Education for a Digital World Advice, Guidelines and Effective Practice from Around Globe, 2008a

30 – Supporting E-learning through Communities of Practice
Learning outcomes
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
• Describe the concept of Community of Practice
(CoP).
• Explain why CoPs are important for e-learning practitioners.
• Identify the resources required to develop an online
community.
• Synthesize concepts and aspects that comprise successful
communities.
• Apply Wenger, McDermott & Snyder’s (2002) seven
principles of community design to design an online
community project.
Introduction
E-learning now makes it feasible for groups to learn and
work collaboratively in an online virtual group of
knowledgeable, experienced, like-minded peers, regardless
of physical locations. These types of groups, called
communities of practice (CoPs), can be a powerful support
for gathering new knowledge and for putting it into
action. CoPs are being used to enhance the success of
many businesses, not-for-profit, social action, and academic
endeavours.
As instructors in college and university settings are
being asked to focus on teaching and learning, we are
witnessing the development of a new discipline, the
scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). SoTL has
among its goals the understanding and improvement of
the teaching-learning process in classroom-based, online,
and blended environments. It involves dialogue
among instructors about their best practices, and this
leads to the development of social communities in
which new avenues in teaching and learning can be explored
and shared. CoPs, both face-to-face and online,
are powerful enablers of these dialogues.
To help you understand and implement CoPs in your
context, this chapter presents a practical guide to developing
and maintaining your own CoP. It also provides
an overview of the conceptual foundations of CoPs.
Case studies throughout the chapter describe the conception,
growth, challenges, and triumphs of several
CoPs in action.
What is a “community of
practice” ?
The term “community of practice” (CoP) was proposed
by Lave & Wenger (1991) to capture the importance of
activity in integrating individuals within a community
and of community in legitimizing individual practices.
Barab et al. (2002, p. 495) defined a CoP as “a persistent,
sustaining social network of individuals who share and
develop an overlapping knowledge base, set of beliefs,
values, history, and experiences focused on a common
practice and-or mutual enterprise.”
Wenger (1998) proposed three key features of a CoP:
(1) mutual engagement, (2) joint enterprise, and (3) a
shared repertoire. Mutual engagement involves both
work-related and sociocultural activities, achieved
through interaction, shared tasks, and opportunities for
peripheral participation. Joint enterprise refers to the
need for the group to respond to its own, rather than an
external, mandate. Finally, a shared repertoire involves
the “routines, words, tools, ways of doing things, stories,
gestures, symbols, genres, actions or concepts that the
community has adopted in the course of its existence”
(Wenger, 1998, p. 83).
So we can see that the concept of a CoP is complex
and multidimensional, and as instructors make the shift
from a teaching focus to a learning focus, CoPs provide
an important avenue for e-learning practitioners to expand
their repertoire. An online CoP can serve two key
purposes: (1) it can provide a place for instructors to
share their experiences and learn from one another; and
(2) it can provide a place for students to interact with
one another and the instructor, and to work in teams.
Example: An Online CoP for Teacher Education
“In 2005, the Faculty of Education at the University of
Wollongong in Australia implemented the online community
of practice called the BEST site: Beginning and
Establishing Successful Teachers (http://www.uow.edu
.au/educ/students/best.html). The site has been developed
specifically for primary and early childhood teachers,
although it is being further developed for other
specialized cohorts, such as physical and health education
teachers” (Herrington, Herrington, Kervin & Ferry,
2006, para. 18).
476 Education for a Digital World