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How might deeply embodied student experiences and nonhuman agency change the way we think about learning theory? Pushing the conceptual boundaries of practice-based learning and communities of practice, this chapter draws on student experiential fieldwork ‘on Country’ with Indigenous people in the Northern Territory (NT), Australia, to explore the peculiar silence when it comes to more-than-human ¹ features of situated learning models. As students engage with, and learn from, Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies, they become open to the ways their learning is co-produced in and with place. The chapter builds a case for an inclusive conceptualisation of communities of practice, one that takes seriously the material performativity of nonhuman actors – rock art, animals, plants and emotions in the ‘situatedness’ of socio-cultural contexts. As a co-participant in the students’ community of practice, the more-than-human forms part of the process of identity formation and actively helps students learn. To shed light on the student experiences we employ Leximancer, a software tool that provides visual representations of the qualitative data drawn from focus groups with students and field diaries.

There is considerable variety in the use and citation of Wenger’s framework of communities of practice in educational research. In some cases, citations and references to Wenger’s work are superficial and lack meaningful theoretical application. In others, citations and use of Wenger’s work are critical and insightful, thoughtfully applying Wenger’s framework to a range of educational settings. The effect of these variable uses is a conceptual slippage that leads to the framework being misapplied, misunderstood and over-simplified. In this chapter I foreground the under-used idea of learning architectures. A learning architecture consists of an assemblage of components that may allow learning to take place. Such an assemblage might consist of a place (rooms, workshops, facilities), tools and equipment (textbooks, materials, handbooks, reading lists) and activities that require and encourage mutual engagement (seminars, tutorials, group presentations). In this chapter, drawing on previously published ethnographic research, one teacher-training course is used to model a learning architecture approach. At the same time, the chapter introduces and resolves one of the more contested aspects of Wenger’s framework, namely the position of pedagogy and assessment within a community of practice.

The combination of mobile devices and innovative tools offers new possibilities for the development of a community of practice for design makers. Mobile learning has become an essential method that design makers should adopt. The main content of this study is to explore the characteristics of learning behaviors and learning needs of creative design makers' group in forming a community of practice in the era of mobile learning.

This study conducted questionnaire research on the potentially associated or directly associated population of design makers. The process of the study also combined observational and interview studies to compensate for the lack of questionnaire research.

Based on the support of mobile learning technology, design makers share and co-create to achieve individual development and evolution of learning organizations, and produce creative value. Design-maker communities of practice form common communities in the framework of informal organizations to support continuous individual learning. Convergent interests or concerns in making things, real-world contexts based on makerspaces and hands-on practice based on real projects are the basis for forming design-maker communities of practice. A variety of open-source hardware, software and platforms that can support mobile learning are important for the development of design-maker communities of practice. The design-maker community of practice needs group factors, activity development, physical and technical resources, spatial support and institutional norms to enhance learning behaviors and satisfy learning needs.

The discovery and construction of these associated factors can help creative design practitioners form a lasting and virtuous organizational development. This study facilitates the formation of a social network for learning and knowledge sharing among design-maker communities of practice. It enhances the innovation ability and enthusiasm of design makers according to the population characteristics and learning needs of design makers. This study also facilitates the generation of a positive adaptive maker culture and maker spirit within design maker organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute towards understanding how entrepreneurial learning might be understood as being socially situated, embedded in everyday practice in the context of family business. The study is framed by three main principles drawn from situated learning theory. First, the family and the business are examined as overlapping communities of practice, as sites of practice‐based knowledge. Second, the concept of legitimate peripheral participation is explored in relation to members of the family business. Finally, how practice is both reproduced and transformed over time is examined in the context of two generations' participation in a family business.

The paper draws on an empirical study of two generations from five families, the founders of a business and their successors. The interview approach adopted phenomenological techniques. A thematic analysis identified conceptual frameworks to make sense of the data in a “quasi grounded” approach. Finally, the three main principles introduced from situated learning theory – communities of practice, legitimate peripheral participation, and cycles of reproduction and transformation provided a conceptual framework to analyse the empirical material.

