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

7.5.3 Shared repertoire
As the programme continued, the TEMS teachers, in the pursuit oftheir enterprise, began
to create resources for negotiating meaning. The TEMS community ofpractice had begun
to develop elements ofa shared repertoire that included routine ways ofdoing things
(signing the register, arranging the seating, clearing up after the session). They used
words and phrases that were peculiar to this particular community such as 'look for the
cycle' (meaning the economic cycle), EMSLOs (referring to learning outcomes for
EMS). The telling ofstories was a regular feature, which had become part ofthe
community's practice. Wenger (1998) notes that a shared repertoire combined both
reificative and participative elements and included discourse by which members created
meaningful statements about the world. The term 'repertoire' emphasises both the
rehearsed character ofthe shared resources and its availability for further engagement in
practice. Other manifestations ofa shared repertoire in the TEMS community included
developing common understandings and use ofthe concepts 'scarcity problem'; 'choice';
'budget'; 'the economic problem'; 'the economic cycle' etc. As a resource for the
negotiation ofmeaning, the repertoire of the community ofpractice reflected a history of
mutual engagement. Reified elements ofthe community included documents, lesson
plans, guides to lesson planning, simplified extracts ofthe four learning outcomes in the
EMS learning area; case studies; games, newspaper articles etc.
Wenger (1998) notes that for the three dimensions ofa community ofpractice; namely; a
community ofmutual engagement, a negotiated enterprise, and a repertoire ofnegotiable
resources, the characteristics listed in the table below have to be present to a substantial
degree.
From the above analysis ofthe TEMS community in terms ofWenger's three
dimensions, Wenger's guiding criteria were substantively presentfor nine ofthe fourteen
categories. Five categories reflect a developing or emerging trend. None ofthe criteria
are completely absent (see Table7.3 below).
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