Virtual Communities of Practice (VCoPs): Engaging Faculty in the Scholarship of Teaching

1
Virtual Communities of Practice (VCoPs)Engaging
Faculty in the Scholarship of Teaching

• Joanne Gikas
• S. J. (Sandy) Schaeffer, III
• Advanced Learning CenterFedEx Institute of
  TechnologyUniversity of Memphishttp//alc.memphi
  s.edu
• 901.678.4191

2
Why are we interested in pursuing Communities of
Practice?

• Practical
• Encouraging behavior-modification in faculty
  around the notion of classroom innovation in
  support of The Scholarship of Teaching
• Research/Theoretical (1) Understanding what
  factors encourage faculty to actively participate
  in a CoP experience and(2) Beginning to
  understand and address sustainability issues
  relating to VCoPs.

3
Desired Take-Aways

• That reinvigorating the classroom experience is a
  valuable goal and should be a top priority of
  instructional technology support at our colleges
  and universities
• That CoPs (and more precisely, VCoPs) can be
  effectively implemented as a useful means of
  assisting faculty in their professional
  development efforts related to classroom
  innovation

4
The Scholarship of Teaching

• Scholarship is not an esoteric appendage it
  is at the heart of what the profession is all
  about and to weaken faculty commitment for
  scholarship is to undermine the undergraduate
  experience, regardless of the academic setting.
• But the reality is that, on far too many
  campuses, teaching is not well rewarded, and
  faculty who spend too much time counseling and
  advising students may diminish their prospects
  for tenure and promotionthe most important
  obligation now confronting the nations colleges
  and universities is to break out of the tired old
  teaching.
• Earnest Boyer, Scholarship Reconsidered
  Priorities of the ProfessoriateCarnegie
  Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

5
Reinventing the Classroom
6
What is a VCoP?

• An online community that resembles real-life
  grass-roots associations of people
• Churches, Synagogues
• Community Centers
• A place where people go to share ideas, network,
  build relationships and discuss matters of
  individual interest. In our case, the focal point
  is educational strategies.

7
Examples of VCoPs
8
ALC Technology Fellowship Program
https//umdrive.memphis.edu/g-tfp/www/

• 10 faculty, 10 different academic areas and
  backgrounds
• Working around a common theme (instructional
  technology skills)
• Extended cohort period (12 months)
• Busy, fragmented schedules dictating a need to
  operate asynchronously
• Need to exchange ideas and collaborate in a
  highly-transparent, information-rich manner
• Participated in NLIIs VCoP pilot research
  initiative using iCohere platform

9
FIPP/CLIIhttp//www.fipp.net

• Multiple schools (Vanderbilt, UoM, Northwestern,
  Texas AM, UT Austin, et al).
• Common theme A VCoP about developing and
  maintaining VCoPs.
• Initial face-to-face component addressed through
  IP-based video-conferencing.
• Developing an open-source VCoP platform as a
  side-project within the larger community
  development effort.
• Enriches and extends UoMs VCoP learning efforts.

10
Benefits of a VCoP
11
Benefits

• Opportunities for collaboration between,
  faculty, instructional designers, support staff
  and even students.
• Professional development opportunities include
  staying on top of current instructional
  methodologies, educational research.

12
Building a VCoP
13
Components to making a VCoP work

• Ownership and impetus from within the academic
  community should not be IT-led.
• A core population of IT-savvy people from the
  faculty and research community that have an
  interest in and passion for experimenting with
  emerging technologies to transform academic
  activity within and across disciplines.
• A sound IT infrastructure including pervasive
  access to high-speed Internet connection, a
  positive IT/academic partnership environment, and
  a campus culture conducive to pushing the
  envelope to produce transformative change.

14
Additional Success Factors

• Motivated tech-savvy subgroup within your local
  academic community.
• Appropriate IT-infrastructure (broad-based
  high-speed Internet, IP-based videoconferencing
  program at the desktop, ongoing support
  structure, etc.)
• Visible nucleus project from the academic
  community that indicates a strong benefit from
  VCoP resources. It should be large-enough to have
  value, yet small enough to not become
  cumbersome.
• A culture within the academic community that can
  assume long-term ownership of a launched VCoP
  initiative.

15
Synthesizing the Experience(Open dialog)

• What can be taken away from the use of a VCoP?
• How can it benefit
• Faculty?
• Support Staff?
• Students?
• What are your local experiences?

16
Close-Out and Follow-Up

• Joanne Gikasjgikas_at_memphis.edu901.678.5958
• S. J. (Sandy) Schaeffersandy.schaeffer_at_memphis.e
  du901.678.5715
• Advanced Learning Centeralc_at_memphis.eduhttp//a
  lc.memphis.edu901.678.4191

17
Bibliography

• Advanced Learning Center Technology Fellowship
  Program at the University of Memphis
  http//alc.memphis.edu/tfp.html
• FIPP Website Project Portal
  http//www.fipp.net/
• New Media Consortium (NMC), 2004 Horizon
  Reporthttp//www.nmc.org/pdf/200420Horizon20R
  eport.pdf
• NLII Annual Review, New Learning
  Ecosysystemshttp//www.educause.edu/ir/library/
  pdf/NLI0405.pdf
• NLII (National Learning Infrastructure
  Initiative) VCoP websitehttp//www.educause.edu/
  vcop/
• NLII Resources Readingshttp//www.educause.edu
  /nlii/keythemes/virtualcommunities.aspresources/

18
Understanding Concrete Examples of CoPsGroup
exercise

• Break the audience into groups of 2-4 depending
  upon size and number them A, B, C.
• Assign them one of the following three scenarios
• Rural church in a Nebraska farming community
• Publicly-supported urban community center in an
  ethnic neighborhood
• Online Blog related to preservation of the native
  wolf  population in North America
• Answer the following questions
• What characteristics help you classify them as a
  CoP?
• What are their primary success factors?
• What are the sustainability factors that keep
  them going?
• What are the risks to their continuance?
• Do they lend themselves to VCoPs?  If so, then
  what changes would you recommend in a VCoP
  environment to maintain their success as a CoP?