.Given conflicted settings, skilled facilitation is an integral part of knowledge-making processes.Strong local communities of practice, who undertake learning-by-doing and are connected to ‘stubborn’ development realities, are also key to knowledge-making.Intentional co-production of data and evidence enable peer-to-peer learning and the trust-building which is vital to strong communities of practice.

‘I’m never going to be part of it’: identity, investment and learning Korean

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the willingness of 14 English-speaking EFL instructors living and working in South Korea to invest in practices connected with learning and using the Korean language. A model of investment for the ‘new world order’ (Darvin, R., and B. Norton. 2015. “Identity and a Model of Investment in Applied Linguistics.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 35: 36–56. doi:10.1017/S0267190514000191) was used as a theoretical lens through which to analyse the interview data to explore how attempts to negotiate membership into local communities of practice affected participants’ investment in Korean, as well as the ways in which participants interpreted and reacted to perceived inequities of power between themselves and these communities of practice. This study found that the ways in which participants perceived that they were positioned as native English speakers tended to work against sustained investment in Korean language learning, as potential returns in terms of valued forms of capital seemed very limited. For the vast majority of participants, entry into local communities of practice did not occur, but where a sense of belonging was evident, investment in the language was seen as a key to enabling deeper levels of engagement.

Building a Global, Online Community of Practice: The OPENPediatrics World Shared Practices Video Series.

Health care professionals are familiar with engaging in local communities of practice (CoPs) within their hospital, region, and/or country, but despite the availability of online technologies that facilitate online global collaboration, the health care sector has yet to fully embrace these tools. In 2013, OPENPediatrics (an online social learning platform) launched the World Shared Practices video (WSP) series to engage and coalesce the global community of critical care clinicians. Each month, a 30- to 45-minute video featuring a pediatric critical care medicine expert, interspersed with questions for the audience, is released. Viewers contribute to the community discussion by leaving comments that display alongside the video. Clinicians are encouraged to asynchronously host an educational conference so they can watch the videos and participate in the discussion together. From March 2013-November 2015, 28 WSPs were launched on a variety of topics. They were viewed over 18,414 times by 1,864 viewers in 132 countries and 760 hospitals; 1,155 comments were submitted. Attending physicians/consultants were the largest audience (36% [671/1,864]), and 37% (30/81) of responding viewers that commented in WSPs watched in small groups. The WSP series was reported to add value to respondents' learning or teaching and to have had a positive impact on their knowledge or practice. Future research will focus on further describing the context and structure of the CoP and on more deeply investigating its higher-level outcomes and impact. More work is needed to identify barriers and strategies that improve online community engagement.

Not all training for obstetric emergencies is equal, or effective.

More and better training for obstetric emergencies has been an almost ubiquitous recommendation for two decades. Robust evaluation using scientifically rigorous study designs is essential because training for obstetric emergencies, however well intentioned, is not cheap (Yau et al. Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand 2016: in press), nor is it always associated with improvements in clinical outcomes (Draycott et al. Best Practice Res Clin Obstet Gynaecol 2015: epub). The team behind this excellent study should be commended for their use of a robust study design at scale, the use of clinical outcomes to measure effect and the candid discussion of their findings. Fransen et al. (Fransen et al. BJOG 2017;124:641–650) investigated the clinical effect of a simulation based training programme for multi-professional teams using a robust multi-centre cluster randomised trial design and demonstrated that a 1-day, off-site, simulation-based team training, focusing on teamwork skills, did not reduce a composite of adverse maternal and perinatal outcome. The study authors propose several factors that may explain the lack of effect on patient outcomes: the study was single-dose and off-site in a simulation centre, the foundation course (MOET) has not previously been associated with improved clinical outcomes; and the focus on non-clinical elements, particularly Crew Resource Management (CRM), may not have been helpful. These findings resonate with other negative studies of isolated teamwork, human factors and/or CRM training (Kemper et al. BMJ Qual Saf 2016;25:577–87). These results beg the question: what training is likely to be effective? A recent review of 23 published studies of obstetric emergency training concluded that multi-professional training conducted locally at unit level was the most effective model (Bergh et al. Best Pract Res Clin Obstet Gynaecol 2015;29:1028–43). This may be because effective training is likely to be more about training teams to use local practice-based tools, i.e. boxes and checklists, and learning in local communities of practice, than transferring new knowledge (Draycott et al. Best Pract Res Clin Obstet Gynaecol 2015;29:1067–76). This study also raises a number of other relevant issues for the evaluation of educational and simulation-based interventions. The inconsistent quality of reporting in health profession education research hinders reproducibility. We could usefully adopt the SQUIRE 2 guidelines that recommend an accurate description of the intervention in sufficient detail that others could reproduce it. This should also include the mannequins used, where appropriate. Standardisation of outcomes reporting would also improve generalisability, i.e. expressing Low Apgar scores as a proportion of term births to eliminate the effect of gestational age and to express brachial plexus injuries as a proportion of vaginal births to reduce subjectivity. Finally, further studies should be conducted using similar robust study designs, including cluster RCTs and stepped wedge designs; but with an additional parallel process evaluation. This would allow us to better understand what training works, but possibly even more importantly: how, why and where training works. Training for obstetric emergencies is not always effective. Currently, the evidence supports local, multi-professional training, with integrated clinical and teamwork/human factors elements, for all staff annually. Other models of training should be required to provide robust evidence of a positive effect before they are adopted or funded by national bodies. Full disclosure of interests available to view online as supporting information. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.

