Attenborough, J.

Brook, J.

Knight, R.-A.

English

City Research Online

              City, University of London Institutional RepositoryCitation: Attenborough, J. ORCID: 0000-0002-4018-8445, Knight, R.-A. ORCID: 0000-0002-7804-7250 and Brook, J. ORCID: 0000-0002-8867-0150 (2018). Developing and sustaining a Community of Practice through Twitter for work-based learning. Evidence-Based Nursing, 21(4), pp. 89-90. doi: 10.1136/eb-2018-102981 This is the published version of the paper. This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link:  https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/23676/Link to published version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/eb-2018-102981Copyright and reuse: City Research Online aims to make research outputs of City, University of London available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the author(s) and/or copyright holders. URLs from City Research Online may be freely distributed and linked to.City Research Online:            http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/            publications@city.ac.ukCity Research OnlineEvid Based Nurs October 2018 | volume 21 | number 4 |  89School of Health Sciences, University of London, London, UKCorrespondence to: Ms Julie Attenborough, City, University of London, UK;  J. A. Attenborough@ city. ac. ukDeveloping and sustaining a Community of Practice through Twitter for work-based learningJulie Attenborough, Rachael-Anne Knight, Judy BrookEditorial10.1136/eb-2018-102981 BackgroundIn the UK, the introduction of the apprenticeship levy in April 2016 and nursing associate role in January 2017 presented new opportunities to further develop the clinical workplace as a learning environment for employees.1 City, University of London, in collabora-tion with London South Bank University, is leading an 18-month project, funded by Health Education England to explore and address factors in preparing the clin-ical environment for work-based learning (WBL). The project supports key stakeholders to form a commu-nity of practice (COP2) to identify and solve problems, while simultaneously creating guidelines and resources for best practice in local implementation of supervision and WBL. The project connects academics and clinicians through social media, in particular Twitter.3–5 In 2018, we hosted five Twitter chats, curated by academic and clinical staff. Twitter chat topics were chosen following initial consultation with COP members and focused on the following areas (a summary of the questions is available at  https:// twitter. com/ CityJoolz/ status/ 1016342539064967168):Twitter chat topics1. What is WBL and what do we need to effectively deliver it?2. Storytelling for WBL (recontextualised learning).3. Developing a learning culture.4. Cognitive apprenticeships.5. Parity of esteem between work-based and traditional learning.Themes (#WBLChat)Chat 1Four themes dominated the initial Twitter chat: refo-cusing learning, student/learner support, organisational culture, and capacity and structure for work-based learning. The majority of participants felt that WBL was a refocusing of learning; a way of integrating theory and practice. Participants supported the need to move away from traditional delivery of education and perceived the benefit of work-based learning. However, clinicians expressed concern about their capacity to deliver this, while endorsing an organisational culture that values and enables WBL.Participants were acutely aware of a lack of time, staff and an established framework for WBL. Many felt that mentors or facilitators need particular training to facilitate WBL. Participants identified the poten-tial for using the professional background of mentors and supervisors to share experiences, best practice and different viewpoints (figure 1).Chat 2This focused on the role of storytelling by practitioners to support WBL and introduced some of the concepts first discussed by Donald Schon6 including how profes-sional thinking is developed and how professionals think in practice. The dominating themes were use of storytelling as a teaching tool, how storytelling helps to build relationships, the use of storytelling as reflection and the effectiveness of storytelling.The majority of the participants found storytelling a useful tool in linking theory and practice, using their expe-riences as examples. By sharing their experiences, educa-tors make a crucial contact as human beings, capable of making mistakes; helping students reflect on their actions. Participants questioned how the successfulness of using storytelling could be measured and formalised into the learning process to ensure it is beneficial and effective, highlighting the danger of using it as a scare tactic. There was also a suggestion even if a story might be considered ‘dull’, it can indirectly aid the student, as the process of storytelling aids relationship-building. In this chat, partic-ipants spontaneously shared their resources about story-telling through weblinks.Chat 3The third Twitter chat focused on the benefits of the surrounding workplace culture in creating good learning Figure 1 Importance of facilitating work-based learning (WBL) through mentorship and facilitation.Evid Based Nurs October 2018 | volume 21 | number 4 | 90Editorialexperiences. Participants tweeted about the challenges of creating a learning environment that encouraged active engagement in a multitude of learning opportunities, observing the necessity for mentors/supervisors to be proactively and purposely involved to engage learners. For the first time, participants discussed the importance of collaborative leadership alongside engagement of the whole team embracing the learner and increasing compe-tence, extending the scope of practice.Reflective feedback was discussed in all four chats, but was especially relevant and dominant here, along with mutual respect. Participants revisited sharing of stories and recontextualised learning.Chat 4The fourth chat focused on cognitive apprenticeships.7 8 A YouTube video and relevant papers were shared before the chat to explain the concept and the curator used a Twitter poll to establish awareness. Four themes dominated the discussion: the importance of reflection, supporting learners in practice, balancing the dual roles of teacher and work colleague and developing thinking skills in solu-tion-focussed learners. One participant revealed negative connotations of reflection, also described by Hannigan.9 Participants called for the building of individual reflec-tion frameworks (figure 2), the use of modelling and scaf-folding to support learning in the workplace, the use of coaching and the flattening of hierarchies. Once again, storytelling emerged as an important technique.Chat 5The fifth chat addressed parity of esteem between WBL and learning that is primarily based in higher education institutions. The four themes dominating the discussion were how different learning needs may be met by different types of education, the potential for lack of understanding of how WBL operates, the opportunities provided by work-based learning and possible improvements to parity of esteem. Participants discussed the importance of the prevailing narrative surrounding WBL, for example, how ensuring ‘degree apprenticeships’ are named in full may make their parity with other degrees more obvious.ConclusionThis series of Twitter chats has allowed us to build a community of practice, including academics, healthcare professionals and students, as an alternative to face-to-face interactions, which can be difficult to organise due to time and workload constraints. The chats have provided excel-lent suggestions and ideas for further exploration in future chats in order to continue to promote WBL.Competing interests None declared.Patient consent Not required.Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.Open access This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http:// creativecommons. org/ licenses/ by- nc/ 4. 0/.© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2018. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.References 1. Halse J, Reynolds L, Attenborough J. Creating new roles in healthcare: lessons from the literature. Nursing Times 2018;114:34–7. 2. Lave J, Wenger E. Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 3. Lewis B, Rush D. Experience of developing Twitter-based communities of practice in higher education. Research in Learning Technology 2013;21:1–13. 4. Megele C. Theorizing Twitter chat. Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice 2014;2. 5. Budak C, Agrawal R. On participation in group chats on Twitter. Proceedings of the 22nd international conference on World Wide Web, 2013:165–76. 6. Schon DA. The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action. Temple Smith; New York: Basic Books, 1983. 7. Woolley NN, Jarvis Y. Situated cognition and cognitive apprenticeship: a model for teaching and learning clinical skills in a technologically rich and authentic learning environment. Nurse Educ Today 2007;27:73–9. 8. Collins A, Brown J, Newman S. Cognitive apprenticeship: teaching the crafts of reading, writing and mathematics. In: Resnick L, ed. Knowing, learning, and instruction: essays in honour of Robert Glaser. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1989:453–94. 9. Hannigan B. A discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of 'reflection' in nursing practice and education. J Clin Nurs 2001;10:278–83.Figure 2 Importance of embedding personal frameworks of reflection.

Developing and sustaining a Community of Practice through Twitter for work-based learning

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Developing and sustaining a Community of Practice through Twitter for work-based learning

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