At the Mid-America PTTC, we believe prevention is better together and that together we are stronger.
It is that belief that has inspired us to launch our new Communities of Practice Series (CoP) for our Mid-America region. There are three different CoP series all designed to provide a platform for our workforce professionals to share personal inquiries, case studies, network with professionals, or to support each other.
What are Communities of Practice?
A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who share a common concern, a set of problems, or an interest in a topic and who come together to fulfill both individual and group goals.
Communities of practice often focus on sharing best practices and creating new knowledge to advance a domain of professional practice. Interaction on an ongoing basis is an important part of this.
Why are they important?
Communities of practice provide five critical functions.
Educate by collecting and sharing information related to questions and issues of practice
Support by organizing interactions and collaboration among members
Cultivate by assisting groups to start and sustain their learning
Encourage by promoting the work of members through discussion and sharing
Integrate by encouraging members to use their new knowledge for real change in their own work.
Communities of practice are an important professional learning strategy because they have the potential to:
Connect people who might not otherwise have the opportunity to interact, either as frequently or at all.
Provide a shared context for people to communicate and share information, stories, and personal experiences in a way that builds understanding and insight.
Enable dialogue between people who come together to explore new possibilities, solve challenging problems, and create new, mutually beneficial opportunities.
Stimulate learning by serving as a vehicle for authentic communication, mentoring, coaching, and self-reflection.
Capture and share existing knowledge to help people improve their practice by providing a forum to identify solutions to common problems and a process to collect and evaluate best practices.
Introduce collaborative processes to groups and organizations to encourage the free flow of ideas and exchange of information.
Help people organize around purposeful actions that develop tangible results.
Generate new knowledge to help people transform their practice to accommodate changes in needs and technologies.
The professional learning needs are changing. Communities of practice offer a robust strategy for professional learning. Here is why:
Complex problems require more implicit knowledge, which cannot be codified.
Implicit knowledge can only be shared through conversations and observation.
Collaborative and distributed work is becoming the norm.
Knowledge sharing and narration of work make implicit knowledge more visible.
New ideas come from diverse networks, often from outside the organization.
Learning is part of work, not separate from it. Communities of practice enable the integration of work and learning.
The value of communities of practice is in the depth of participants’ reflection and inquiry, and how they put co-created knowledge to action in their local community.
Learn more and register for each of our CoP series:
