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Invitation to Add to This Toolkit
Do you have a tool or method that you'd like to share with other communities of practice? We invite you to share your own tools with us. Please share with us the following (if applicable):
Name Institution name/affiliation Community of practice name City & Country Name of the Tool or Method Purpose of the Tool or Method Instructions or Tips Any attachments (PDF) Any website or link to the resource A failure or success story about using this tool in action
Submit Your Tool/Method Here
Just Like Trees...
“Go into the forest, you see the birch, maple, pine. Look underground and all those trees are holding hands. We as people have to do the same.
– Charles Labrador, Mi’kmaq Spiritual Leader, Healer, and Chief of Acadia First Nation, Nova Scotia (McMahon, Griese & Kenyon, 2019)
At the University Design Institute, we harness the wisdom of nature and become inspired by its strategies to help solve the most pressing challenges of our time.
Take, for example, how trees behave. When you step into a forest, you will notice trees standing quietly and independently; but look underground, and you’ll see vast networks of mycorrhizal fungi that connect these individual trees together, allowing them to communicate and share an enormous amount of information and nutrients, such as water, carbon, nitrogen, and minerals. Yes—trees talk with one another and form networks! (Simard, 2016; Wohlleben, 2016). And instead of competing for resources, trees cooperate with one another so that all of them can thrive.
Just like trees, human beings that belong to a community of practice share knowledge and expertise with one another, united by a common concern or goal. We hope that this toolkit will help your own communities of practice harness their collective intelligence in order to transform universities, and the world.
Mycorrhizal networks. Circles represent tree nodes, sized according to the tree’s diameter, and coloured with four different shades of yellow or green that increase in darkness with increasing age class. Lines represent the Euclidean distances between trees that are linked. Line width increases with the number of links between tree pairs (Beiler et al., 2009).
About the University Design Institute
Founded in 2019 at Arizona State University, the vision of the University Design Institute is simple yet profound: that universities around the world emerge as powerful engines of social transformation and economic impact.
Our mission is to become a catalyst for transformation in higher education. We do this by reimagining the future, codesigning solutions with various stakeholders to move from ideas to implementation, and advancing innovative, scalable, and sustainable models.
Our growing team is driven by six values:
About the University Design Institute
The work that we do is centered around six design imperatives that are critical to transformational change in higher education:
To date, we have engaged with 90 institutions in 20 countries, offering leadership programs, facilitating co-design sessions to transform various aspects of their universities, and engaging diverse stakeholders —including funders, policymakers, university leaders, and students—to work towards systems-level change. Now more than ever, it is vital that we intensify our work together in addressing the complex challenges that our world faces.
Learn more at https://udi.asu.edu/
More Resources
Articles
Wenger, E., McDermott, R. & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice. Harvard Business School Press. Vogl, Charles H. (2016). The art of community: Seven principles for belonging. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
Building Effective Communities of Practice by Arizona State University-ShapingEDU. Wenger-Traynor, E. & Wenger-Traynor, B. (2015). Introduction to communities of practice: A brief overview of the concept and its uses.
Books
Websites
References
Beiler, K.J., Durall, D.M., Simard, S.W., Maxwell, S.A. & Kretzer, A.M. (2009). Architecture of the wood-wide web. Rhizopogon spp. genets link multiple Douglas-fir cohorts. New Phytologist, 185(2), p. 543553. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2009.03069.x
Arizona State University. (2022). Building Effective Communities of Practice. ShapingEDU. https://shapingedu.asu.edu/communities-of-practice-intro
Cambridge, D., Kaplan, S. & Suter, V. (2005). Community of practice design guide. Educause.
Center for Appreciative Inquiry. (2022). What is appreciative inquiry? https://www.centerforappreciativeinquiry.net/more-on-ai/what-is-appreciative-inquiry-ai/
Design Justice Network (2022). We're taking a pause! https://designjustice.org/news-1/2021/4/23/were-taking-a-pause
McMahon, T.R., Griese, E.R. & Kenyon, D.B. (2019). Cultivating Native American scientists: An application of an Indigenous model to an undergraduate research experience. Cultural Studies of Science Education 14, 77-110.
Simard, S. (2016, June). How trees talk to each other [Video]. TEDSummit. https://www.ted.com/talks/suzanne _ simard _ how _ trees _ talk _ to _ each _ other
Snyder, W.M. & Briggs, X. (2003). Communities of practice: A new tool for government managers. IBM Center for the Business of Government. https://www.businessofgovernment.org/sites/default/files/Communities%20of%20Practices.odf _ .pdf
Vogl, Charles H. (2016). The art of community: Seven principles for belonging. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
Webber, E. (2016). Building successful communities of practice: Discover how connecting people makes better organizations. Drew London Ltd.
Wenger, E., McDermott, R. & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Harvard Business School Press.
Wenger-Traynor, E. & Wenger-Traynor, B. (2015). Introduction to communities of practice: A brief overview of the concept and its uses. https://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/
Whole Whale Mission Generator Worksheet. (nd). https://www.wholewhale.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Mission-Statement-Generator-Worksheet.pdf
Wohlleben, P. (2016). The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World. Greystone Books.
