Presentation at Higher Education Academy Conference, July 2017 Co-authored with Alex Wilson and Chris Wilson

1. Evaluating the effects of a
Community of Practice on teaching
Higher Education Academy Conference, July 2017
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/sbe/contact/
Gabi Witthaus, Alex Wilson, Chris Wilson
School of Business & Economics

2. Overview
 Background
 How the CoP was established and implemented
 Level of participation and how participation varied
across different types of academics
 Perceptions of participants and non-participants
 Impact on teaching practice, and how this differed
across different types of academics
 Update – linking CoP to action research

3. Motivation
 Enhancing teaching standards is more important
than ever with the advent of higher tuition fees,
increased sector competition and regulation.
Image by Pieter Pieterse on Flickr, CC-BY-NC-SA

4. However…
Pressure on
academics to
undertake other
activities is
increasing… so
they have less
time to develop
and share good
teaching
practice.
Image by Cory Denton on Flickr, CC-BY

5. Background
‘Communities of
Practice’ (CoPs) allow
participants to share
common concerns to
fulfil individual and group
goals (Lave and Wenger
1991; Wenger et al.
2002).
Image by laurent on Flickr, CC-BY-NC-SA

6. Evolution of CoP approach
1. CoPs arise spontaneously (1990s to present)
2. CoPs are deliberately set up and managed/
facilitated (2000s to present)
3. Individuals participate in a ’landscape of practice’
across multiple CoPs (2014 to present)
(Omidvar & Kislov, 2014)

7. CoPs in Higher Education
 In HE, CoPs have been employed to stimulate dialogue to
enhance teaching practice
 Lindkvist (2005); Roberts (2006); MacKenzie (2010).
 Benefits of CoPs for participants: Collegiality, dialogue,
sharing of knowledge, social learning and collaboration
 Nixon & Brown (2013); Ward & Selvester (2012); McDonald et al.
(2008); Mayne et al. (2015)
 Institutional culture change – practitioner-led innovation
 Almond & Haugham (2015)

8. Need for evidence
 Evidence documenting the impact of CoPs on
teaching practice remains scarce.
 This project established a CoP comprising face-to-
face events, together with online resources.
 The project was conducted within the School of
Business and Economics (SBE), a Triple-
Accredited business school with over 140
academic staff and 3,500 students.

9. Method – establishing the CoP
 Three face-to-face CoP sessions involving buffet lunch,
presentations on teaching experiences or topics by
experienced staff, and open discussion.
 Online resources were also provided (video recordings,
audio podcasts, presentation slides and a discussion board
for further interaction):
 i)Teaching to Large Groups (May 2015)
 ii) Feedback and Assessment in Large Groups (Oct 2015)
 iii) Engaging Students in Large Groups (Feb 2016)

10. Method – surveys
 ‘Exit Survey’: After each event, new participants (offline
and online) were surveyed to assess their perceptions.
 ‘Impact Survey’: Three months after the last event, all
participants were surveyed to measure how the CoP had
influenced their teaching practice.
 ‘Non-Participant Survey’: In April 2016, all non-
participants were surveyed to assess their perceptions.
 The latter two surveys were conducted online with a £50
Amazon voucher prize draw.
 Additional demographic data collected for staff members.

11. Analysis - participation
 33% of staff participated in the CoP online or offline.
 Out of all participants, 68% interacted only offline, 17%
only online, and 15% both offline and online.
 Online, presentation slides were accessed the most– then
discussion boards, and video and audio recordings.
 Significant effects of rank on participation: 47% of all
lecturers and senior lecturers participated, while only 7% of
all readers and professors participated.
 Weaker effects - less likely to attend if part-time, submitted
to the last REF, or if they been at L’boro for a longer time.

12. Analysis - perceptions
 86% - ‘likely or very likely’ to participate again
 81% - would encourage another colleague to attend
 66% - likely to use something that they had learned from
the CoP
 CoP found to be most relevant for encouraging staff to:
 talk about teaching to their colleagues,
 seek support from their colleagues,
 try novel ideas.
 Common reasons for non-participation: too busy or other
commitments.

