4. Creating Community: One Institution’s Experience With Communities of Practice

Abstract

This article examines the use and benefits of communities of practice (CoPs) in academic settings. In the 2010-2011 academic year Teaching Support Services at Wilfrid Laurier University introduced four theme-based CoPs for faculty and academic support staff after a successful pilot initiative. This article explores our motivation for focusing our programming efforts on CoPs and our anticipated outcomes of the project. We highlight the successes and challenges as well as share survey data and participant feedback on their experience. Central to the article as well as our philosophy is the idea that “good talk about good teaching” (Palmer, 1993) can prompt personal reflection about one’s teaching and meaningful exchange between colleagues.