ALTC fellowship focuses on communities of practice

A USQ academic has been awarded an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) fellowship focused on communities of practice within higher education.

USQ Learning and Teaching Enhancement Senior Lecturer Dr Jacquie McDonald recently hosted an event for 30 attendees to mark the beginning of her 12 month ALTC fellowship, Community, domain, practice: facilitator’s catch-cry for revitalising learning and teaching through communities of practice.

'CoPs (Communities of Practice) are groups of people who share a concern or passion about a topic and interact on an ongoing basis to deepen their knowledge and expertise,' Dr McDonald said.

While they are popular in the corporate world, Dr McDonald has adapted the key elements for the higher education context.

Dr McDonald and her colleague Dr Cassandra Star began the first CoP at USQ, gathering teachers from first year business courses.

'The nature of the degree meant there were teachers from many disciplines teaching the same cohort, but there was no existing mechanism to share their practice or build a learning community,' she said.

There are now 22 CoPs at USQ, allowing academics and professional staff to share resources and develop support networks. Dr McDonald believes the mentoring nature of the meetings is one of the most positive things about CoPs, giving many academics the confidence to use their ideas to apply for grants and awards.

According to Dr McDonald, CoPs are quite different from institutional meetings, as the agenda is driven from the bottom up.

'There is a time for sharing practice, a time for community building and a time for developing the domain knowledge,' she said.

'If the issue of the meeting is assessment, for example, we will have someone from within the community, or an outside expert, speak to the group.'

There is also no formal hierarchy within CoPs, explains Dr McDonald, with leadership opportunities shared between members. The first stage of her fellowship will see Dr McDonald working with facilitators of CoPs to develop their facilitator capacity through engagement in workshop activities.

'CoPs are recognised as a successful way of building and sharing a scholarly approach to enhancing learning and teaching practice,' she said.

'I’m really looking forward to the next few months as the ALTC Fellowship provides time to work closely with CoP facilitators.'

For more information on ALTC grants, awards and fellowships, please visit www.altc.edu.au