The field of higher professional educational in the Netherlands is undergoing drastic structural changes. Organizational-wide mergers are commonplace and are often followed by development of new curricula. Furthermore, this is often accompanied by the implementation of a completely new educational concept as well. These structural changes in the educational system require that teachers adapt their current teaching practices, along with working on gaining new competences associated with working in a changing organization. This paper presents a short background of communities of practice in higher education, followed by a report on the first impressions from an experiment in which a bottom-up style of change management has been implemented through the use of a community of practice. A community of practice (CoP) is a powerful knowledge management tool that brings people from a similar domain together in order to solve complex problems, deal with a changing organization and build knowledge around a specific practice. Inholland decided to implement a CoP for the international faculty in order for the members to better cope with the major curricula and didactic changes currently being implemented there. Concepts such as change, organizational sense making and teacher professionalization
The impact communities of practice (CoPs) make can be understood in several different ways, depending on which theoretical perspective is used. For example, CoPs have been studied from a learning-theory perspective, from organizational development theory, and from a small-group theory. To understand the effects of participating in a CoP on individuals, groups or the organization in which they function, we could use traditional learning theory, organizational learning theory, information-processing theory or small-group process theory, etc. Or we could look at the internal processes of CoPs; the output they generate, or employ a synthesized view. CoPs can also be seen as impacting different actors in the organization in which they operate; individuals, groups or the whole organization. This means, for example, that we could look at CoPs from an organizational learning perspective to see how CoPs impact strategy development or renewal. At the level of the group, we could look at how CoPs lead to increased group performance and how that in turn leads to a higher output of knowledge products. And as learning is one of the key processes in a CoP, an important aspect of we need to study is how the individual learns, as well as what the individual learns. The complexity of impact a CoP can have on the diverse actors requires a pluralistic and multiperspective approach. However, a review of the literature showed no comprehensive model that neither integrates these different levels of impact nor employs multiple theoretical perspectives. Furthermore, most models of measurement or assessment use traditional types of output measurement, such as ROI, or anecdotal evidence that the CoP has improved organizational capability. Much like any human resource development initiative – which is the perspective of CoPs we take in this paper – there has been no real attempt to develop measures for assessing impact. We try to fill this gap by presenting a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, conceptual model that approaches measuring certain aspects a CoP has on individuals, groups and organizations.
Communities of Practice (CoPs) are social learning systems that can be, to a certain extent, designed. Wenger (1998) proposes the following paradox; “ no community can fully design the learning of another, but at the same time, no community can fully design its own learning” (p:234). My interpretation of Wenger’s statement is that learning environments such as CoPs need to be facilitated in their learning processes, but not their specific design. Approaching CoPs this way allows for the design of interventions that facilitate learning processes within a CoP rather than regulate them. However, empirical studies on facilitating internal processes of CoPs are sparse – most work is anecdotal. This means that one needs to look to other fields for guidance in order to discover how to facilitate CoPs in their learning. This paper describes part of a larger research project that asks the question whether communities of practice can be instituted in higher professional educational organizations as an effective method to facilitate participant learning (professional development) and stimulate new knowledge creation in the service of the organization. Using a more pragmatic approach to cultivating CoPs (Ropes, 2007) opens the possibility to use different theoretical perspectives in order to find and ground interventions that can facilitate learning in CoPs and which are typically used in organizational development trajectories based on learning (de Caluwe & Vermaak, 2002). In this paper I look at how theories of human resource development, workplace learning and social constructivism conceptualize learning and what type of environments promote this. I then map out community of practice theory along these fields in order to come to a synthesized conceptual framework, which I will use to help understand what specific interventions can be used for designing CoPs. Finally I propose several interventions based on the work done here. The main question I consider here can be formulated as follows; ‘what insight can Human Resource Development theories, Workplace Learning theories and Social Constructivist learning theory give in order to design interventions that facilitate internal processes of communities of practice?’
BECOME richt zicht op de overgang naar een circulaire economie door de link tussen onderwijs en de arbeidsmarkt te versterken. Het doel is om studenten en werknemers (van nu en in de toekomst) op te leiden, om oplossingen en bedrijfsmodellen voor deze circulaire economie te ontwikkelen.
Due to their diverse funding sources, theatres are under increasing pressure to demonstrate impact on society. The Raad voor Cultuur (2023) for example advised the secretary of state to include societal impact as an additional evaluation measure next to artistic value. Many theaters, such as the Chassé Theater and Parkstad Limburg Theaters, have reformulated their missions to focus on impact of performances on visitors. This is a profound transformation from merely selling tickets and filling seats, and requires new measurement instruments to monitor, manage, and improve impact. Currently available instruments are insufficient, and effective monitoring is crucial to larger future projects that theaters are currently planning to systematically broaden impacts of performances on their communities. The specific goal of this project is to empower theaters to monitor and improve impact by developing a brief experience impact questionnaire, taking existing data from student projects conducted at the Chassé Theater about performing arts experiences on one hand, and experience impact theory innovations on the other, as starting points. We will develop potential items to measure and benchmark against established measures of valued societal outcomes, such as subjective well-being and quality of life. These will be measured in questionnaires developed with project partners Chassé Theater and Parkstad Limburg Theaters and administered before and after performances across a wide range of genres. The resulting data will enable comparison of new questionnaire items with benchmarked measures of valued societal outcomes. The final product of the project will be a brief impact questionnaire, which within several brief self-report instruments and just a few minutes can effectively be used to quantify the impact of a performing arts experience. A workshop and practice-oriented article will make this questionnaire implementable, thereby mobilizing the key enabling methodology of monitoring and impact measurement in the performing arts sector.
Due to their diverse funding sources, theatres are under increasing pressure to demonstrate impact on society. The Raad voor Cultuur (2023) for example advised the secretary of state to include societal impact as an additional evaluation measure next to artistic value. Many theaters, such as the Chassé Theater and Parkstad Limburg Theaters, have reformulated their missions to focus on impact of performances on visitors. This is a profound transformation from merely selling tickets and filling seats, and requires new measurement instruments to monitor, manage, and improve impact. Currently available instruments are insufficient, and effective monitoring is crucial to larger future projects that theaters are currently planning to systematically broaden impacts of performances on their communities.The specific goal of this project is to empower theaters to monitor and improve impact by developing a brief experience impact questionnaire, taking existing data from student projects conducted at the Chassé Theater about performing arts experiences on one hand, and experience impact theory innovations on the other, as starting points. We will develop potential items to measure and benchmark against established measures of valued societal outcomes, such as subjective well-being and quality of life. These will be measured in questionnaires developed with project partners Chassé Theater and Parkstad Limburg Theaters and administered before and after performances across a wide range of genres. The resulting data will enable comparison of new questionnaire items with benchmarked measures of valued societal outcomes. The final product of the project will be a brief impact questionnaire, which within several brief self-report instruments and just a few minutes can effectively be used to quantify the impact of a performing arts experience. A workshop and practice-oriented article will make this questionnaire implementable, thereby mobilizing the key enabling methodology of monitoring and impact measurement in the performing arts sector.Societal issueThe specific goal of this project is to empower theaters to monitor and improve impact by developing a brief experience impact questionnaire, taking existing data about performing arts experiences on one hand, and experience impact theory innovations on the other, as starting points. Benefit to societyWe will develop potential items to measure and benchmark against established measures of valued societal outcomes, such as subjective well-being and quality of life. Collaborative partnersChassé Theater N.V., Parkstad Limburg Theaters N.V.