‘Breathing the smells of native-styled English’: a narrativized account of an L2 sojourn

ABSTRACTThis article centers on the developmental trajectory of a young woman who took part in a study that tracked the language and intercultural development of international exchange students from a Hong Kong university. ‘Serena’, a translation (Chinese–English) major, took steps toward a more intercultural mindset while studying in England. Compared with many of the other participants, she displayed a more positive attitude toward the host language and culture, developed a more diverse social network, and gained more access to local communities of practice. Over time, she became more open-minded and invested in her intercultural relationships which she mediated through English. Weaving together the rich oral and written data related to her case, this paper presents a narrative of her ‘international story’. Her lived experiences and the subjective meanings invoked raise awareness of individual characteristics, attributes, and agency that can facilitate second language learning and intercultural development. By drawing comparisons with the stories of her peers, this narrativized account also points to the impact of external elements on sojourn outcomes.

Communities of practice in higher education: contradictory narratives of a university-wide curriculum reform

This article presents an analysis of the experiences of scholars in a university-wide curriculum reform in one public research university. The focus is on the intentions and dynamics that shape the curriculum process in the local communities of practice (CoPs). The data, comprising interviews with 25 scholars, are examined as experience-centred narratives of curriculum change. Two distinct types of narrative – dialogical and reproductive – are found to reflect how the curriculum change was negotiated. In further analysis, Wenger's dimensions of CoPs, namely, mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repertoire, are used as a conceptual framework to identify the intentions and dynamics behind the narratives. The following dimensions emerged: (1) intending to cross borders versus maintaining prevailing traditions and positions; (2) attempting to find shared goals versus delaying or discontinuing the process and (3) having enough curiosity to familiarise oneself with the unfamiliar versus deprecating and rejecting it.

Badge Architectures as Tools for Sense-Making and Motivation in Engineering Education

In this paper we argue that badge architectures are narrative, material and performative repertoires which can be meaningfully employed to provide university students with a coherent understanding of education. Badge architectures function as powerful interpretative tools through which students make sense of their immediate learning world. However, the efficiency of badges in education depends on associated structures of distribution, procurement and display that articulate modes of participation within a local community of practice. By considering our experience in the design, implementation and evaluation of the badge system ‘RL Hit List’, we claim that more insightful perspectives emerge from considering motivation as a socio-technical accomplishment than as a state of mind. This view might be read as an invitation for designers and researchers to reconsider the intrinsic - extrinsic dichotomy in assessing the value of badges to motivate students.

Support your local communities of practice

Purpose – This paper provides considerations for organizations interested in supporting knowledge sharing among employees based on experiences and recent research. Experiences emphasize the need to discover and recognize unofficial communities of practice; support distributed leadership; support control of the communities by their members; enable interaction and learning opportunities; consider social media carefully; leaving choices up to the community members; and an approach to calculating the value of communities of practice (CoPs) based on knowledge management. Design/methodology/approach – The approach of this paper focuses on six basic themes from research and experiences in the literature with CoPs. Lessons learned and recommendations are provided. Findings – Lessons from CoPs focus on the need for distributed leadership or all engage, participate and share responsibilities; control of the community belongs to the members, and they decide membership; interaction and learning opportunities are essential to support competitive advantage for the organization and continuous development for the community members. Social media is unproven in the workplace and should be approached carefully, as the CoP must determine benefits and advantages. An approach to calculating value is proposed, based on calculating the value of knowledge management. Practical implications – As CoPs continue to evolve, organizations play a key role in supporting their development which in turn provides competitive advantage for the organization. Continuous learning and development are the key aspects of these communities, including opportunities for leadership, decision-making and professional development. Technology can play an important role in CoPs, but must be supported by the membership. The return on investment (ROI) may be significant and learning opportunities provide the potential for personal development and the enhancement of organizational performance. Originality/value – This review offers insights into experiences and findings from CoPs, supports distributed leadership and control of the community among the members, strongly recommends interaction and learning opportunities and addresses social media as a possibility to support the CoP. The ROI potential supports and encourages organizations to develop employees and enhance overall performance.

