Learning
These notes are part of a series for the book.
Outline
- The dual constitution of histories
- Remembering the forgotten
- Continuity and discontinuity
- The politics of participation and reification
- Histories of learning
- Continuities and discontinuities
- Learning in practice
- Emergent structure
- Generational discontinuities
- Generational encounters
- Practice as learning
Notes
‘Learning creates emergent structures…. transforms our identities…. [and] constitutes trajectories of participation’ (from the 13 principles defining learning, Wenger, 1998, p. 227).
A community of practice (COP) ‘is a matter of sustaining enough mutual engagement in pursuing an enterprise together to share some significant learning…. [and] can be thought of as shared histories of learning’ (Wenger, 1998, p. 86), with history being defined as the duality of participation and reification over time:
| Characteristic | Participation | Reification |
|---|---|---|
| You become invested in it when part of a community of practice | The participation of the members -- it is a shared history. This brings together identities, but also makes it hard to dramatically change who you are (because there is no community support). | Wenger cites the Imperial measurement system and QWERTY keyboards as examples of our resistance to change reifications we are invested in. |
| Discontinuities happen when they come and go in a community of practice | As people come and go, enter and leave a COP, there are discontinuities in the relative positions of its members (newcomers and old-timers). | Reifications also can come and go, causing discontinuities (for example, when old tools are replaced with new ones). |
| Members can use them to shape a community of practice (either to keep it the same or to bring change to it) | Seeking, cultivating, or avoiding certain relationships | Producing or promoting certain artifacts |
| They can be political | Nepotism, discrimination, influence, friendship, charisma | Policies plans, contracts, designs |
| They can be important tools for shifting actions and attitudes within communities of practice. Usually you need both to control practice. | For example, manager participation | For example, policies |
Learning and the three dimensions of practice
COPs face changing conditions and learning happens continually even if it isn’t specifically recognized as learning. Learning in practice includes the three dimensions of practice:
| Characteristic | Mutual engagement | Joint enterprise | Shared repertoire |
|---|---|---|---|
| Learning in practice | 'Evolving forms of mutual engagement' (Wenger, 1998, p. 95) | 'Understanding and tuning their enterprise' (Wenger, 1998, p. 95) | 'Developing their repertoire, styles, and discourses' (Wenger, 1998, p. 95) |
COPs are different than task forces or teams. ‘Whereas a task force or team starts with an assignment and ends with it, a community of practice may not congeal for a while after an assignment has started, and it may continue in unofficial ways far beyond the original assignment. Based on joint learning rather than reified tasks that begin and end, a community of practice takes a while to come into being, and it can linger long after an official group is disbanded’ (Wenger, 1998, p. 96). In the example of the claims processors, they had designed training for new team members, and the feedback was that the transition was still too difficult. New members recommended that the training course should be longer. Wenger contends that it wasn’t that the course was too short, but that entry into the COP was too difficult. It required building relationships with old-timers, who are generally helpful but also busy with their own work. His proposed solution was to recognize, encourage, and facilitate the efforts made by the old-timers in spending time with newcomers.
The newcomers need legitimate peripheral participation to have actual participation within the COP, and thus to learn.
- Legitimate: Treated as potential members (for example, being sponsored by a member in good standing)
- Peripheral: On the edges but must still have access to the three dimensions of practice
See also
Issues of legitimacy, identity, and boundaries in Hall, K. (2008) ‘Leaving Middle Childhood and Moving into Teenhood: Small Stories Revealing Identity and Agency’