Community of Practice Program
What is a COP?
A community of practice is a group of people who share a common concern, a set of problems, or interest in a topic and who come together to fulfill both individual and group goals (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002).
What they are:
- Positive, supportive spaces to discuss lived experiences, successes and challenges, and research
- Forum for open conversation
- Dependent on your contributions
What they are not:
- A workshop with a defined expert
- Informed or reliant on one voice
- Highly structured
What is the time commitment and overarching structure of a COP?
- The COP will run for one semester (4 months) with the possibility of extending into the following semester – based on the community’s interests and goals.
- The COPs will meet four to six times throughout the semester.
- The COP will begin with an organizational meeting co-facilitated with a CAE staff member. For most communities, the remainder of the sessions will be led by the chair and/or co-chair of the community.
What are the possible outcomes of a COP?
- Promote personal and professional growth by creating opportunities for mentoring, coaching, and self-reflection.
- Connect people who might not otherwise have the opportunity to interact.
- Identify solutions to common problems while collecting, evaluating, or creating best practices.
- Generate new knowledge or disseminate existing knowledge: we encourage COPs to share their experiences or project findings through NC Spotlight, CAE workshops – which will involve completing additional call for proposals – or publishing in educational, scholarly journals and/or conferences.
Proposing a COP
We’re interested in what you’re interested in! Each spring, the CAE will send out a call for proposals where interested faculty members can propose chairing or co-chairing a community. Feel free to submit a proposal with a colleague to chair a community together. New COPs will be announced and opened for registration each fall. Additionally, the CAE will propose and chair one COP per term. Please read on for more detailed information about the program.
Interested in chairing a COP?
The CAE will assist you every step of the way. The first step is just submitting your idea and commitment to chairing or co-chairing the COP by filling out a short survey. We’ve detailed some of our shared responsibilities below.
CAE Responsibilities:
- Advertising the Community of Practice
- Registering participants and confirming ideal times for first meeting
- Booking space for meetings (face to face, online, and hybrid formats are available)
- Co-facilitating the first meeting of the COP
- Providing ongoing support for the facilitator(s) of the community of practice (voluntary consultations regarding management, research or SoTL projects, technical assistance).
- Providing a mid-term and end-of-year feedback survey at be shared with facilitator(s)
- Providing an end-of-year lunch
Chair Responsibilities:
- Maintaining a list of members
- Assessing the health of the community by tracking membership and activities, and communicating with members (attend and lead/ chair).
- Attend and facilitate all meetings
- Meeting minutes
- Facilitate the sharing of resources
- Reviewing and sharing mid-term survey feedback data
COP Member Responsibilities:
- Attend and participate in scheduled meetings
- Contribute to developing and meeting the vision and goals of the community of practice
- Contribute to the co-creation of meeting agendas, topics, and resources
Examples of COP topics at other institutions
- Explore the University of British Columbia’s COPs: http://ctlt.ubc.ca/programs/communities-of-practice/
- Explore the University of Guelph’s COPS: https://opened.uoguelph.ca/en/instructors/communities-of-practice.asp
Interested in submitting an idea for a COP?
Even if you can’t commit to chairing a COP right now, we always welcome your ideas. Please email Kate Wiley at [email protected].