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HOW TO BUILD LASTING COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE FOR EDUCATION
Lessons from the Field from projects on building communities of practice for inclusive STEM and STEAM teaching
Communities of practice stimulate (…) collaboration and knowledge sharing. They are an excellent instrument for fostering collaboration among internal and external stakeholders: they can bring groups with different knowledge perspectives together and can strengthen their capacity to work and learn creatively together. Thus, communities of practice harness the collective intelligence in organisations and help improve performance (Joint Research Centre, 2021).
Yet building a sound community of practice that will withstand the changing trends of education and succeed in engaging its members for the long term is challenging.
To reflect on best practice, exchange knowledge and co-create for strong CoPs, the SpicE EU funded project in partnership with Scientix® hosted “Navigating Communities of Practice”, a closed-door online event that brought together six projects from across Europe. Their shared focus: how to build, sustain, and meaningfully support CoPs that promote inclusive STEM and STEAM teaching.
The projects included STEAMBRACE, STREAM IT, NBS Academy, STEM Hùsavìk, STEAM Learning Ecologies, and were hosted by Scientix and SpicE. Although their approaches, target audiences and scopes varied, these projects shared the common challenge of designing meaningful communities for their members. What emerged was a space for honest and open reflection on both what works and what doesn’t. Participants discussed their success stories, identified shared obstacles and reflected on their individual strategies to create engaging CoPs.
We summarise the key conclusions from the workshop below, please consult the full summary for more details:
- The measure of the impact of a CoP should be linked to the community’s purpose.
- Early leadership and structure matter but must evolve towards shared ownership.
- To achieve your CoP’s ambitions, be adaptable.
- Clarity and coordination help prevent fragmentation.
Do you want to learn more? Read the full summary for more insights from the discussion.