Genealogical Family Historians conduct research in order to reconstruct genealogical families, through the application of a rigorous methodology: weighing the evidence for placing each individual in a family group, linking family groups of the past and making contact with kin of the present. Genealogical Family Historians trace the movements and migrations of identified individuals and family groups; and study the local, national and international social settings of lives lived in families and households in different times and places, over many generations. A large worldwide Community of Practice with many constituent groups, including the New Zealand Society of Genealogists Incorporated, has formed itself around this research activity. In this transdisciplinary study focused on social learning, I have explored and analysed the domain, the practice and the community of Genealogical Family Historians researching in and from Aotearoa-New Zealand during the past 50 years. Genealogical Family Historians meet formally and informally, in small groups or at large conferences to pursue their self-directed learning. The collaborative practice includes publishing and teaching; and the locating, preserving and indexing of records. Many conduct research and communicate with others in the new world of cyberspace. My overarching research question has been: where is the future place for this scholarly discourse? My approach to this study is transdisciplinary: my point-of-view is above and across departments and disciplines. The ethos and vision of transdisciplinarity is attained only through existing disciplines, and transdisciplinary research has the potential to contribute to those disciplines, as I demonstrate in this thesis. The transdisciplinary scholarly discourse of Genealogical Family History owes much to the disciplines of history, geography and sociology; and draws on biology, law, religious studies, linguistics, demography, computer science and information technology. I have also drawn on understandings from my own prior and concurrent disciplinary knowledge and experience for this study. Other Genealogical Family Historians bring different disciplinary understandings to the discourse that is Genealogical Family History. My positionality is that of an insider, an involved member of the Community of Practice for many years. In this study, I have allowed my key informants to speak with their own voices; and I have sought illustration and evidence from documentation and observation in the wider Genealogical Family History Community, past and present. I have used enhanced reflection on my own practice in my analysis and in case studies. This study demonstrates how the Community of Practice has played an important role in developing a transdisciplinary mode of inquiry and suggests that there are some generic features of the field and practice of Genealogical Family History that form the substance of a transdisciplinary discourse ready to take its place in academia.

This thesis examines the way a change management entity facilitated a deep and lasting business transformation, undertaken as a major program of projects that were engaged in business process re-engineering, logistics supply change management and formation of joint ventures and forms of alliance. It takes a project management perspective with a strong focus on how the Corridor project achieved change through leadership, co-learning strategies and collaboration. It takes place within the context of a unique historical period of economic transition for Latin America. The research focuses on the Corridor as a single entity using five case studies of different complexity. The Corridor Project developed as a dynamic community of practice with project management office characteristics where a number of projects were born and evolved through their different life cycles as business transformation outcomes. The Corridor could become a model to put into practice in other regions of the world where production and consumption asymmetries are found or where infrastructural asymmetries could call for a Corridor-like project to overcome trade imbalances or increase regional trade - all this leading to a series of business transformation opportunities to let corporations become more competitive by making a strategic use of knowledge sharing and transfer.

This thesis aims to describe how students encounter proof in a community of mathematical practice at a mathematics department and how they are drawn to share mathematicians’ views and knowledge of proof. Considering the department as a community of practice where the joint enterprise is learning mathematics in a broad sense made it possible to perceive the newcomers as active participants in the practice. The combination of a socio-cultural perspective, Lave and Wenger’s and Wenger’s social practice theories and theories about proof offers a fresh framework in understanding and describing the diversity of the culture involving such a complex notion as proof. Proof is examined from historical, philosophical and didactical points of view and considered as reification and as an artefact from a socio-cultural perspective. The metaphor of transparency of artefacts that refers to the intricate dilemma about how much to focus on different aspects of proof at a meta-level and how much to work with proof without focusing on it, both from teacher and student perspectives, is a fundamental aspect in the data analysis. The data consists of transcripts of interviews with mathematicians and students as well as survey responses of university entrants, protocols of observations of lectures, textbooks and other instructional material. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were applied in the data analysis. A theoretical model with three different teaching styles with respect to proof could be constructed from the data. The students related positively to proof when they entered the practice. Though the mathematicians had no explicit intention of dealing so much with proof in the basic course, students felt that they were confronted with proof from the very beginning of their studies. Proof was there as a mysterious artefact and a lot of aspects of proof remained invisible as experienced by students when they struggled to find out what proof is and to understand its role and meaning in the practice. The first oral examination in proof seems to be significant in drawing students to the practice of proof.

