helferich/pleil: communities of practice and higher education

Communities of Practice and Higher Education Social Media 2015, 10-12 April 2015 / HongKong

Pia Sue Helferich & Thomas Pleil

About

▪  Pia Sue Helferich

▪  Consultant E-Business-Lotse Darmstadt-Dieburg (Competence Center for Social Media & E-Learning)

▪  PhD Candidate

▪  @pshelferich, ebusinessinfo.de

▪  Prof. Dr. Thomas Pleil

▪  Director Institute for Communication & Media

▪  Head of study program Online Communication (B.Sc.)

▪  @tp_da, thomaspleil.wordpress.com, mediencampus.h-da.de

Helferich / Pleil 2015

Agenda

Introduction Higher Education

and Lifelong Learning

Communities of Practice in Higher

Education

Case Study: Connecting

Students with External

Communities of Practice

Conclusion


Introduction

▪  Universities: education as self-contained phases

▪  Further qualification: responsibility of the employer and the employees

▪  Employees’ challenge: continuous development of qualifications (Gornik & Tomaschek, 2011)

è Universities have to prepare for informal and lifelong learning

Example

Type

Formal Education

School / University

Informal Learning

Communities of Practice Reading

Formal Learning

Courses / Trainings

Life-long Learning

Global Knowledge society


Lifelong Learning

▪  The ongoing (re)qualification of practitioners: lifelong learning

▪  Lifelong learning: “purposeful learning, occurring among adults on an ongoing basis with the aim of improving skills or acquiring knowledge or competencies” (Head, Van Hoeck, & Garson, 2015)

▪  Lifelong learning can occur in the workplace, personal or civic life (Head et al., 2015)


▪  Permanent changes and new requirements in the job demand to keep up-to-date (Arnold & Rohs, 2014)

▪  Changing jobs during career requires broadening expertise

▪  Ongoing education and training of employees as a key competitive factor for companies (Jongbloed, 2002, p. 416)

Relevance of Lifelong learning

▪  Students have to get prepared for fast changing environments & knowledge (Jongbloed, 2002)

▪  Universities should convey skills and methods to handle this (Jongbloed, 2002)

è  Students have to shape individual learning environments

▪  Higher Education has to respond to these changes and to the continuous need for lifelong learning (Jongbloed, 2002).


Communities of Practice & Higher Education (1)

▪  Communities of Practice (CoPs) (Wenger, 1998) as an answer to the need for lifelong learning

▪  CoPs can be defined as “groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise” (Wenger, 2000, p.139).

▪  Educational scholars have transferred the concept of CoPs to Higher Education for example for architecture classes (Morton, 2012). Huge body of research dealing with Higher Education and CoPs (Lea, 2005),

è  Focus: The class or the students themselves form the CoPs.


Communities of Practice & Higher Education (2)

▪  Our Approach: students should also be trained to connect with existing external CoPs within their future profession in order to be prepared for lifelong learning challenges in their future jobs.

è  Learning as a networked process (Siemens, 2005)


Educators‘ Weblog Textdepot

Course Blog PR-

Fundsachen

Social Bookmarks

(Group Archive)

Public Wiki

PR-Wiki

Private Wikis

PR-Blog

PR-Blog

PR-Blog PR-Blog

PR-Blog

PR-Blog (other

students)

Others‘ Bookmarks

PR-Blog (other

students)

IM

Educators‘

Twitter

Communities of Practice in economy (1)

▪  CoPs in companies: most studies focus on internal CoPs

è  Not adequate to all professions

▪  Social media give the opportunity to enrich networking and communication (Koch & Richter, 2008), not only within large organisations but also for smaller organisations and freelancers with professionals in their field


▪  Examples are expert blogs, XING, LinkedIN or Facebook Groups

Communities of Practice in economy (2)

▪  The use of social media leads to a differentiation of CoPs

è  CoP in times of social media may be cross border of organizations, are more self-organized and fluid than traditional CoP