13. Analysis - impact
 51% of participants responded to the ‘Impact Survey’
 58% reported an ‘impact’ – use of material and/or ideas
from the CoP to support their teaching.
 Most popular forms of impact: rethinking my teaching
approach (29%), updating my teaching skills (25%), and
designing new material (25%).
 Common reasons for no impact: lack of time/ opportunity.
 Overall, 71% agreed that the CoP had led them to think
differently.

14. Analysis - impact
 Lecturer participants significantly more likely to report an
impact than senior lecturer participants.
 Hence, staff of higher rank seem less likely to both
participate and report an impact.
 Weaker effects - staff with fewer research interests are
more likely to report an impact (e.g. T+S staff, and staff
that were not submitted to the last REF).
 Remains a challenge to engage a broader range of staff.

15. 2017 Update – Action Research in CoPs:
the Beachball Model
Gabi Witthaus & Keith Pond, CABS LTSE 2017 (Inspired by Weller, 2016)

16. Sample Action Research Questions
1. What actions do my students take as a result of
the feedback I give them?
2. In what ways does the provision of Lecture
Capture affect my students’ learning?
3. What factors related to my teaching make my
students feel more included?
4. What impact does group work skills training have
on the outcomes of group work?
5. What do my students understand by
‘independent learning’?

17. Gabi Witthaus: g.r.witthaus@lboro.ac.uk
Chris Wilson: c.m.wilson@lboro.ac.uk
Alex Wilson: a.wilson8@lboro.ac.uk
Image by Orin Zebest on Flickr, CC-BY
Contact

18. References
 Almond, N. & Haughan, P., 2015. Leading the University wide development of learning and teaching using a network of
communities of practice. The Business & Management Review, 6(5), p.2015. Available at:
http://search.proquest.com/openview/ad4fd28e6755ddb436fab9362a89dcf7/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2026610.
 Lave J., Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and
Computational Perspectives). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Lindkvist, L. (2005). Knowledge Communities and Knowledge Collectivities: A Typology of Knowledge Work in Groups*. Journal
of Management Studies, 42(6), pp. 1189-1210.
 MacKenzie, J., Bell, S., Bohan, J., Brown, A., Burke, J., Cogdell, B., Jamieson, S., McAdam, J., McKerlie, R., Morrow, L.,
Paschke, B., Rea, P. and Tierney, A., (2010). ‘From anxiety to empowerment: a Learning Community of University Teachers’, in
Teaching in Higher Education, 15(3), pp. 273-284.
 Mayne, W., Andrew, N., Drury, C., Egan, I., Leitch, A. & Malone, M. (2013). “There’s more unites us than divides us!’ A further and
higher education community of practice in nursing. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 39(2), pp.163–179.
 McDonald, J.Collins, P., Hingst, R.D. & Lynch, B. (2008). Community learning: Members’ stories about their academic community
of practice, in Engaging Communities. Engaging Communities; 31st HERDSA Annual Conference, (March 2016), p.10.
 Nixon, S. & Brown, S. (2013). A community of practice in action: SEDA as a learning community for educational developers in
higher education. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 50(4), pp.357–365.
 Omidvar, O. & Kislov, R. (2014). The Evolution of the Communities of Practice Approach. Journal of Management Inquiry, 23(3),
pp.266–275. Available at: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1056492613505908.
 Roberts, J., (2006). ‘Limits to Communities of Practice’, in Journal of Management Studies, 43(3), pp. 623-639.
 Ward, H.C. & Selvester, P.M. (2012). Faculty learning communities: improving teaching in higher education. Educational Studies,
38(1), pp.111–121.
 Weller, S., (2016). Academic Practice: Developing as a Professional in Higher Education. London: Sage.
 Wenger, E., McDermott, R.A. and Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge.
Boston: Harvard Business Press.

19. Licence
This presentation, excluding the images, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Please see individual images for attribution and licence information.
Presentation on Slideshare:
http://tinyurl.com/witthaus-slides-hea2017