Communities of Practice
CETAL will be facilitating communities of practice in the fall. The Communities of Practice will give faculty the opportunity to explore different approaches and get support from peers and CETAL while experimenting with the implementation of those approaches.
Overview
Communities of Practice (CoP) are groups of people who share a concern, as set of problems, or a passion about a topic. They deepen their knowledge of this topic by having ongoing interactions. Communities of Practices provide faculty the opportunity to explore different approaches and receive support while implementing these new approaches and concepts. Individuals that participate in a CoP will have the opportunity to learn about different approaches and receive support while implementing new ideas. They will interact regularly throughout the semester to engage in academic discourse and share successes and challenges with integrating a new practice into their classes. Each Community of Practice will have the following goals:
Engage in academic discourse with colleagues.
Implement a practice aligned with the topic of the community.
Create an artifact demonstrating the implementation of the practice.
Reflect on the practice and implementation and its impact.
Expectations
Communities of Practice are a semester-long commitment. Individuals in the CoPs will meet regularly over the course of the semester.
The meeting schedule and the frequency of the meetings will depend on the CoP. However, participants should expect to meet for a total of roughly 2 hours each month.
Each CoP will feature a relevant text. Participants will choose how to best apply concepts from the text to their classes. During the regular meetings, participants will discuss the reading and the implementation of the new practice.