Fostering meaning: fostering community

Charles Anderson, Velda McCune

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This article acknowledges the value of using communities of practice as a perspective to illuminate learning and teaching in higher education but argues that preceding work has given insufficient attention to: the particular kinds of trajectories, commitments and intentions displayed by the participants in undergraduate courses; the knowledge practices and distinctive stances in relation to knowledge around which these ‘communities’ centre and the conceptualisation of the nature of communication and the particular challenges for the creation of meaning within higher education learning communities. It addresses these gaps by closely examining these matters and bringing to the fore the distinctiveness of learning communities in higher education. Based on this analysis it argues that effective teaching requires the creation of transitional spaces and hybrid discourses that allow for movement and change, and characterises learning communities in higher education as ‘spaces of the in-between’.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)283-296
Number of pages14
JournalHigher Education
Volume66
Issue number3
Early online date12 Feb 2013
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2013

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • Communities of practice
  • Undergraduate learning and teaching
  • Student trajectories
  • Theorising communication

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