Discipline-Based Communities of Practice: Life-Long Learning of Advertising and Public Relations Educators

Digital technology has revolutionized the marketing communication field. This has implications for the teaching and learning of marketing communication and led to the establishment of a community of practice (CoP) among 13 advertising and public relations educators from six higher education institutions in Hong Kong. This article describes the formation and activities of the learning community and reports how the CoP promoted professional development among its members. The study’s research question was “In what ways does participation in a CoP enhance the professional development of its members?” Evidence of CoP members’ life-long learning was collected from self-reflection essays by CoP members after meetings and from a survey. The experience of how the CoP members discussed, processed, learned, disagreed, and made decisions can inform educators from other disciplines to make decisions on developing a discipline-based learning community to promote teaching and learning excellence.