Communities of practice, collaboration and the dissemination of knowledge

GEETIKA SAWHNEY, SENIOR IT TEACHER, INDIA LYN HAYNES, PART-TIME ITE SENIOR LECTURER, CANTERBURY CHRIST CHURCH UNIVERSITY, UK Context As an educationalist, Lyn was asked to volunteer in an educational institution catering for age three to post-Masters in rural Punjab, India, comprising four distinct communities of practice. Her remit was to engage with students from across the age range, plus the staff, to promote everyone’s confidence and efficacy in communicating in spoken English. This case study is an overview of two of the six-week, organic, tailor-made programmes undertaken in February and March 2023. In all sessions, there was a two-way sharing of ideas, knowledge and experimentation, i.e. communities of practice collaborating to develop individuals’ practice. Pedagogically, the programmes were fluid and totally different from the strategies to which students and staff appeared to be accustomed: a reliance on didactic, chalk-and-talk teaching, with little meaningful, ha