This is an interpretive, qualitative study based on a small sample of families based in the North West of England. The findings are not intended to be generalised to a population, but to offer empirical insights that extend theoretical frameworks in order to better understand the entrepreneurial phenomenon.

The experience of the second generation both in the family business and in overlapping contexts of learning‐in‐practice brings innovation and change as well as continuity. The study also suggests that the complex process of succession might be informed by the understanding of the importance of the nature and extent of participation in the family business over time.

This paper introduces conceptual frameworks that capture the social complexity of intergenerational entrepreneurial learning and contributes an empirical illustration of situated learning theory within the context of family business. The situated learning perspective contrasts with much of the existing entrepreneurial learning literature, which has tended to focus on “the entrepreneur” and individual learning processes. This study demonstrates that applying a learning lens brings theoretical insights to the study of family business.

Over the last 50 years the social legitimacy of public relations has improved by standardising and monitoring the education and training of its practitioners. While successful in developing a professional development trajectory from novice to competent practitioner, the profession has struggled to fully understand the development trajectory of its senior public relations practitioners. The diversity of occupational contexts in which public relations is practised, the condition of professional seniority and the knowledge and tools required for working at occupational boundaries is challenging for senior public relations practitioners. It is also a challenge therefore, for the profession to develop and support the learning required for senior practice beyond competency frameworks. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper employs socio-cultural learning theory and supporting empirical evidence gained in semi-structured interviews with senior practitioners in the field to explore what senior practice entails and how senior professionals learn.

Communities of practice is useful for understanding novice practitioner learning but has insufficient explanatory power for understanding senior practitioner learning. There is an urgent need for support for senior public relations learning that moves beyond reified competency frameworks and enables senior practitioners to function autonomously outside the core community of practice. Seniority requires its learners to embrace uncertainty and confront the challenge of creating new knowledges and in the everyday practices of their professional lives.

“Communities of practice” has been influential in the fields of management and organisations (Bolisani and Scarso, 2014). This paper employs the idea of a learning process that takes place in “constellations of practices” (Wenger, 1998) to offer a view of senior practice as boundary dwelling (Engestrom, 2009) rather than boundary spanning and learning as situated (Lave and Wenger, 1991) in the liminal spaces those boundaries provide.

There are many success stories during Covid-19 of academics providing expertly delivered online learning experiences for tertiary students locally and around the world. This paper aims to consider how success was achieved by academics who are not specifically educated with the knowledge and skills to convert a traditional delivery model into an online format and who conventionally spend years working on single projects before they come to fruition.

This study provides, as a possible explanation for success, the willingness of academics to embrace a tertiary sector rather than discipline-specific collaborative learning approach to their own informal education in online learning practices through communities of practice. Using learning theory, both analytical and reflective methodologies are adopted through an examination of an example of a successful academic community of practice.

Engaging with a multidisciplinary community of practice can be highly beneficial for academics not specifically educated with the knowledge and skills to convert a traditional delivery model into an online format. Communities of practice provide more than online educational skills; they foster a sense of togetherness and a safe environment to share concerns and challenges on both a professional and personal level.

The benefits of communities of practice for academics during a period of profound operational disruption have yet to be documented in the literature. Specifically, this study highlights the supportive environment provided by a community of practice by examining the successful large-scale transition from face-to-face learning to an online environment during a pandemic.

In order to explore how informal pedagogical moments are being renegotiated by the technology woven into people's lives, this paper aims to focus on online communities as sites of learning; more specifically, the informal work‐related learning practices of self‐employed workers in these cyberspaces.

This paper draws on the notion of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) from situated learning theory in order to examine the development of work‐learning practices online. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with own‐account self‐employed workers (contractors and consultants who do not have staff) about their engagement in online communities for work learning.

