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\"This book brings together archaeologists, historians, and cultural anthropologists to explore communities engaged in a range of practices, from spiritual mediums in east Africa, healers and fishermen in the Amazon, potters of the U.S. Southwest, and populations navigating climate change in the deep past, drawing on the growing interdisciplinary situated learning scholarship to explore processes of learning\"--Provided by publisher.

Adult learning is a complex phenomenon that takes place over an adult’s lifetime and is not limited to a particular age. It includes a set of activities to enhance life through improving skills, knowledge and capabilities. The foundational theories of adult learning, such as andragogy theory, place the individual adult centre stage and differentiate adult learning from formal learning. They also shift the focus from the individuals to the environment in which adult learning takes place. In line with this movement, online communities of practice (OCOPs) have evolved from being considered as online environments for learning to specialised forums that allow practitioners to collaborate around a project of mutual interest. The principles of adult learning are directly applicable to engagement in OCOPs because they include practical methods founded on the belief that adults are self-directed, autonomous learners and that learning is most effective when the environment plays the role of a facilitator, rather than being just a supportive and traditional setting for learning. However, how individual adults engage in OCOPs and benefit from them is not well understood. This paper draws on social cognitive theory to examine: how environmental, personal and behavioural factors shape engagement in OCOPs. To answer this question, twenty-one interviews were conducted with members of GitHub, a large online community of practice for IT professionals. The findings revealed that adults’ engagement in OCOPs involves project-based activities on mutual interests and willingness to help others. The findings also show that engaging in online communities does not only satisfy intrinsic, well-defined, expected outcomes and shape adults’ engagement, but also has an impact on adults’ lifelong learning achievements, such as professional experience and credit recognition. Based on these findings, a revised framework for adults’ engagement in OCOPs is presented and discussed.

This title restores criticality and rigour to the study of communities of practice as a means of understanding learning, acknowledging that this is one of the most influential and widely used theories of learning to emerge during the last 30 years but one that has been misapplied and diluted. Jonathan Tummons explores communities of practice theory, looking at how its focus on learning as apprenticeship can be understood, providing the reader with a conceptual framework for making sense of learning as a social practice as distinct from an individual, psychological process.

Pneumoconiosis prevalence is increasing in the United States, especially among coal miners. Contemporaneously with an increased need for specialized multidisciplinary care for miners, there is a shortage of experts to fulfill this need. Miners' Wellness ECHO (Extension for Community Health Outcomes) is a digital community of practice based on interprofessional discussion for knowledge transfer. The program has been demonstrated to increase participants' self-efficacy for clinical, medicolegal, and \"soft\" skills related to miners' health. We aimed to examine characteristics associated with interprofessional discussions and suggest ways to strengthen knowledge transfer. This mixed methods study used an exploratory sequential design. We video-recorded and transcribed ECHO sessions over 14 months from July 2018 to September 2019 and analyzed content to examine participant discussions. We focused on participants' statements of expertise followed by other participants' acceptance or eschewal of these statements (utterances). We conducted quantitative analyses to examine the associations of active participation in discussion (primary outcome variable, defined as any utterance). We analyzed the association of the outcome on the following predictors: (1) participant group status, (2) study time frame, (3) participant ECHO experience status, (4) concordance of participant group identity between presenter and participant, (5) video usage, and (6) attendance frequency. We used the generalized estimating equations approach for longitudinal data, logit link function for binary outcomes, and LSMEANS to examine least squares means of fixed effects. We studied 23 sessions with 158 unique participants and 539 total participants, averaging 23.4 (SD 5.6) participants per session. Clinical providers, the largest participant group, constituting 36.7% (n=58) of unique participants, were the most vocal group (mean 21.74, SD 2.11 average utterances per person-session). Benefits counselors were the least vocal group, with an average utterance rate of 0.57 (SD 0.29) per person-session and constituting 8.2% (n=13) of unique participants. Thus, various participant groups exhibited different utterance rates across sessions (P=.003). Experienced participants may have dominated active participation in discussion compared to those with less or intermediate experience, but this difference was not statistically significant (P=.11). When the didactic presenter and participant were from the same participant group, active participation by the silent group participants was greater than when both were from different groups. This association was not seen in vocal group participants (interaction P=.003). Compared to those participating by audio, those participating on video tended to have higher rates of active participation, but this difference was not statistically significant (P=.11). Our findings provide insight into the mechanics of interprofessional discussion in a digital community of practice managing pneumoconiosis. Our results underscore the capacity of the novel ECHO model to leverage technology and workforce diversity to facilitate interprofessional discussions on the multidisciplinary care of miners. Future research will evaluate whether this translates into improved patient outcomes.

Scholarship flourishes in inclusive environments where open deliberations and generative feedback expand both individual and collective thinking. Many researchers, however, have limited access to such settings, and most conventional academic conferences fall short of promises to provide them. We have written this Field Report to share our methods for cultivating a vibrant intellectual community within the Science and Technology Studies Food and Agriculture Network (STSFAN). This is paired with insights from 21 network members on aspects that have allowed STSFAN to thrive, even amid a global pandemic. Our hope is that these insights will encourage others to cultivate their own intellectual communities, where they too can receive the support they need to deepen their scholarship and strengthen their intellectual relationships.

This study aims to adapt and extend the DeLone and McLean Information System (IS) success model in the context of an online English as a Foreign Language (EFL) higher education foundation program. The objective is to enhance teaching, learning, and knowledge-sharing experiences within a virtual community of practice (vCoP). The research involved eight experienced full-time university lecturers with master's degrees in English language teaching as participants. They were presented with six open-ended questions followed by interviews. The study addresses the gap between research and practice by assessing the effectiveness of the model in measuring knowledge-sharing and user interaction within the EFL vCoP. The findings highlight the need for tailored models in specific online learning domains, such as EFL, rather than applying a generalized approach to education. The findings have practical implications for designing and evaluating online educational programs and communities, ultimately enhancing the quality of online learning experiences. The study proposes potential indicators of success, paving the way for future research in the field of online education. By identifying and refining these indicators, educators and researchers can better assess the impact of online learning platforms and communities on student outcomes, engagement, and knowledge-sharing.

This study explored the development of teacher leadership in collaborative online spaces, also called virtual communities of practice (vCoP). Employing a phenomenological research design with semi-structured interviews as the primary data collection method, participants were drawn from a single vCoP. The findings underscored the pivotal role of vCoPs in nurturing teacher leadership skills, facilitated by the dynamic interplay of teacher agency and distributed leadership. Teacher agency empowers educators to proactively take control of their learning journey within vCoPs, enabling them to explore areas of personal interest and expertise, including knowledge sharing and project initiation. Simultaneously, distributed leadership empowers teachers to assume leadership roles within the vCoP, irrespective of their formal positions or seniority, involving activities such as guiding discussions and organizing professional development. This harmonious collaboration between teacher agency and distributed leadership fosters a collaborative and inclusive environment within vCoPs, where teacher leadership thrive.