The domain. A community of practice is is something more than a club of friends or a network of connections between people. ‘It has an identity defined by a shared domain of interest. Membership therefore implies a commitment to the domain, and therefore a shared competence that distinguishes members from other people’

The community. ‘In pursuing their interest in their domain, members engage in joint activities and discussions, help each other, and share information. They build relationships that enable them to learn from each other’

The practice. ‘Members of a community of practice are practitioners. They develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems—in short a shared practice. This takes time and sustained interaction’

Schlager, M. S., & Fusco, J. (2003). Teacher Professional Development, Technology, and Communities of Practice: Are We Putting the Cart Before the Horse? The Information Society, 19, 203. doi: 10.1080/01972240390210046

Mark Schlager is the co- founder of TAPPED IN an online community of practice established in 1997.  Judith Fusco is the project co-director and community director at TAPPED IN.  TAPPED IN part of SRI International’s Center for Technology in Learning.  In this article they discuss the evolution of this online community and the ways in which the use of technology may be “putting the cart before the horse” in terms of maximizing the potential of learning communities at the local level before jumping in with both feel into online communities of practice.  The claim there may be “even greater potential to help support and strengthen local communities of practice within which teachers work.”

Significant research has been conducted on the evolution of this particular online community of practice.  There are a lot of educators involved in this online community, however, whether or not the thousands of users actually constitue a community of practice has yet to be determined.  It appears to be very successful, however more research about the types of knowledge that is shared, the motivations behind the knowledge sharing and the application of the knowledge into actual practice is needed.

References: Lave and Wenger, 1991; Orr 1996, Wenger, 1998, Brown & Duguid, 1991, 2000

Research completed outside the field of education; more sociologically based.

“Communities of practice are viewed as emergent, self-reproducing and evolving entities that are distinct from, and frequently extend beyond, formal organizational structures, with their own organizing structures, norms of behavior, communication channels and history.” (Brown & Duguid, 1991; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Barab & Duffy, 2000; Schlager et al. , 2002)

Exception rather than the rule in K-12 Education.  Why?

Two important questions to consider:

1. Why do education researchers, policymakers, district leaders, and technologists need to understand, nurture, and support communities of practice in K-12 education?

2. What can education technologists do to help nurture and support communities of practice in K-12 education?

Guideposts for Technology Design that Support Systemwide Improvement

1. Learning Processes

2. History and Culture

3. Membership Identity and Multiplicity

4. Community Reproduction and Evolution

5. Social Networks

6. Leaders and Contributors

7. Tools, Artifacts, and Places

8. The Practice

Goal is to return to the local communities of practice to fully understand how they work in order to fully develop online communities of practice that can engage and support teacher learning, resulting in sustained development of best teaching practices.

Barab, S. A., MaKinster James G, Moore, J. A., & Cunningham, D. J. (2001). Designing and building an on-line community: The struggle to support sociability in the Inquiry Learning Forum. Educational Technology, Research and Development, 49(4), 71.

Teachers need to have ownership in a community in order for it to be successful.  Wenger (1998) describes communities of practice as self-generating.  This bottom-up approach to network development is mirrored in the development of online communities This article describes the sociotechnical structures of the Inquiry Learning Forum (ILF), which is a web based professional development tool designed to support math and science teachers and reflects on the components of successful networks and communities of practice in hopes to better understand the structures within the community that allow for it’s development.

We need to focus on a new model for teacher learning; one that is community based.  The problem is that this model cannot be imposed in a top-down approach. Community centered learning must be facilitated and have a great deal of user-driven formation.  Unfortunately teachers do not have the opportunity to discuss, interaction and participate in their communities of practice in the ways that will afford them the opportunity to impact school reform.

(Note: article written in 2001; despite the years that have passed, many of the same problems exist.  New technologies have afforded teachers with greater opportunity to engage in informal types of social learning for professional development, yet large scale, systemic models don’t exist in most schools.)

Inquiry Learning Forum is designed to assist teachers to come together in a virtual space to visit each other’s classrooms to observe and discuss best practices.  The vison of the creators of the website is to create a space that helps teachers make their teaching explicit so that it can be shared with others.

