Etienne and Beverley Wenger-Trayner:
Communities of Practice, a Brief Introduction
Living Curriculum
‘The term community of practice was coined to refer to the community that acts as a living curriculum for the apprentice.’
Characteristics useful when identifying overlapping areas of practice
Characteristics:
Domain
Community
Practice
These features are all useful and reasons to encourage CoP in a larger institution and system that is problematic
‘The very characteristics that make communities of practice a good fit for stewarding knowledge – autonomy, practitioner-orientation, informality, crossing boundaries – are also characteristics that make them a challenge for traditional hierarchical organisations.’
Community of practice perspective on educational practice. Useful when thinking specifically about how to help a CoP thrive.
‘Internally: How to organize educational experiences that ground school learning in practice through participation in communities around subject matters?’
In our context, this would be communities of interest, e.g. graphic novels or ceramics
‘Externally: How to connect the experience of students to actual practice through peripheral forms of participation in broader communities beyond the walls of the school?’
External projects with other organisations, public, aoi etc
‘Over the lifetime of students: How to serve the lifelong learning needs of students by organizing communities of practice focused on topics of continuing interest to students beyond the initial schooling period?’
Life as real learning event. Link back to Bell Hooks.
‘The school is not the privileged locus of learning. It is not a self-contained, closed world in which students acquire knowledge to be applied outside, but a part of a broader learning system. The class is not the primary learning event. It is life itself that is the main learning event.’