Teacher Learning in a Community of Practice: A Case Study of ...

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Ifpractices are histories ofmutual engagement, negotiation of an enterprise and the development ofa shared repertoire, then learning in practice involves the processes of evolving forms ofmutual engagement. This involves exploring how to engage, what helps, and what obstructs, developing mutual relationships, defining identities and establishing who is good at what (Wenger 1998). Learning in practice also entails participants' understanding and reviewing their enterprise, and developing their repertoire, styles and discourses. This means the renegotiation ofmeaning, producing or adopting tools, recalling events, inventing new terms and redefining or abandoning old ones, and the telling and retelling of stories. This kind oflearning is not just a mental process (though such processes are involved), but that learning has to do with participants' development oftheir practice and their ability to negotiate meaning (Wenger 1998:96). It is not merely the acquisition ofmemories, habits and skills, but the formation ofan identity. The existence ofa community ofpractice does not depend on fixed membership. Participants may move in and out the community. An 'essential' aspect ofany community ofpractice is the arrival ofnew participants, who are integrated into the community, engage in its practice and then perpetuate the practice. This aspect of practice is understood as learning (Wenger 1998). 3.3.2.5 Exploring the concept 'brokering' as used by Wenger Communities ofpractice cannot be considered in isolation from the rest ofthe world. Participants' histories are not just 'internal', but are histories ofarticulation with the rest ofthe world and involve engagement with external relations Wenger (1998). The concept 'brokering' arises when participants with multi-membership (ofdifferent communities), transfer elements ofone practice into another (ibid.). Brokering is a common feature ofthe relation ofa community ofpractice with the outside. Brokers make new connections across communities ofpractice; facilitate co-ordination and open 93
new possibilities for meaning. Brokering is a complex process oftranslation, co ordination, and alignment between different perspectives. It requires the ability to link practices by facilitating transactions between them, and to cause learning by introducing into a practice, elements ofanother. In achieving this, brokering provides a participative connection because brokers use their experience ofmulti-membership and the possibility ofnegotiation. Brokering often entails ambivalent relations ofmulti-membership that "...requires an ability to manage carefully the coexistence ofmembership and non membership, yielding enough distance to bring a different perspective, but also enough legitimacy to be listened to" (Wenger 1998:110). Communities ofpractice can connect with the rest of the world by means ofproviding peripheral experiences (Wenger 1998:117). This refers to a situation where newcomers who may not want to be fully-fledged members, can be offered various forms ofcasual, but legitimate access to the practice without subjecting them to the demands offull membership. Having this kind ofmultiple level of involvement is an important feature of communities ofpractice as it presents opportunities for learning both for outsiders and for communities. In a community ofpractice, mutual engagement can become 'progressively looser' at the periphery, with layers ranging from "core membership to extreme peripherality"(ibid.: 118). Communities ofpractice offer multiple and diverse opportunities for learning where different participants contribute and benefit differently, depending on their relations to the endeavour and the community. Communities ofpractice can be found spread throughout and across institutions. Wenger notes that "Communities ofpractice that bridge institutional boundaries are often critical to getting things done in the context ofand sometimes in spite ofbureaucratic rigidities" (Wenger 1998: 119). 94
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Teacher Learning in a Community of
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ABSTRACT Conceptualising teacher le
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DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated
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DECLARATION I, Suriamurthee Moonsam
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ASSOCIATED CONCEPTS UNDER STUDY WIT
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Observation ofJohn's teaching after
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A SYNTHESIS OF THE STUDy...........
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TEMS RNCS EMS GET DoE INSET ELRC SA
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In describing the subject-pedagogy
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teachers lacked content knowledge r
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acknowledges the importance and pec
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some formal Mathematics teacher edu
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study, the coordination functions w
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It foregrounds the fact that the co
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school. Higher education opportunit
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frame models for projecting future
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teacher education by the state, (as
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schools, classrooms, management and
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Although the Teacher Audit indicate
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One ofthe first curriculum reform i
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entrenched design feature of C2005,
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In Chapter Five, I set up a narrati
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LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 INTRODUCTION
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As indicated in the previous chapte
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This view is supported by Putman an
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Learning is social in nature (Putma
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Constant reflection on and understa
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Teachers drew on their membership i
Page 57 and 58: The above arguments about the lack
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Page 61 and 62: Differences in the cultures oflearn
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Page 67 and 68: America. Goodson (1992) and Calderh
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Page 71 and 72: 'accommodation' and intimates that
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Page 75 and 76: Davisson (1984), Lumsden and Scott
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Page 79 and 80: economic discourse, the economics p
Page 81 and 82: • Understand and promote the impo
Page 83 and 84: 2.7 CONCLUSION This chapter began b
Page 85 and 86: (Walford 2001; Anderson 1999). With
Page 87 and 88: • It places value on the research
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Page 91 and 92: Lave and Wenger emphasise the centr
Page 93 and 94: 3.3.2 The Work ofWenger (1998): Com
Page 95 and 96: agree with the way it takes place o
Page 97 and 98: Figure 3.3: Refined intersection of
Page 99 and 100: eflecting. The ability of a communi
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Page 105 and 106: system or institution and the influ
Page 107: 3.3.2.4 Learning Practice has to be
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Page 113 and 114: engage with one another and acknowl
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Page 117 and 118: who were regarded as peripheral. A
Page 119 and 120: Ideally I would have wanted teacher
Page 121 and 122: they represent key ingredients in s
Page 123 and 124: that the Wenger framework presents
Page 125 and 126: more useful and effective than part
Page 127 and 128: 3.6 CONCLUSION This chapter provide
Page 129 and 130: • While my professional input int
Page 131 and 132: • Cycle ofhypothesis and theory b
Page 133 and 134: observer played themselves out. A c
Page 135 and 136: organised events and linked communi
Page 137 and 138: In keeping with ethnographic princi
Page 139 and 140: In this qualitative study, my inter
Page 141 and 142: collection. He questions whether co
Page 143 and 144: physical context, the complex body
Page 145 and 146: completed, final text: rather, they