Findings indicate that these self‐employed workers were learning work practices, the viability of doing particular work, how to participate in online communities for work learning, and how to participate in fluid knowledges. The significance of developing a work‐learning practice is emphasized, as is the impact of multiple and peripheral positionings across on‐ and offline spaces.

Web technologies and shifting configurations of online collectives shake up notions of expertise, beliefs about who is able to produce, and consume information, and where one locates themselves, in order to build work‐learning practices. Multiple positioning across several online communities, and ways of participating that are peripheral, partial and part‐time warrant further examination.

The value of this paper is its exploration of how self‐employed workers develop an online work‐learning practice and the tensions that these practices bring. The paper also attempts to discuss the utility of LPP for contemporary learning practices.

The purpose of the present paper is to explore entrepreneurial learning at the centre of communities of practice.

Learning perspectives from the community of practice concept are applied to interpret and discuss results from an in-depth empirical investigation using a novel qualitative method, the Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique (ZMET), to study the entrepreneurial learning behaviour of ten coaches in a student venture incubator. The coaches are students with a certain level of entrepreneurial experience. Given their coaching roles and practices, the coaches are considered “community insiders”.

The findings show how the socially situated entrepreneurial learning of community insiders could be considered an adaptive process following multiple learning trajectories depending on with whom and about what the entrepreneur involves in social relationships.

Policy makers seeking to facilitate communities of practice should enable learning activities for community insiders and organic development in addition to networking events and support for the entire ecosystem in order to enable bridging of communities of practice.

The present paper focuses on the entrepreneurial learning of community insiders using a novel qualitative method, ZMET. The paper empirically demonstrates that community insiders learn through an adaptive process and participation in multiple communities of practice. This is both in interaction with the nascent entrepreneurs whom they coach as well as when interacting with other community insiders.

Scholarship about communities of practice (COP) is uncovering evidence that interactivity between community members contributes to improvement in practice. Leadership and facilitation are crucial elements of successful COP implementation. The purpose of this paper is to describe an innovative COP facilitator ' s course and report on the experiences of participants in the first course.

In response to this need and emerging evidence, an on-line COP facilitator ' s course was developed and implemented in Alberta, Canada, in 2011. This course included a home-based COP practicum, introductory face-to-face session, an on-line discussion board moderated by faculty and on-line learning modules. Evaluation of the course was formalized in a qualitative study incorporating content analysis of postings, semi-structured interviews of successful participants and narrative responses to questions in a post course survey.

A total of 15 of 22 participants perceived they acquired basic knowledge about community facilitation by completing the self-learning modules and assignments. Many did not establish home-based COP and only partially participated in the interactive components of the course. Six participants successfully completed the course by establishing home-based COP and actively participating in the social and interactive components of the course. They perceived they met course objectives and greatly benefited from participation in the course, in particular when they pushed themselves to facilitate in new and different ways, and when they were actively engaged with their home-based COP where they could practice and receive feedback.

While the main reasons why participants dropped out or failed to complete all course components were reported, the experiences and perceptions of six participants who successfully completed all course components form the major part of the evaluation of the course and hence introduce bias. A more in depth analysis of why learners are reluctant to engage in participatory learning could be the focus of further studies.

The following key recommendations emerged in the study alongside recommendations for further study of best practices in supporting COP facilitation. First, a formal interview before enrollment into the COP facilitator ' s course is recommended to reinforce the comprehensiveness, time commitment and the practical applications intended within the course. Second, methods of “aggressive facilitation” with skilled COP facilitators can best model facilitation to those involved in the course. Third, supporting course participants to trial out a diversity of community facilitation skills in the safety of the course is crucial to success.

The collaboration, networking and interactivity of interdisciplinary health care workers is of tremendous consequence to health outcomes and a vital concern to practitioners and administrators. Little is currently understood of the leadership and facilitation of the COP models and these discoveries lend a timely contribution to the field.