Communities of Practice            Communities of Practice CoPs            www.theconsultants-e.com

Communities of Practice            Communities of Practice overview Introduction to CoPs – some definitions... Theory: what are CoPs? Application: learning in CoPs Reflection: setting up a CoP Resources            slide 1

Communities of Practice            Communities of Practice introduction “A CoP is a group of people who share an interest in something, and come together to develop knowledge around this topic, in order to use it in practice.” Wenger, E. 1991 physical “A distributed community of practice (CoP) consists of a group of people who communicate with each other synchronously and/or asynchronously, concerning a topic of common interest.” Jones, C. 2002 virtual            slide 2

Communities of Practice            Communities of Practice introduction from vertical to horizontal... “The goal of the community (CoP) is to advance the collective knowledge of the group about the subject area at the same time that the individual's knowledge is increasing. Thus, all participants have a genuine need to learn from each other.” Jones, C. 2002            slide 3

Communities of Practice            Communities of Practice theory explicit & implicit knowledge community knowledge            slide 4

Communities of Practice            Communities of Practice theory negotiated goals voluntary roles: assigned - - - - emergent            slide 5

Communities of Practice            Communities of Practice theory social scaffolding reflection artefacts negotiated meaning            slide 6

Communities of Practice            Communities of Practice application scaffolding constructivist creative practice competencies            slide 7

Communities of Practice            Communities of Practice reflection Setting up an informal network or CoP? Consider:   -         Are they online or f2f? -         Are they focused on implicit/explicit knowledge? -         What are the main roles and who holds them? -         Is your participation voluntary or imposed? -         What are the goals (if any)? How are they arrived at? -         Does your network produce any ‘artefacts’? -         Do negotiation and reflection have a role?            slide 8

Communities of Practice            Communities of Practice resources http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.htm www.learningalliances.net/CP_bib/ groups.yahoo.com/group/com-prac/ Online skills sharing is breaching staffroom 'wall of silence' http://education.guardian.co.uk/tefl/story/0,5500,1048661,00.html CoPs quiz: www.theconsultants-e.com/quiz/quiz.html            slide 9