Constituição de Comunidades de Práticas Locais e o Ambiente de Aprendizagem da Modelagem Matemática: algumas relações

ResumoNeste artigo identificamos algumas potencialidades do ambiente de aprendizagem da Modelagem Matemática, na constituição de uma Comunidade de Prática Local (LCoP). O estudo foi desenvolvido no âmbito da pesquisa qualitativa, com base em um episódio de sala de aula, suscitado pela Modelagem Matemática, em que as ações desenvolvidas por professor e alunos, são analisadas segundo as características da constituição de uma LCoP. Os resultados obtidos evidenciam algumas características próprias do ambiente de aprendizagem da Modelagem Matemática, tais como o estudo matemático de um tema com referência na realidade; a participação dos alunos nos processos de problematização, investigação e seus envolvimentos no ambiente de aprendizagem e a construção de espaços de interações, que fundamentam o desenvolvimento de ações concernentes à constituição de LCoP's.

Cross‐Cultural Perspectives on Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Children: A Multinational Survey

One of the most significant trends in contemporary English language teaching is the dramatic increase in English as a foreign language (EFL) programs for younger children (ages 3–12) in school systems throughout the world. These programs have created special challenges for teachers who are nonnative English speakers (NNES). To document the methodology of NNES teachers of younger children, the authors of this article created 14 classroom teaching videos which were embedded in a web‐based survey. This survey was sent to EFL teachers of children in schools throughout Asia and Latin America as a needs analysis for teachers who would be participating in training programs related to an international textbook series. The results of this survey challenge the stereotypes about these teachers, deepen our understanding of their methodological practices, and provide models for professional development. Although some of the techniques were more familiar to the respondents than others, most of the teachers in this study indicated that they use a broad range of techniques within their local communities of practice. These teachers expressed their willingness to adopt the less familiar techniques if they were provided with appropriate materials and training. Finally, most of the teachers in this study favored collaborative, relational forms of professional development.

Regional Advantage of Cluster Development: A Case Study of the San Diego Biotechnology Cluster

The concept of “clusters” has become central to regional economic development strategies, especially in the high-technology and biotechnology industries. Numerous studies have examined the significance of industrial clusters and their components, but comparatively less attention has been directed towards understanding the roots and processes of industrial localization. In particular, emerging biotechnology clusters such as that in San Diego have not drawn adequate scholarly attention given their policy implications with regard to clustering and regional development. Based on in-depth interviews, historical archives and participatory observations, this paper examines how the San Diego biotechnology cluster emerged and grew into an entrepreneurial habitat that has nurtured hundreds of biotechnology companies that have produced a series of innovative products. The author suggests that the regional context of the existence of a number of small biotechnology companies rather than a group of large firms, a continuous flow of talent, and leadership that fosters collaborations have been critical in promoting knowledge creation, circulation and accumulation, which are essential to spawning startups. The regional advantage of San Diego in stimulating entrepreneurship and innovation lies in its edge in creating and exploiting knowledge and practices through its entrepreneurs' robust interactions and participation in local communities of practice.

EMDR Humanitarian Assistance Programs: 20 Years and Counting

EMDR Humanitarian Assistance Programs (HAP) was created in 1995 by EMDR clinicians who had offered pro bono care and training for therapists in Oklahoma City after a terrorist attack. HAP set its mission to bring evidence-based trauma therapy to communities that were underserved or that had suffered disasters. HAP’s training programs, which are low-cost, are provided by volunteers and target clinicians in public or nonprofit agencies. HAP currently reaches about 2,000 trainees annually. Similar HAP training programs in developing countries reach about 200 clinicians annually and aim to build local communities of practice that are sustainable. HAP has responded to disasters worldwide, with both training and treatment, but increasingly directs most disaster aid to the United States as new sister organizations appear and respond to disasters in other regions of the world. In recent years, HAP has aimed to promote emergence of its Trauma Recovery Network (TRN)—local voluntary teams of clinicians who stress preparedness as a key component of disaster response. Three TRN chapters in 2010 had grown to 20 in 2013 and will soon double, providing new options for service to HAP’s more than 1,500 registered clinician volunteers.

