Wenger (1999) ‘Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity’

Learning belongs in the realm of experience and practice and has the ability to change or transform who we are.

 According to Wenger (1999) Learning is first and foremost the ability to negotiate new meanings

 

CoPs are about content – about learning as a living experience of negotiated meaning – they cannot be leglislated but can be supported, encourages and nurtured – they are not designable units. For example you can:

 

-         Design  the systems of accountability and policies for CoPs to live by but not the response

-         design the roles but not the identities which be will constructed through the roles

-         Design the visions but not the allegiance to align energies beyond those visions

-         Design the work processes but not the work practices

-         Can design the curriculum but not the learning

 

“Thus learning cannot be designed  – it can be be designed for…” (p 229)

 

Learning Architectures

 Wenger  (1999) discusses the four demensions for design for learning which include:

1. Participation/retification
2. Local/Global
3. Designed/emergent
4. idnetificaiton/negotiability

 

He stresses the need to address fundamental issues of meaning, time, space and power.  Wengers (199) four dimensions in more detail:

 

1. Participation and retification

 

Make sure the right elements are in place – community is given the tools, plans, procedures, schedules, curriculums

 

Make sure the right people are in place in the right kind of relation to make something happen

 

1. Designed and the emergent

 

The relation of design to practice is always indirect – practice is a response to design

 

1. Local and global

 

Design will create relations not between local and global but among localities in their constitution of global.

“CoPs are already involved in their design of learning because ultimately they will decide what they need to learn, what it takes to be a full participant and how newcomers should be introduced to the community” (p234)

 

1. Identification and negotiability

 

‘Design creates fields of indentification and negotiability that orient the practices and identities of those involved to various forms of participation and non-particpation” (p 235)

 

Wenger 1999 suggestst that as a consequence – design can create alliegence or compliance -  it can thrive on non participation or participation

 

The Design space – the describe dimensions reflect the inevitable confrontation of design with issues of meaning, time, space and power. Each of the dimensions involves tradeoffs and challenges (also presents tradeoffs and challenges/opportunties/obstacles/resources/constratints)

 

 

Componets of Design – Imagination/Alignment and Engagement

 

The challenge of design is to support the work of engagement, imagination and alignment.

 

1. Engagement

 

Engagement is supporting the formation of a CoP. Engagement is related to community building, inventiveness and social engery (Wenger 1999)

Issues to address include mutality, competence and continuity:

 

Mutality – physical and virtual spaces, interactive technologies, communication facilities, time for interaction

-         joint tasks – activities – things to do together

-         peripherality – ways of belonging in varios ways (eg lurking – legitimate peripheral participation, entry points, observation, encounters

 

Competence – inative and knowledgeability – activites that bring together occasions for skills, devising solutions, making decisions

-         accountability – negotiation of joint enterprises – mutual evaluation

-         tools – artifacts  that support competence – discourse – terms and concepts – delegation

 

 

Continuity – retification memory – storage of information, documentation and tracking and retrieval mechanisms

-         participative memory – generational encounters, storytelling

 

1. Faciities of imagination

 

Takes imagination in order for learning to deal with a broader context – should include facilities of orientation, reflection and exploration

 

Orientation – location in space – maps and other tools

-         location in time – long term trajectories

-         location in meaning – explanations, stories, examples

-         location in power – org charts, transparency of process

 

Reflection – facilities for comaparisons with other practices, retreats, time off, conversations and other breaks in rhythm

 

Exploration – opportunities and tools for trying things out, play and simulations

 

1. Facilies of Alignment

 

This is where we learn to have effects and contribute to tasks that are defined beyond our engagement (Wenger 1999). In order for this to take place you need convergence, cooodination and jurisdiction.

 

Convergence – common focus, cause or interest, vision, values, alliengence, leadership, peursusion

 

Coordination

 

1)      standards and methods – processes, plans, deadlines and schedules, division of labour, styles and discourses

2)      communication – information transmission, spread of novelty, renegotian

3)      boundary facilities – boundary practices, support for multimembership

4)      feedback facilities – data collection, accounting, measurements

 

Jurisdiction – policies, contracts, due processes, mediation, conflict resolution, distribution of authority

Source: Wenger, E (1999) ‘Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity’ Cambridge, University Press, USA

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