This study analyzes the vernacular architecture of ancestral Pueblo kivas dating from the Pueblo II (A.D. 900-1150) and Pueblo III (A.D. 1150-1300) periods in the northern, middle, and southern San Juan regions in the American Southwest in order to shed light on communities of practice and their social, temporal, and spatial production practices. This research specifically examines kivas--or round rooms used for ritual and domestic activities--to address how architecture, as a symbolic system, emphasized the ways in which sign-objects were actively mediated by communities of practice and how their semiotic signatures can shed light on material expressions of ancestral Pueblo group identity. The theoretical perspectives used within this study are influenced by the work of educators and anthropologists analyzing the processes by which knowledge and skills are learned and transmitted from one generation to the next--these processes are responsible for the continuity of all material culture. This study adopts a community of practice approach to analyzing ancestral Pueblo kiva architecture for two primary reasons. First, the continuity of all material culture--including architecture--depends on the processes by which knowledge and skills are learned and transmitted from one generation to the next. Second, architectural production is an additive technology in which variations in learning frameworks are encoded as choices made by production groups during construction. The methodological applications used within this study are crucial to the identification and analysis of communities of practice in that additive vernacular architectural forms are encoded with learned production techniques. Learned production techniques were materially manifested as unique modes of fabrication and were recognized as the semiotic signatures of particular communities of practice. This study is the seedling from which larger research may germinate, providing insights into large-scale anthropological processes including identity formation and maintenance, population movement, the psychological effects of population aggregation, the nature and extent of social networks, the transmission and practice of learning, the production and movement of material culture, and the development and dissolution of political and ritual organization.

A qualitative study using an action research methodology was conducted to observe what value a national community of practice (CoP) had for the resiliency of Canada's geographically dispersed, non-profit, environmental education (EE) network leaders. Research suggests that North America's non-profit sector faces a looming leadership crisis as its executive leaders are subjected to escalating anxiety, burnout, and feelings of isolation (Cornelius, Moyers, & Bell, 2011). Peer support networks, alternately known as a CoP, have been proposed as a potential means of sustaining such beleaguered executives. This research reveals that Canadian EE leaders found value in a CoP as a forum for networking and relationship building, as a medium for professional development, and as a source of support and inspiration. This thesis recommends the establishment of a national CoP for Canada's EE network leaders and outlines recommendations to inform the creation of such a community.

This dissertation uses case study research to evaluate the impact of Information Technology (IT) on the moderator's role in directing a community of practice (CoP) in its Coalescing stage of development. Ten CoPs were studied. While each of these CoPs is in a different stage of development, the analysis focuses on the Coalescing stage because it is considered the most critical. A detailed case study of each CoP, including a survey of moderators and members, and interviews with moderators is presented. Analysis of these cases indicated that use of IT -- defined as communication, software, and hardware tools -- has a reciprocal effect on the role of the moderator. In other words, a moderator can achieve CoP goals and conduct its activities more efficiently and effectively by use of various IT tools. A moderator's competence and inclination to using IT tools also affects his or her role and the way he or she conducts the activities and plans to achieve the CoP goals. Those moderators who used IT tools to conduct their CoP's activities perceived their CoPs to be more successful than those who did not. Other factors such as company support, moderator's position and influence in the company, and the resources available to the CoP were the deciding factors on the moderator's role in facilitating a successful CoP. This dissertation concludes with a list of future research possibilities, obstacles to moderators, and improvement opportunities for large companies with several CoPs. All of the research studies on communities of practice so far have assumed that each company has only one CoP. This dissertation not only provides insight to a company with various CoPs, but it also offers a comparison study among different CoPs within the same company.

No description available.

