Leveraging a Community of Practice to Build Faculty Resilience and Support Innovations in Teaching during a Time of Crisis
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. Communities of Practice in a Higher Education Context
1.2. Design and Evolution of the Sustainability Curriculum Community of Practice
2. Theory and Methods: Understanding, Evolving, and Assessing the Value of the CoP
2.1. Emergent Learning Framework
2.2. Value Creation Framework
- To what extent did faculty report changes in their knowledge, motivation, and sense of connection through their participation in the CoP?
- In what ways did faculty apply their learnings from the CoP to modify their course or program?
- In what ways did faculty apply their learnings from the CoP to catalyze institutional level changes?
- In what ways do faculty experiences align with the Wenger-Trayner cycles of value framework?
3. Results
3.1. Emergent Learning: CoP Optimization and Adaptation to Support Faculty during the COVID-19 Pandemic
3.2. Analysis of Value Creation through a CoP
3.2.1. Shared Purpose and Connection as a Precursor to Meaningful Sharing (Immediate Value)
“The Green Launchpad was an amazing launchpad to kick it off, and the fact that we met in person, I think it’s what sustained the Community of Practice, it’s much harder to do it when you’ve never met in person.”
“I think that is intrinsic to the nature of a Community of Practices that you have this sense of shared purpose. And so, because there’s a sense of shared purpose, you have a sense that you’re there to help your peers also achieve that sense of purpose.”
Faculty: In terms of emotional support, it’s [the CoP] been great. In terms of real details, everyone’s really open, just shares everything. And so, that’s been fantastic.
Interviewer: So, there’s that level of comfort…?
Faculty: Oh yeah. They’re really generous, would just give away anything that they had made…. Like a syllabus, an idea. And then, there’s been great connections…[Now] I have these ideas and now I have some actual resources behind them.
3.2.2. Variability in Individual Strengths, Challenges, and Experiences to Enhance Group Resilience (Potential Value)
I didn’t know, probably everything I should have known to help prepare E-Teams and especially the younger students, right? So how do I plan that into not only my curriculum, but [also] provide the external supports that those students need, right?
The Community of Practice is really nice because you realize that different participants that you’re working with have different strengths and weaknesses. And there’s always great ideas that you can steal from other people. So I think they’re really good for that because even if it’s just one part of it, there’s different clever pieces that people have that make it really useful.
For me the greatest benefit is… I don’t know what I don’t know. And if I’m just talking to people on my campus, that gets to be a bit of an echo chamber. So it’s nice when I’m talking to people spread across the US to get an idea of what they’re doing and the tools that they’re using and resources they have. The people that they contact on their campus when they have questions or issues. And it’s those kinds of things where I wouldn’t know the questions to ask, but just being part of that conversation. I’m like, “Oh, there’s a little golden nugget that fell out. I can do that here or maybe I cannot do that here but modify that for something else.
The student examples have been helpful to me…[because] I never knew what a student project could really look like, or should look like, what level is appropriate….all of the faculty who are involved really do have different expertise themselves… and they have all different experiences and how they’ve built student teams, the kind of projects they worked on, the way they’ve structured their courses….So just hearing all these different strategies to motivate students, help them emotionally work through this, in their teams to build successful teams with different personality types. To make everyone feel really welcome in the team. It’s just been really helpful to just see everyone’s accumulated experience and distill that into like, okay, what do I think is going to work for us?
3.2.3. Consistent Structure and Cadence Foster Accountability and Sustained Momentum (Applied and Realized Value)
“The community of practice is amazing, because suddenly, there is accountability and pacing.”
I think the other thing too was making people [CoP members] think about it [the topics] in advance…then also the expectation that you’re going to show up to help other people. It was very clear that we were going to first talk about what we needed and then everyone else was going to help us with what we needed and there was an opportunity and almost a responsibility for everyone to be able to do that on every call with varying levels of depth, depending on what we all had to contribute. I think that was a big part of it.
It’s a little bit of…implicit peer pressure…[you’re]…always thinking like oh okay, I might not do much this month because I’m busy with other things, but on the other hand, I want to be able to share something with the group, so it’s like, might as well do something and not push it for next month. So that’s in a sense, accountability and because the meetings were regular, that creates the pacing because it’s predictable…
I will tell you that sustained interaction is extremely important…. And I think it’s probably more meaningful than even participants understand because it provides the accountability measure, it provides the sort of guide on the side…[And] you have two great facilitators that have a lot of really good ideas, [and] are super enthusiastic.
Interviewer: You’ve mentioned having ways to collaborate was one of the things you learned in the community of practice. [Did you mean] having ways to collaborate in a virtual platform?
Faculty: Yeah….We’ve been learning in our community of practice about various tools you can use for [collaboration]… We brainstorm with students in person and they just put post-it notes on a whiteboard and made notes. And so we’ve learned some ways to translate that into the online environment.
“So the students really liked it and I think there were a couple of factors that went into that. One, I really pushed them to figure it out. They felt like they were doing something towards a real world solution and knowing that we had the incubator, they were competing for the incubator. They all really hustled to try to get there. So I think that was a big part of it.”
3.3. Case Studies
3.3.1. Case Study: Western Colorado University
- Repeated failure evolves our thinking and progresses our ideas.
- Creativity, ingenuity, and innovativeness are learned skills, not inborn gifts.
- Do not expect anyone to know the answer to your questions.
- Be solutions-oriented but ensure that you fully understand the problem first.
- Maintain integrity despite uncertainty.
- Be ready to adapt, pivot, and become more resilient.
- Trust each other and our intentions.
- Let play and curiosity guide our actions.
3.3.2. Case Study: University of Florida
3.3.3. Case Study: San José State University
3.3.4. Case Study: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
- “How might we help Portia, professor of film, to disseminate knowledge and sustain research projects?
- “How might we help Michael, freshwater sciences, to encourage his collaborators to take the risk to embrace new big ideas?”
- “How might we help Bob, urban planning, to engage and empower community members to advocate for their own safety in their neighborhoods?”
- To identify collaborators/establish and maintain relationships.
- To create a network/connect disciplines/establish collaborative environment.
- To drum up interest/disseminate knowledge/reach more students.
- To transform industry/engage community members.
- To find time/secure funding.
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Mead, T.; Pietsch, C.; Matthew, V.; Lipkin-Moore, S.; Metzger, E.; Avdeev, I.V.; Ruzycki, N.J. Leveraging a Community of Practice to Build Faculty Resilience and Support Innovations in Teaching during a Time of Crisis. Sustainability 2021, 13, 10172. https://doi.org/10.3390/su131810172
Mead T, Pietsch C, Matthew V, Lipkin-Moore S, Metzger E, Avdeev IV, Ruzycki NJ. Leveraging a Community of Practice to Build Faculty Resilience and Support Innovations in Teaching during a Time of Crisis. Sustainability. 2021; 13(18):10172. https://doi.org/10.3390/su131810172
Chicago/Turabian StyleMead, Taryn, Carlie Pietsch, Victoria Matthew, Surbhi Lipkin-Moore, Ellen Metzger, Ilya V. Avdeev, and Nancy J. Ruzycki. 2021. "Leveraging a Community of Practice to Build Faculty Resilience and Support Innovations in Teaching during a Time of Crisis" Sustainability 13, no. 18: 10172. https://doi.org/10.3390/su131810172