A Community of Practice for
Professionals? How Come?
For decades, professionals were absent
from some sort of professional development (PD) in which the sharing of ideas,
practices, and/or methodology was null. However, the start of the new
millennium witnessed the rebirth and strengthening of “the Communities of
Practice” (COP), where members generate, apply, and reproduce the “process of
Knowledge” (Hoadley 2012). By joining a COP, whose ultimate goal is “to share
practices” (Hoadley 2012), participants can keep themselves current in their
fields and join a community in pro of learning.
Many young, recently-graduated
professionals, as well as people who have been in a field for many years, find
themselves dealing with the paradox of not needing additional PD. According to
Arturo Muñoz, Academic Director at Centro Cultural Costarricense-Norteamericano
(A. Muñoz, personal communication, January 27, 2014), graduate education is not
enough to enter and survive in the job marketplace; it becomes the pillar for
one’s professional development. Yet, some professionals believe that they can
stand tall by themselves in their fields without the aid of PD. Due to the lack
of encouragement by professional affiliations, members do not feel committed to
long-life learning assuming that their college education along with his gained
professional experience is enough to perform their job-related activities with
a high quality standard. Paradoxically, the no need of extra PD can lead to
highly-qualified workers to some sort of “isolation” in their fields and to an
ongoing outdate practice.
When becoming an active member of a
Community of Practice, any professional can keep current in any given field. As
pointed out by EDUCASE, a non-profit association whose mission is to advance
higher education (2014), “organizations, workgroups, teams, and individuals
must work together in new ways.” A COP can help professionals to work cooperatively
with many other colleagues; through this exchange with career partners, experts
and neophytes can be updated by learning from new trends and published
materials shared among members. Furthermore, the Community of Practice as a
whole can have access or even create their own curated topics online, which
will lead them towards sites and experts with specialized information in their
fields of expertise. Through this data, COP members can –for sure- spot new
trends in their fields in terms of new approaches or methods that can remodel
their way of doing things and change them into more effective ways of work and
performance.
A Community of Practice becomes a
Community of Learning (COL) in the short run. According to the Harvard Business
School (2002, March 22), what makes a COP “successful over time is their
ability to generate enough excitement, relevance, and value” is “to attract and
engage members;” this is conveniently accomplished by turning the COP into a
Community of Learning. A Community of Practice working as a COL will allow
members to share ideas. Harvard Business School (2002, March 22) also points
out that this sharing of knowledge can be attained by opening “a dialogue
between inside and outside perspectives” and by inviting “different levels of
participation.” These “levels of participation” can lead a COL to share their
findings, experiences, perspectives, and ideas in their work field for the sake
of all members. A Community of Practice is indeed a way to remind professionals
that nobody knows it all and that everybody knows something that can contribute
to make their working performance more efficient and topnotch.
As outlined here, the traditional view
that “as soon as I graduate from college, I don’t need any more PD” is
radically wrong. A Community of Practice is the best way to keep professionals
updated and learning from other colleagues. A COP/COL is indeed the cornerstone
for any professional’s PLN (Professional Learning Network) that can ensure PD,
ongoing learning, and broadening of new opportunities and working niches. As
stated by Acuña (2013, June 9), the best of a Community of Practice is “the
potential it has for sharing and learning.”
Works Cited
Acuña, J.
(2013, June 9). Reflective Online Teaching: Community of Practice. Reflective Online
Teaching: Communit of Practice. Retrieved January 31, 2014,
from http://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.com/search/label/Community%20of%20Practice
EDUCASE (2014) Community of Practice Design
Guide. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/nli0531.pdf
Harvard
Business School (2002, March 22) Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge - Seven Principles for
Cultivating Communities of Practice [Review of the book Seven
principles for cultivating communities of practice] Harvard Business School.
Retrieved from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/2855.html
Hoadley, C. (2012). What is a community of
practice and how can we support it? In D. H. Jonassen & S. M. Land (Eds.), Theoretical
foundations of learning environments (Second ed., pp. 287-300). New York:
Routledge