COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE AS A WAY OF ENHANCING THE ENTREPRENEURIAL PEDAGOGY IN UNIVERSITIES

In this paper we present that communities of practice (CoP) could be utilized in university setting to support the use of entrepreneurial teaching methods in academic teaching. Using the practices of communities of practice could develop the academic teaching practices, offer tools for redesigning courses, improve the outcomes of the education and enhance the collaboration between university and society. Communities of practice could be implemented in university context by combining both traditional community activities - where people meet face to face - and virtual community activities. As part of our ongoing project Smart Classroom - which is focused on improving teaching practices and environments in universities - we have conducted a survey on the teaching practices and the development of teaching and learning environments in our home university. With the help of this survey we have studied if teaching methods similar to CoP activities are already in active use in the faculties of the university and how university teachers regard with teaching use of ICT. In the light of the preliminary survey results communities of practice are not commonly utilized across the multidisciplinary university. The teaching use of ICT was regarded positively and it was found significant in relation to the development of students' discipline-specific and working life skills.