Creating an engineering education community of practice within an institutional setting: a blueprint for action research

Engaging with and developing academics' understanding and experience of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), including educational research, is challenging. This is particularly the case in engineering and science, where engaging in and learning about SoTL represents a paradigm shift from most academics’ training in basic research. However institutional pressure exists for academics to progress their teaching practices and improve student learning and engagement. Academics actively questioning and researching their own teaching practices can result in institutional change and improvement in these TandL practices. This change agenda toward SoTL was implemented through the use of an adult learning framework within an engineering and science faculty. This framework included a community of practice (CoP) perspective to inform group learning, as well as an adult learning perspective to inform individual learning. This paper uses an action research method to develop a blueprint, and investigate what conditions were required, for a change agenda toward SoTL.