Variation in local career trajectories of young people sharing a similar low socio-economic background in one geographic community

This paper uses a life history approach to examine the decision making of six young people around what to do when leaving compulsory education. They all share similar social backgrounds and are located in one geographic place – a deprived, working class, urban area in the English midlands – but the six individuals have opted to follow three different post-16 pathways, even though they all achieved GCSE qualifications that would have enabled them to enter further education, and therefore potentially higher education. These different post-16 routes include employment without formal training (the workers), employment with formal training (the apprentices) and studying in higher education (the students). All the participants (and their families) are historically ‘rooted’ in the local area and this paper explores the influence of the social learning that takes place within local communities of practice – in the form of friendship groups, families and school communities – on the young people’s different, yet all resolutely local, early career trajectories.

Exploring the professional development needs of new teacher educators situated solely in school: pedagogical knowledge and professional identity

This paper investigates the experiences of secondary teachers within their workplace as they take on the role of leading subject knowledge development days for small groups of student-teachers through a case-study approach. Semi-structured interviews, the reflective journals of these teachers and the evaluations of the days by the student-teachers were used as the data-gathering methods; the teachers involved were ‘conversational partners' in the research. Themes were recognised that characterised the developing perceptions and practices of these new teacher educators. The findings reveal a number of professional development needs of new teacher educators situated solely in school, some similar with those situated in higher educational institutions, including fostering an understanding that modelling needs to be made explicit to student-teachers. This has important implications with the introduction of Teaching Schools with responsibilities for educating student-teachers in England. Suggestions are shared for nurturing teachers taking on this additional role as they develop their new identity and professional knowledge and skills whilst not situated geographically within a local community of practice.

Buying In, Edging Out: Perspectives on Contemporary Global Health Financing among Thailand’s Malaria Community

The first signs of an unprecedented form of drug resistance, identified along the Thai–Cambodia border, have reawakened scientific interest in the discovery of new anti-malarial treatments. Innovation in malaria financing policy geared to promote wider access to effective and safe malaria drugs through coordinated investment practices of large global health donors has significantly contributed to invigorate international product research and development (R&D). This article seeks to explore the elementary question of what the increment in global funding for malaria control and elimination has done, not for, but to the Thai malaria policy and research community. Drawing on ethnographic research, it first examines how public–private partnership arrangements in this bioscientific and biomedical field have helped close the product innovation cycle of a non-profit-based drug developer. Second, it asks in what ways the successful resolution of an earlier disjunction between drug safety and efficacy studies and drug discovery has impinged on the working relationships between two local communities of practice. I set out my notion of ‘disconnected connectivities’ to analyze this dynamic between the global and the local to elucidate how the global inclusivity that collaborative financing instruments and mechanisms provide spurs unanticipated forms of exclusion within the international malaria science enterprise.

“Cluster” Creation by Reconfiguring Communities of Practice

By asking how agglomerations of certain industries emerge, the paper investigates processes of local specialization inspired by evolutionary theory. Deductive reasoning found in the competitiveness literature is de-emphasized. The paper rather introduces an alternative approach to agglomeration formation, based on microsociology: “The reconfiguring of communities of practice”. Six Norwegian municipalities, having three times as high rate of employment in mechanical engineering industry as the nation, are subjects for comparative studies. The paper identifies and explains five different types of startup initiatives where new firms within this industry sector are added to the local firm population. They are all interpreted as reconfigurations of local communities of practice and as such considered as endogenous processes: parent firms as incubators for entrepreneurial spin-offs and serial entrepreneurs create growth in specialized agglomerations. Some local environments have particular capacities to generate an increasing number of firms. Prevailing family businesses limit growth at the firm level. “Big company” traditions hamper entrepreneurship. Deliberate demergers in order to cope with market crises compensate for the downsizing of dominant companies. It is surprising that the study has not identified examples of localizations from outside into the agglomerations. The theoretical approach and the empirical findings from the study have certain policy implications regarding facilitating endogenous development.

Shepherds of the Mountains

We investigated the interface between scientific knowledge of commercial sheep farming and local communities of practice. Through combining socio-cultural and cognitive theories of learning, we applied a concept of community of practice to analysing the importance of the local Goat and Sheep Society for family-based sheep farming in Lyngen after the Second World War. A point of departure for this investigation was the extraordinary results in national rankings and competitions by some of these Lyngen sheep farmers. This paper empirically documents the dynamic, multi-faceted interaction between “barn floor” breeding practices and national-level breeding science. We thoroughly analysed this domain of knowledge as a practice-driven process that involves a particular configuration of practitioners, including newcomers and old-timers, households, local sheep breeding societies and national scientific knowledge institutions. Based on this notion of a community of practice, the relations between masters and apprentices are given particular attention. One particular characteristic of this community of practice is the institutional enmeshment between the local Goat and Sheep Breeding Society and the local Læstadian congregations. We argue that certain focal normative notions of the family and of the order of creation (Norwegian skaperordning) to care for the creation and to survive (Norwegian å berges) provide the motivational force to these knowledge innovations.