Page 147 and 148: the teacher over classroom events (
Page 149: 'connoisseurship'. I realised that
Page 152 and 153: In this study, the criteria for the
Page 154 and 155: In Chapter One I described the sequ
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On the occasions that I delivered b
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"Confidentiality involves a clear u
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were cordial and professional. The
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CHAPTER FIVE HOW HAD TEACHER LEARNI
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individual participants changed dif
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He received his schooling under the
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school regularly updated the books
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gone on to become really wealthy. I
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John noted that in planning the cur
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Significant changes had thus occurr
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just transfer it. For example, bank
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Extract from the lesson: John: Pupi
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schoolwork as 'economic work'. This
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John: Now we are not looking at thi
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cardboard and drawing or sticking i
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John: Now I want you to remember wh
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John succeeded in drawing on the sp
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at her maths books to which the tea
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issues that his pupils were raising
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5.5 JOHN'S CHANGING PROFESSIONAL ID
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to achieve their joint enterprise o
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5.6 JOHN'S INCREASED PARTICIPATION
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John regarded the close interaction
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As stated earlier, because the 'con
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CHAPTER SIX USING WENGER'S CONSTRUC
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6.2 SECTION ONE AN ANALYSIS OF TEAC
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understanding it at all. I just don
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In the final interview that took pl
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MM: Shirley: learning outcomes and
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the little things like we started i
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understandings and conceptions ofth
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Extract from Mary's final interview
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Teachers were able to describe the
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The essential differences between D
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Debbie's school, Eden Primary was l
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what he's saying. And in that lesso
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they were excellent, really good. I
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Extract from first lesson observati
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out of the material that they had.
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largely recall, repetition or were
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Third extract from Debbie's second
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From the above extracts and discuss
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with a new set ofsubjects. Without
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was three kilometres away from the
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In the next extract, Ben referred t
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for making bread. The difficulty an
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T: P: T: P: T: P: T: Look again. Is
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stemmed from a discussion at the TE
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Key to the table A = Good/substanti
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was doing the budget and where they
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ofher school and the TEMS community
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Extract from Beth's final interview
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fox the invitations and arrange for
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Table 6.6: Teachers' learning in te
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CHAPTER SEVEN AN ANALYSIS OF TEACHE
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As we saw in Chapter Six, the core
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who did or did not want to become f
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The following extract offers a narr
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difficulties (ibid.). In the above
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A community moves from the potentia
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Cindy began the workshop with a tho
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oundaries" (Wenger et al 2002:97).
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7.4 AN ANALYSIS OF THE TEMS GROUP A
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necessary to learn what they needed
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Figure 7.2: Brokering relationships
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the group. Wenger (1998) notes that
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knowledge ofothers. It is therefore
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MM Shirley MM: Mary: MM: Mary Have
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The following extract from a worksh
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MM: Shirley: How many EMS workshops
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Table 7.2: Criteria for the emergen
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Soudien, a leading South African ac
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hand, adopts a 'narrow' perspective
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As mentioned earlier, Wenger's work
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literature review revealed that the
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Another important feature ofWenger'
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'Identity' namely, 'learning as bec
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(Hargreaves 1995). Teacher professi
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for the purposes ofprofessional dev
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teacher growth. CPD in Africa subsc
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knowledge of subject content is ser
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South Africa, due cognisance must b
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8.3.7 An arena for engaging and con
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the provision of appropriate profes
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level conceptual thinking". They wa
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Collaboration within teacher learni
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has for teacher learning in a South
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Bourdieu, P. (1986) The Forms ofCap
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Department ofEducation (2002) Revis
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Homan, R. (2002) The principle of i
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Mattson, L. (2000) Teacher identiti
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Smylie, M.A., Bay, M. & Tozer, S.E.
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Westheimer,1. (1998) Among schoolte
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APPENDIX 2 INTERVIEW SCHEDULES (INI
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2. What information have you been g
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APPENDIX 3 EXAMPLE OF JOURNAL ENTRI
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APPENDIX 5 EXAMPLE OF INDEPENDENT O
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