è  Connecting with such CoPs needs special training with web literacy as a basis


Picture: Flickr @Doug Belshaw

Case Study: Hochschule Darmstadt

▪  Programme: Online Journalism, optional focus on Online PR

▪  Challenge: Fields change quickly

▪  Avoid to degree students with yesterday’s knowledge

è  Scientific foundation, project based learning

è  Topic centred usage of social media as a means to participate in CoP

è  CoP on campus



Activities (starting 2005)

▪  (pr-wiki.de: A wiki on PR)

▪  pr-fundsachen.de, a group blog on the future field of occupation (+ FB, Twitter)

▪  Presentations: 5 minutes on a current self-selected topic

▪  Workshops and barcamps: Students’ presentations & live communication

▪  Do-Camps: working together with professionals on a nonprofit project



The students shall learn to

▪  identify experts in their future occupational field

▪  connect with them (following, reading, sharing, publishing, discussing, working together)

▪  identify relevant online places, events & networks with relevant discussions

▪  set up an personal learning environment

▪  identify current topics of their industry

▪  present themselves online (personal branding)


Research Questions

1.  Which networks do graduates use for lifelong learning?

2.  Which effects has the connection with external CoPs during the study programme for lifelong learning? ? ?

? ?

? ? ? ?


Research Methodology

▪  Qualitative interviews with former public relations students

▪  We coded and analysed the interviews with the software package MaxQDA and focused on open as well as process coding (Saldaña, 2013)

▪  From about 170 former students we conducted eight interviews. ▪  Five work in communications

agencies, two are founders of communication agencies ▪  One participant works part time in an

agency and part time as a freelancer for other agencies ▪  We covered six cohorts from the

graduation years 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2007 & 2005. ▪  Participants were 24 to 35 years old

and speak German as their native language ▪  Working area of all participants: online

communication ▪  Fast changing conditions, high

demand for lifelong learning


Findings

We structure our results into two parts according to our leading questions:

1.  networks for lifelong learning and

2.  effects of the connection with CoP in the study programme

Results

Networks for lifelong learning

Effects of the connection with CoP

in the study programme


Networks for lifelong learning: Internal Networks

Networks

Internal Networks

External Networks

Networks of Former Fellow

Students

▪  Six of eight participants build learning networks with their actual working colleagues

▪  All participants said, that they realised the importance of learning on the job on a regular basis

▪  Four former students: face-to-face meetings with presentations and discussions on current development

▪  Strategies learned during the study programme are still being used to stay up-to-date


Networks for LLL: External Networks

1.  Networks with other professionals ▪  Five participants are using social media

extensively to stay in contact with professionals of their field (esp. Twitter, Facebook, XING)

▪  All participants: Social Media shape individual networks, no identification with a traditional CoP.

▪  Four participants: Being part of a web community in general, but no specific CoP

▪  Different approaches in connection with other professionals

▪  Online complements offline connections

2.  Knowledge transfer networks ▪  Four former students noted that they built up a

network of online resources (blogs, export websites etc.) during their study programme, which they still use today

▪  Success factor: trust

Networks

Internal Networks

External Networks

Networks with other

professionals

Knowledge transfer

networks

Networks of Former Fellow

Students


Effects Connecting Students with External CoPs

▪  Three former students noted they learned about the relevance of networks at university

▪  Five participants: the connection with external CoPs via social media and through events had clear effects

▪  Five former students: learned general strategies to participate in networks at all, like the reflection of media usage, being open-minded and to try things like new tools

Effects New Job / Job

Change Faster work

routines Cooperations

in Projekts Staying up-to-

date

Lifelong Learning Networks (external, internal) Strategies


Limitations & Conclusion

▪  Our case study is limited as it refers to a certain study programme and a certain profession, where the need to stay up-to-date might be higher than in other professions

▪  Nevertheless, we think the case study may support didactical considerations, e.g. on the use of social media in education and to help to develop further study programmes

▪  We found some confirmation connecting students with external CoP might improve career opportunities as well as it supports lifelong learning

