Communities of practice: a learning strategy for management education

Article Type: Abstracts From: Development and Learning in Organizations, Volume 26, Issue 1

Monaghan C.H.Journal of Management Education, June 2011, Vol. 35 No. 3, Start page: 428, No of pages: 26

Teaching students self-directed learning skills provides benefits that outlast individual courses. An individual self-directed approach is insufficient, however, given the fast pace of change students encounter in their professional lives. Communities of practice combine self-directed and collaborative learning to meet the challenges of today’s dynamic organizational environment. This article introduces a learning strategy based on communities of practice to help students gain in-depth knowledge about an individual passion related to the course topic that, in turn, contributes effectively to students’ professional development outside of the formal classroom setting. In this article, I briefly discuss the characteristics of communities of practice in organizational environments, including their relevance and effectiveness; provide the details for implementing communities of practice as a learning strategy in a management education classroom; and present an assessment of this learning strategy.ISSN: 1052-5629Article type:Research paperReference: 40AR045

Keywords: Collaborative learning, Communities of practice,Curriculum design, Graduate education, Professional development, Self-directed learning