THE IMPACT OF COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TRENTO: RESEARCH-BASED LESSONS LEARNT

The University of Trento Teaching and Learning Centre (called FormID) promotes educational leadership and strategic initiatives that consolidate the processes of teaching, learning and assessment continuous enhancement [1] by supporting the professional development of academics, with the ultimate goal of promoting student success [2]. FormID offers both formal and non-formal initiatives [3] tailored to individual needs, such as consultancies with an academic developer or Communities of Practice - CoPs [4], as formative environments useful for disseminating innovative teaching, learning and assessment practices and collective reflection on the continuous improvement [5, 6]. This contribution aims to present the results of a research study carried out to assess the impact of CoPs and eventually improve their role for academics. For this purpose, one of the Community Assessment Toolkit (CAT) was used, in particular, the questionnaire addressed to members [7]. Furthermore, the data collected were triangulated with observation conducted by an external member in each community and an interview with the CoP facilitators