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

The formation and functioning and stages ofdevelopment ofa learning community will
be peculiar to the community being formed. The above literature on the formation and
functioning oflearning communities offers valuable insights that have important
implications for the present study. Such useful insights informed and shaped the study as
the learning community under study progressed through the different stages.
2.2.4 Distributed cognition and the essential tension in learning communities
An important element in the situative perspective on learning is the notion of 'distributed
cognition'. Putman and Borko (2000:8) assert that:
The notion ofdistributed cognition suggests that when diverse groups of teachers with
different types ofknowledge and expertise come together in discourse communities,
community members can draw upon and incorporate each other's expertise to create rich
conversations and new insights into teaching and learning. The existing cultures and
discourse communities in many schools, however, do not value or support critical and
reflective examination ofteaching practice.
This notion is supported by research conducted by Grossman and colleagues (Grossman
et al 2001). They state that forming a professional community requires teachers to engage
in both intellectual and social work, that is, developing new ways ofthinking and
reasoning collectively, as well as new forms ofinteracting personally. It is important to
be cognisant ofthe fact that in the development ofteacher community some people know
things that others do not know and that the collective knowledge exceeds that ofthe
individual. Learning from fellow participants requires the ability to listen carefully to
fellow participants, especially as these participants struggle to formulate thoughts in
response to challenging intellectual content. Listening to the ill-formed thoughts and
ideas offellow participants may be a new activity that participants have to learn to
engage with.
Communities ofpractice alter the "linear relationships through which knowledge 'trickles
down' from those who discover professional knowledge to those who provide and receive
services shaped by it because the model invites and builds upon knowledge from each"
(Wesley and Buysse 2001:121). Cognition is distributed across the individual and other
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