Article describes the design, analysis and development, but I am most interested in the process of supporting sociability.

Communities of practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991) activity binds individuals to community; shared practices and experience over time result in learning that is continually evolving through each interaction.  Barab & Duffy, 2000, state that when learning occurs as part of a community of practice, members interacting with this community have access to this history of previous negotiations as well as responsiveness from the current members on the functional value of a particular practice, solution or finding.

Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991) state that in order for the community to be sustained, there must be a continual contribution of new members, new ideas, etc.  One of the ways this occurs is for members on the outer edges of the community to participate in small ways, slowly moving towards the center regions of the community.

Hur, J., & Hara, N. (2007). Factors Cultivating Sustainable Online Communities for K-12 Teacher Professional Development. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 36(3), 245-268. doi: 10.2190/37H8-7GU7-5704-K470

In this study of online teacher community called INDISCHOOL in Korea, the researchers examined online postings from the community and conducted interviews.  12 factors were identified as a resulte of this study.  8 supporting factors and 4 factors that were inhibiting. The factors were further categorized into three areas; internal, external and outcome factors.

Existing professional development models don’t meet teacher needs. Often there is not follow up to the one or two day workshops and no time allotted for implementation or discussion of practice.  Often there is a disconnect between what teacher need to learn, what they want to learn and what the school district offers.

Distributed Cognition: knowledge is distributed across people and tools, resulting in collective knowledge which is greater than the sum of individual knowledge. (Johnson 2001; Putnam & Borko, 2000; Salmon, 1993)

Wegner (1998) claims that communities of practice cannot be designed, they are self-organizing depending on the needs of the users.  This could describe the current phenomena of online social networks and their popularity in the educational community.  Traditionally teachers are not afforded the opportunity to engage in discussion, sharing, or learning based on individual preference and need.  Typical professional development models are most offen top-down in nature with the needs of the group taking preference over the needs of the individual. Online communities of practice and online professional development opportunities allow teachers to engage in practice based on their needs, learning styles and areas of interest.

Sustainability: communities need members who are committed and motivated in order to thrive.  Common goals, vision, shared interests and trust are all factors that contribute to the growth and sustainability of a community of practice.  While the vast amount of research lies ahead of us, there is substantial theory (Schalger et. al, 2009; Barab & MaKinster, 2003; Dube,Bourhis & Jacob, 2005; Zhao & Rop, 2002) that the factors that contribute to the growth and development of communities of practices in physical locations will, if replicated in an appropriate manner, contribute to the growth and development of communities of practice that are established online and in virtual worlds.

Methodology:

Single case study; intention is to identify factors influencing the sustainable nature of the online community; wanted to explore this from the teachers’ perspective rather than understand the community as a whole.

Three sets of data were collected; interview transcriptions, archived web postings, and researcher’s observation notes.

Findings

Two categories: Support and Hindrance; divided within each into three subgroups, internal, external and outcomes.

Supporting factors: Internal: Having autonomy, having a sense of ownership, acknowledging values of participation

Supporting factors: External: Providing online and offline interaction, providing an easy way to use tech systems

Supporting factors: Outcomes: helping novice teachers become confident educators, assisting in overcoming teacher isolation, meeting teachers individual needs

Hinderance factors: Internal: Teachers’ lack of confidence, previous negative experience in online communities,

Hinderance factors:External: Lack of technological support, discouraging teacher’s active learning

This study left me with some questions:

As a result in the increase of technological knowledge and expertise, would the hinderance-external factor of lack of technological support be reduced?

How do we create environments for active participation?  Discouraging teachers’ active learning was a hinderance-outcome factor.  Information sharing is a wonderful aspect of the internet. Downside is that some teachers will not actively share, they will just “steal”.  We need to understand what motivates teachers to participate actively, finding a balance between give and take.  My initial thoughts are that that type of outcome exists in current physical environments and for that matter, in most organizations.  There are always people who do more, share more, engage more often, etc.  This may be a factor we just have to accept, all the while working to increase participation for those that might just be apprehensive in trying new things.