Defining Your Practice

Week 25

Communities of Practice - Digital, Physical and Mental Space

Wenger first coined the concept of “communities of practice”, which is defined as “groups of people who share a concern or a passion or about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interaction on an ongoing basis” (Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002, p.4) The fact that you are reading this, probably means we are part of a community of practice. This doesn’t have to be physically based solely in the workplace, but it is a good place to start. I have had some experience with different communities of practice due to different work and study opportunities.

• The departments I’ve had in my workplace
• Friends who are also teachers
• Mindlab

For these three groups we’ve had a common domain: teaching, the communication is balanced and two-way: mutual engagement and we can develop a collective response to challenges: shared repertoire

Mindlab has introduced me to the concept of digital communities of practice. I have enjoyed the digital communities of practice because distance is not a limitation. However, some incentives may need to be introduced especially if some aren’t naturally people who share how they are going on the internet - me included. Inertia may need to be overcome and depending if the person takes to it, regular amounts of energy is required to get the ball moving.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka” but “That’s funny...”

—Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)

This is how I would judge whether you are in a community of practice: if you have available people for you to say, “hmm… that’s weird,” or “I did not expect that.” I have found having people work within close distance can generate this discussion and conversely, not having a shared work space dramatically decreases these opportunities. Having a discussion with those phrases are bound to be interesting and generate a bunch of theories as to why students or the classes responded in such a way. Because we educators are scientists; we have to experiment to see what works best; for some people on some days they respond differently and require different needs to others. And just like Science, Education didn’t come about because of one person, it is a collective, connected system that should get better and better. And the great thing is that we are part of that and it mostly happens through conversation.

Cambridge, Kaplan, and Suter (2005) suggest that communities of practice provide an environment for people to connect, interact, build and extend the shared resources within shared learning goals. Questions such as:

How are you going?

How are you finding things?

What’s something cool that you’ve found with your class?

Can’t happen when you are too busy. You don’t have an available time to talk let alone reflect and if we do it seems restrained. Creativity needs some freedom. The short term memory can utilise 7 chunks of information at one go. If a teacher is bombarded with information during the day, how much space can be used for the nitty-gritty higher order task of wondering “wouldn’t it be cool if…”?

That’s my goal - by still doing my job - but reducing my mental workspace I can have generate conversation (first with myself and then maybe others) to enjoy my work more and hopefully increase my students’ enjoyment in the process. #selfishlynotselfish #notselfishlyselfish #shellfish

References

Cambridge, D., Kaplan, S. & Suter, V. (2005). Community of practice design guide: A Step-by-Step Guide for Designing & Cultivating. Retrieved from https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/NLI0531.pd...

 Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.