{"id":719,"date":"2020-12-11T20:20:08","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T20:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/?p=719"},"modified":"2021-05-28T11:30:16","modified_gmt":"2021-05-28T10:30:16","slug":"a-virtual-biscuit-tin-creating-a-community-of-practice-for-learning-designers-in-lockdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/?p=719","title":{"rendered":"A virtual biscuit tin: creating a community of practice for learning designers in lockdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

It wasn\u2019t just students who faced a sudden change in how they were learning in March when the UK locked down. Learners in the workplace were affected too \u2013 including our learning design team here at the Open University.\u00a0We were dispersed to our homes\u00a0by lockdown and overnight, lost our\u00a0ability to learn from one another.<\/p>\n

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Learning is central to our jobs.\u00a0We need to know about new research so we can\u00a0give the best advice to module teams. From a practical point of view,\u00a0much of our work relies on practice sharing \u2013 discussing\u00a0what works,\u00a0finding new ways to\u00a0make an impact,\u00a0and\u00a0checking in on how others handle tricky situations.\u00a0Plus, our four colleagues who joined just before or during lockdown needed to learn the da<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

y-to-day essentials of their jobs.<\/p>\n

Lockdown posed us a problem: how could we share our practice at a distance?\u00a0The answer emerged over a socially distanced cuppa.<\/p>\n

The value of\u00a0informal\u00a0learning<\/h6>\n

As a group of us caught up in a colleague\u2019s garden in the summer, we\u00a0realised that a huge part of our learning before lockdown had happened in the office kitchen. We\u2019d chat about our projects while the kettle was heating\u00a0and\u00a0share war stories over a cuppa. At the sound of biscuits being unwrapped,\u00a0we\u2019d gravitate en masse to the kitchen where we\u2019d inevitably catch up on what we were doing. When so much of our personal and professional development revolves around informal sharing of resources and ideas, losing our kitchen meant that we lost learning opportunities.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that we used\u00a0online tools to share tips and\u00a0resources, but it\u00a0was\u00a0tricky to keep track of\u00a0all of them, especially\u00a0while battling dodgy\u00a0wifi\u00a0and the many other challenges of working from home.<\/p>\n

We clearly needed an online kitchen.\u00a0More specifically, we needed a dedicated space for catching up and sharing our practice. It needed to be easy to get to, pleasant to be in and suitable for people with varying levels of experience.<\/p>\n

A tried and tested model<\/h6>\n

If this sounds familiar, it\u2019s because Lave and Wenger\u00a0(1991)\u00a0explored social learning and how we learn from one another in their research\u00a0into\u00a0communities of practice.\u00a0 More recently, Wenger-Traynor and Wenger-Traynor (2015) described these as \u2018groups of people who share a concern or passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly\u2019.<\/p>\n

Wenger (2011) suggested that communities of practice have three elements:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A domain \u2013 a shared area of interest.<\/li>\n
  2. A community \u2013 the ability to discuss ideas, share information and explore the domain<\/li>\n
  3. A practice \u2013 the shared expertise and resources of the group.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    We definitely had all of those, and we also had a need \u2013 not just to learn but maintain a sense of community.<\/p>\n

    In practice<\/h6>\n

    We set about creating our community of practice soon after our garden epiphany\u00a0\u2013 and I took responsibility since I was one of the new starters. The first step was\u00a0to do a quick poll to explore possible topics for discussion\u00a0and analyse the results.\u00a0In one of the least\u00a0nail-biting\u00a0polls of the year\u00a0the\u00a0results were clear and uncontested.<\/p>\n

    We held our first online community\u00a0of practice meeting shortly after, keeping it simple at first to allow the group to form itself.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. A brief social\u00a0catch\u00a0up.<\/li>\n
    2. \u00a0A quick chat about the purpose of the group and what people hoped to get out of it .<\/li>\n
    3. A facilitated discussion on the topic agreed in the poll.<\/li>\n
    4. A discussion about what we\u2019d like to focus on in the next meeting.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      We also kept the group informal, giving everyone a safe space to discuss challenges openly and seek solutions.<\/p>\n

      Evolution<\/h6>\n

      At the end of the first meeting,\u00a0we agreed to look at some case studies of our chosen topic in practice. So, in the next meeting, two colleagues walked us through examples and\u00a0answered questions on their practice\u00a0and progress.\u00a0Colleagues\u00a0then\u00a0shared other useful resources on the topic with the whole team.<\/p>\n

      Learning outputs<\/h6>\n

      Alongside the\u00a0social and\u00a0practice-sharing\u00a0benefits, I also created a short summary of each of the meetings as a reference guide. It\u2019s\u00a0saved in a dedicated\u00a0practice sharing\u00a0folder\u00a0along with\u00a0other\u00a0resources and linked to\u00a0Teams channels for those who prefer these.<\/p>\n

      Anyone can contribute other resources to this folder, which has several aims:<\/p>\n