Community of Practice in the Context of the Rapid Transition to Online Learning at a Rural University in South Africa: Successes and Pitfalls

Abstract

The purpose of this reflective paper is to give an account of how we managed to navigate online learning and teaching amid the COVID-19 pandemic to enhance students’ learning at a rural university in South Africa. The aim is to share our experiences on how we used community of practice as a theory to support ourselves as lecturers in designing, accessing, and engaging with online content amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the paper details the successes and pitfalls encountered in trying to adjust to the online mode of delivery. The paper makes use of qualitative self-reflexive personal narrative inquiry. Community of practice theory and connectivist theory guide our reflections. We succeeded not only in helping each other navigate the e-learning platform but our working relationships also improved as well as our skills. Through use of community of practice and connectivism, we managed, not without difficulties, to migrate content online, to engage meaningfully with our students, and to network with other lecturers. We recommend adoption of community of practice by lecturers even beyond the pandemic since it promotes knowledge- and skill-sharing, and networking, thereby easing lecturers’ burden and fears. Furthermore, community of practice encourages scholars to share their work in the form of scholarship of teaching and learning.

Motivation strategies for enhancing teacher performance and wellness in post-COVID-19 rural South African schools

“…Teachers' suggestion from this finding is that there should be social interactions in the form of groups (community of practice) where teachers share ideas, and help each other to solve problems to do with teaching and learning as well as personal and professional related issues. This confirms what was established by Marongwe and Chisango (2022) that community of practice groups helped employees during the COVID-19 pandemic and that should be encouraged post-COVID-19. In support of that finding, Seppälä and Cameron (2015) indicate that various empirical studies acknowledge that positive social connections at work produce highly desirable results and reduce stress and that employers should be compassionate towards employees.…”