Sport Informatics and Analytics/Introductions/Communities of Practice/Sport

Communities of practice in sport

There is a growing interest in the roles communities of practice can play in sport. For example, a University of Ottawa research group has developed a strong interest in these communities. Diane Culver and Pierre Trudel provided an overview of communities of practice in sport. Their paper stimulated debate about the concept of a community of practice that is summarised here. Diane Culver and Pierre Trudel joined with Penny Werthner to provide a longitudinal study of a coaches' community of practice in a youth baseball league.. Rachael Bertram has provided more detail about communities of practice in sport settings in her 2016 Ph.D thesis.

Elsewhere, John Stoszkowski and Dave Collins have reported on the use of online blogs to structure and support informal coach learning. This paper will be of particular interest to anyone who is considering the submission of an ePortfolio for the assessment of this unit. A second paper, co-authored with Cliff Olson offers "insight into student coaches’ perceptions of their use and experiences of structured group blogging for reflection and learning".

Bettina Callary has reported on the creation of a community of practice within a figure skating club. She proposes that her case study:

paves the way to understanding that a CoP can be developed and sustained by coaches when they are in an environment where collaborative coaching and learning is the norm and where coaches entering into the system expect it.

An ePortfolio suggestion

If you have an opportunity to look at some of the literature on communities of practice, can you write a reflection about the potential of such communities to support personal learning?