Summer is not necessarily a low-key time for academic coaches and coaching programs. You may be coaching summer session students, hiring, aggregating data from the prior academic year, setting up to implement new directives for fall, and more. However, perhaps summer affords a little time to build or strengthen a community of practice among your team members.

As defined in Communities of Practice in Higher Education offered here through Every Learner Everywhere, "Communities of practice are groups of people who share information, experiences, and practices through collaboration and dialogue in a common area of interest (Wenger, 1998)." Connecting with a community of practice on a regular basis can be exceptionally valuable in coaching for several reasons. One is that coaching is primarily a 1-to-1 practice, with few if any opportunities for coaches to observe one another doing the work. Coaches may often feel uncertain as to how they are doing and how they might improve. Another is that coaches are often not working in the same physical space. Many teams are spread out across multiple campuses, with perhaps some sessions and meetings taking place virtually from other locations. 

How might you build or strengthen your community of practice in this moment? I offer three points of contemplation. Consider:

• How you currently connect. Do you meet in person or is that impossible? Do you meet virtually? How might you increase points of connection among the team — perhaps using a communication app such as Slack or GroupMe? 
• The timing of team connections. Do you have regularly scheduled connection opportunities? How might you adjust those, if needed, or augment them with other connection points, perhaps shorter in time or in a different venue?
• The focus of your connections. Outside of necessary logistics, what do you talk about? Do you include any specific points of discussion for coaching practice? How might coaches identify topics that are coming up for them and share them as potential discussion topics? 

One of the benefits of a LifeBound training is the opportunity to join a new community of practice — your fellow trainees — and to bring fresh ideas back to your own team.