What is a community of practice?
Wenger et al (2002, p4) define a community of practice as ' groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interaction on an ongoing basis'. Not all communities are a community of practice. He further identifies 3 essential aspects which he terms 'joint enterprise, mutual engagement and shared repertoire' (Wenger 2000, p229).
In the video 'Cultivating Communities of Practice: Making them Grow', Knox (2009) states that the key areas to develop are:
Domain: the area of shared inquiry and of the key issue
Community: the relationship among members and sense of belonging
Practice: the body of knowledge, methods, stories, cases, tools and documents
So how does this apply to my two teacher inquiries?
My first inquiry topic is:
How can blogging improve the engagement and enhance the learning of language students? (The Domain)
I chose this because research shows that student's capabilities are enhanced when they have an authentic context for their learning, (Gilmore 2007) and blogging, for example quad blogging, could provide an opportunity for my students learning French to collaborate with students in France or New Caledonia or even other students in New Zealand who are also learning French.
My community of practice would be other teachers, particularly language teachers, who are interested in blogging. They would not need to be French teachers as the same Language learning philosophy and methods apply across all foreign languages. Knox comments that diversity of contributors is important. Members could come from the NZALT listserv, or I could join Quadblogging Aotearoa on the Virtual Learning Network. A further possibility would be the ICT pod of my school's COL.
The Practice: Joining an established group such as Quadblogging Aotearoa could be intimidating as Wenger points out, we might 'feel like a bumbling idiot among the sages' but he posits that the learning takes place in the interplay between personal experience and social competence. 'Knowing involves the competence the community has established over time and our ongoing experience as a member.'
My second teacher inquiry topic is:
How can digital and collaborative tools such as google docs improve the writing of junior English students? (The Domain)
I chose this topic because a number of students at our school find writing 'boring' and difficult. They often give up easily and are reluctant to redraft or edit their work. Many of these students are boys who prefer working with others to working individually and who enjoy working on computers. We will become a 1:1 device (chromebooks) school next year so access and equity will no longer be an issue in this area.
My community will be the other teachers in the English Department and possibly other teachers who are interested in investigating this topic. Certainly, there would be interest from social studies and science so it could be cross curricular 'literacy across the curriculum'. It would certainly be of benefit to the whole school as well as the students themselves if they were to become more motivated, effective writers.
Practice - There will be a range of expertise. Some of our younger teachers have expertise in using digital tools and more experienced teachers can add ideas on grammar and structure. In this community we can learn from each other which will hopefully provide the 'value' which is key to the community.
Image from Serrat, O. (Jul 10, 2014). A guide to Communities of Practice. Powerpoint Presentation
Retrieve from: https://www.slideshare.net/Celcius233/a-guide-to-communities-of-practice
So... now it is time to get fostering a CoP!
References
Gilmore, A (2007). Authentic materials and authenticity in foreign language learning. Language Teaching, 40(2), 97-118.
Knox, B.(2009,
December 4). Cultivating Communities of Practice: Making Them Grow.[video
file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhMPRZnRFkk
Wenger, E.(2000).
Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization,7(2),
225-246.
Wenger, E.,
McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice: A
Guide to Managing Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