▪  Our findings on two groups of external networks (relationships and resources) support the idea of network learning (Siemens, 2005)

Future research:

▪  … on other professional fields

▪  … on conditions for acceptance of students within CoPs

▪  …. on the long-term social media usage and details about the learning process itself,

▪  … will have to be on a broader basis in terms of participants


References

▪  Arnold, R., & Rohs, M. (2014). Von der Lernform zur Lebensform. In K. W. Schönherr (Ed.), Lebenslanges Lernen. Wissen und Können als Wohlstandsfaktoren (pp. 21–28). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

▪  Gornik, E., & Tomaschek, N. (2011). Prozesse für Lifelong Learning ermöglichen - eine Kernaufgabe der Universität der Zukunft. In N. Tomaschek (Ed.), The Life-long Learning University (pp. 7–14). Münster, Westf: Waxmann.

▪  Head, A., Van Hoeck, M., & Garson, D. (2015). Lifelong learning in the digital age: A content analysis of recent research on participation. First Monday, 20(2).

▪  Henderson, M. (2015). The (Mis)Use of Community of Practice: Delusion, Confusion, and Instrumentalism in Educational Technology Research. In S. Bulfin, N. F. Johnson, & C. Bigum (Eds.), Critical perspectives on technology and education (pp. 127–140).

▪  Jongbloed, B. (2002). Lifelong Learning: Implications for Institutions. Higher Education, 44(3/4), 413–431. doi:10.1023/A:1019825803857

▪  Koch, M., & Richter, A. (2008). Social-Networking-Dienste im Unternehmenskontext: Grundlagen und Herausforderungen. In A. Zerfass, M. Welker,, & J. Schmidt (Eds.), Kommunikation, Partizipation und Wirkungen im Social Web (Vol. 2 ; Vol. 3, pp. 352–369). Köln: Halem Verlag.

▪  Lea, M. R. (2005). Communities of practice in higher education: useful heuristic or educational model? In D. Barton & K. Tusting (Eds.), Learning in doing. Beyond communities of practice. Language, power, and social context (pp. 180–197). Cambridge, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press.

▪  Morton, J. (2012). Communities of practice in higher education: A challenge from the discipline of architecture. Linguistics and Education, 23(1), 100–111. doi:10.1016/j.linged.2011.04.002

▪  Saldaña, J. (2013). The coding manual for qualitative researchers (2nd ed). Los Angeles [i.e. Thousand Oaks, Calif]: SAGE Publications.

▪  Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, U.K, New York, N.Y: Cambridge University Press.


Thank You!

Looking forward to the discussion


Roles for Educators (Siemens 2007)

§  Educator as network administrator § Helping students to construct

networks

§  Educator as master artist § Enculturation into a practice

è  Very open spacy

§  Educator as curator § Expert with advanced knowledge § Creating learning resources

è  Great in an ideal world. Problems: Motivation, proactivity

§  Educator as concierge § Directing learners to ressources §  Incorporating traditional lectures § Permitting learners to explore on

their own

è Striking the balance

Lessons (Example)

Learner Generated Content: Short presentations (topic

chosen by students), discussion

èArticles in a Wiki

Educator Generated Content: Body of Knowledge: Lectures,

Excercises

Discussion: Hot topics within the Social

Web

------

------

1,5

to 3

hou

rs

------

-----

Lessons (Example)

Learner Generated Content: Short presentations (topic

chosen by students), discussion

èArticles in a Wiki

Educator Generated Content: Body of Knowledge: Lectures,

Excercises

Discussion: Hot topics within the Social

Web

------

------

1,5

to 3

hou

rs

------

-----

Bringing the Social Web into the classroom

Opening classroom to

the Social Web

Continuing Learning

outside the classroom

helferich/pleil: communities of practice and higher education

Education

lifelong learning cops

lifelong learning jongbloed

lifelong learning example

lifelong learning challenges

purposeful learning

higher education social

higher education case

concept of cops