Knowledge Transfer of Evidence-Based Instructional Practices in Faculty Communities of Practice

Communities of practice (CoP) have evolved from interactions between novices and experts to being applied as managerial tools for improving an organization’s outcomes. Cultural differences, assumptions, and preferences affect the way members access and share knowledge within CoP. Communities of practice take several forms including informal groups developed by practitioners to provide a forum for discussion; supported groups sponsored by management aiming to build knowledge and skills for a given competency area; and structured groups developed and managed by an organization aiming to advance the organizations business strategy. With an increased focus on the diffusion of evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs, also referred to as research-based instructional practices (RPIPs)) in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, the implications of knowledge transfer in CoP can increase the understanding of how to facilitate the spread and adoption of these instructional techniques. This paper utilizes Wenger’s work on Cultivating Communities of Practice to define CoP as “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” Within post-secondary STEM education, this paper recognizes communities of practice as the formal construct of individual departments related to a specific content area, and micro-communities of practice as those reflecting collaboration of smaller cohorts of STEM faculty, in-person and virtually. This study addresses the following research questions: 1) How do engineering faculty involved in a community of practice engage in knowledge transfer? 2) How does knowledge transfer of specific evidence-based instructional practices occur in an engineering faculty community of practice? Conducted within a large research project aimed at exploring stages of pedagogical change, this work utilizes a qualitative methodology. Nine faculty in a first-year engineering department participated in hour-long semi-structured interviews exploring use of EBIPs and collaboration. Interviews were analyzed using thematic coding to explore the formation, interaction, and process of knowledge transfer in these communities. Findings indicate that faculty engagement lies along continua from unstructured to structured and from organizational to peer interaction. Knowledge transfer of EBIPs is commonly focused on four main modes: peer feedback, formal meetings and workshops, reviewing research and literature, and informal faculty conversations.