What is a Community of Practice? Things you need to know…

Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger○ Communities of Practice○ Situated Learning

Legitimate Peripheral ParticipationLearning Communities

Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger Cognition in Practice: Mind,

mathematics, and culture in everyday life (Lave, 1988)

Communities of Practice: Learning as a social system (Wenger, 1998)

Situated Learning and Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Lave and Wenger, 1990)

Etienne Wenger

Communities of Practice Defined Along Three Dimensions

What it is aboutHow it functionsWhat capability it has produced“Groups of people who share a passion for

something that they know how to do and who interact regularly to learn how to do it better”

Knowledge is Integrated Learning and Membership are inseparable Knowledge is tied to Practice

Language in Communities of Practice

Situated Learning

Knowledge is not decontextualized, abstract or general. It is context-specific, concrete and specific.

New knowledge and learning are conceived as being located in the Community of Practice

Similar to Learning Communities (Lesser and Storck, 2001)

Legitimate Peripheral Participation Vygotsky

Knowledge is constructed through social interaction

Different role for instructor“Near-Peer Mentoring”

Lave and WengerHave placeed learning into a social

relationship – situations of co-participants

“Rather than asking what kind of cognitive processes and conceptual structures are involved, they ask what kinds of social engagements provide the proper context for learning to take place” (Smith, 2003, pg. 4)

Learning Communities

Are dynamic Have new members and older members

Move from the fringes to the centerIncrease engagement and participation

Face internal tensionsBrought in with the new

Wenger on being connected

Incorporating CoPs, LPP, Situated Learning & Learning Communities

Traditional & Online LearningTraditional

Classrooms and schools

Teachers

Knowledge gained, given

Empty vessel model

Grades

Isolated learning

Online – INSPIRE

Virtual world/ every where

Facilitators

Knowledge constructed, shared

Filled with ability model

CoP in practice & LPP

Situated Learning

Online Learning

Keys to Success○ Course design criteria

ActivitiesRelevant contentApplicable knowledge constructionFlexible to different ways of learningBuild understanding and meaningSelf-directed and self-actualizingClear expectations and rules of conductThoughtfully designed and delivered with goals and

outcomes

Online Learning

Keys to Success continued○ Learner motivation○ Time management○ Comfortableness with technology

The Competition

Facebook

MySpace

INSPIRE Online Environment

Increasing Participation

Increase numbers through networkingBodies, Bodies, Bodies

RecruitmentNASA Educational NetworkOutreachEvangelizing (Guy Kawasaki)

○ Students as best recruiters

The Need for Facilitation within the Online Environment Preece (2000), Luppicini (2007), Palloff

(2007), Tu (2004), Kim (2000) NSTA 2008 Declarations

“Be facilitated or guided by fully accessible teachers or instructors skilled in both science content and pedagogy in an e-learning environment”

“Promote frequent interaction between teacher and learner to allow continuous monitoring and adjustment of the dynamic learning environment”

Further Needs Incorporate instructional design practices

that allow for individual decision making Connect learners – both students and

science educators Provide access to meaningful collaborative

learning experiences with experts and other learners

Conduct ongoing evaluation and assessment of program effectiveness, learners performance, and academic achievement

Looking Towards The Future What Role Will These Play?

Second Life/Teen Second LifeSocial NetworkingHCI – computers that predictCloud ComputingWikisGoogle

Link back into INSPIRE online

Bradford Daveybrad@techforlearning.org

References Brown, J.S., Collins, A. & Duguid, S. (1989). Situated

cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32-42.

Cognition & Technology Group at Vanderbilt (March 1993). Anchored instruction and situated cognition revisited. Educational Technology, 33(3), 52-70. 

Kim, A. (2000). Community Building on the Web: Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities. Peachpit Press, NY

Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in Practice: Mind, mathematics, and culture in everyday life. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 

References (continued) Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1990). Situated Learning: Legitimate

Peripheral Participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Lesser, E. L. and Storck, J. (2001) 'Communities of practice and organizational performance', IBM Systems Journal 40(4), http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/404/lesser.html. Accessed October 22, 2006.

Luppicini, R. (2007). Online Learning Communities: Perspectives in Industrial Technology and Distance Learning. Information Age Publishing, NY

References (continued) 

 

Merrill, H., DiSilvestro, F. and Young, R. (2003). Assessing & Improving Online Learning Using Data from Practice. Presented at the Midwest Research-to-practice Conference in Adult, Continuing and Community Education, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, Oct. 8-10.

Palloff, R. and Pratt, K. (2007). Building Online Learning Communities: Effective Strategies for the Virtual Classroom (2nd Ed). Jossey-Bass, NY.

  Preece, J. (2000). Online Communities: Designing Usability and

Supporting Socialability. Wiley, NY.

  Smith, M. K. (2003) 'Communities of practice', the encyclopedia of

informal education, www.infed.org/biblio/communities_of_practice.htm. 

References (continued) Song, L., Singleton, E., Hill, J. and Koh, M. (2004). Improving

online learning: Students perceptions of useful and challenging characteristics . The Internet and Higher Education. Vol. 7, Issue 1, pgs 59-70.

  Tu, C. (2004). Online Collaborative Learning Communities:

Twenty-One Designs to Build an Online Collaborative Learning Community. Libraries Unlimited, NY.

  Wenger, E. (1998) 'Communities of Practice. Learning as a

social system', Systems Thinker, http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/lss.shtml. Accessed October 23, 2006.