Recent years have seen the emergence of a novel type of community space around the world, labelled variously as makerspaces, hackerspaces, hacklabs, Fab Labs, and repair cafés. These workshops, often known collectively as the ‘maker movement', have inspired considerable speculation regarding their potential to prefigure a more sustainable economy, including a shift to localised and participatory forms of production and consumption (Smith and Light, 2017). Until recently, the social scientific work on such spaces has been sparse, especially in-depth ethnographic work, though scholars are increasingly turning their attention to them, particularly in the fields of design and science and technology studies. This thesis, a practice-led ‘enactive ethnography' drawing from three case study workshops in Edinburgh, Scotland, explores the question of sustainable development and maker spaces along two main axes: firstly, the emergence of sustainable practice in such spaces, and secondly, the relevance of such spaces to the cultivation of human wellbeing. The thesis is the first examination of such spaces drawing from developments in social theory towards relational materialism, more-than-representational approaches, and a focus on social practice. It draws a number of conclusions. Firstly, that claims of an undifferentiated global ‘maker movement' may be exaggerated: the grassroots participant-led creation of such spaces results in irreducible diversity and local differentiation. Secondly, while claims about the potential of such spaces for reconfiguring global production and consumption are overstated, when viewed from a practice-oriented perspective, the communities of practice populating such sites comprise potent and potentially-valuable crucibles of knowledge and materials. And thirdly, trying to move away from individualistic conceptions of wellbeing, the case studies provided evidence for the shared workshops playing a crucial role in the contingent emergence of participant wellbeing. These findings are further developed in tandem with a posthuman reading of maker practices, contributing to timely scholarly debates on ‘making' and ‘craft'.

abstract: The purpose of this project was to research the effects of a professional development intervention designed to build local capacity for technology integration among teachers at the school level. This was done by providing focused face-to face and online training to twelve teachers referred to as the Technology Core Teacher (TCT) group. This project utilized the theoretical framework of social learning and communities of practice to provide an environment of ongoing support for technology integration. The findings addressed four areas: the TCT teachers' practice, their technology skill levels, the use of the online collaboration tools utilized for collaboration and virtual synchronous meetings, and whether the TCT teachers demonstrated signs of being a self sustainable community of practice. The findings demonstrate that the intervention had an influence on the participating teachers' practice and influenced the practice of other teachers as well. TCT teachers increased their skills when applying new learning with their students. TCT teachers used online collaboration tools minimally for communication, and synchronous meeting tools presented some difficulties. TCT teachers showed signs that they may be a sustainable Community of Practice. Although teachers reported that their technology skills increased, a pre-post survey of skills based on the ISTE NETS-T Assessment yielded lower confidence scores after the intervention. A follow up survey designed to explain these results indicated that teachers rated their skill set lower in light of more knowledge, indicating a possible paradox in self reporting of skills prior to awareness of technology based learning possibilities. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Educational Administration and Supervision 2011

With the movement of nurse education into the higher education sector, the role of student nurses has moved from that of apprentices to learners with full student status on placement. Although supernumerary status is key to current nursing training, not much attention has been paid to its influence on student participation in the community of practice of the workplace. This thesis has set out to address this research gap. A qualitative dominant mixed methods study closely examined student participation on placement by comparing and contrasting students’, mentors’ and clinical instructors’ clinical learning and mentoring experiences and their perceptions of supernumerary status was carried out. Data were collected in a nursing college in Macau. In the qualitative part, a sample of seven third year and six fourth year student nurses were recruited to participate in a focus group interview corresponding to their year of study. In addition, five mentors and five clinical instructors were interviewed individually. Views from participants were compared and contrasted. For the quantitative part, all second to fourth year students were invited to respond to a questionnaire after placement. One hundred and fifty-one questionnaires were returned. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the quantitative data. This study revealed that there is a lack of clarity about supernumerary status among student nurses. However, students’, mentors’, clinical instructors’ and nurses’ perceptions of clinical learning and supernumerary status exert an impact on student participation on placement. Although students were temporary peripheral participants of the workplace, they had to be engaged in the clinical environment and authentic practice in order to create connections with the workplace and develop nurse identities. It was found that students who were facilitated by mentors, who were drawn from ward staff, had more opportunities to participate in qualified nurses’ work and work with the nursing team on placement than those supported by university-based clinical facilitators.