Teaching HR Professionals: The Classroom as a Community of Practice

Abstract

This paper introduces an innovative course design incorporating both communities of practice and reflective practice as a learning strategy for part-time learners in higher education. The new design has been applied to teaching HR practitioners in a UK-based business school. Findings indicate that the suggested way of organizing teaching and learning for part-time professionals is very informative and facilitates a richer engagement with theory whilst addressing issues of practice.

Keywords

• community of practice
• part-time education
• HRM teaching
• HRM
• work context
• organizational practices
• reflective learning