Aimlessly flipping through the channels on my television, I can not find anything interesting to watch. Ah, here’s Dr. Phil; let’s see what strangeness is going on now. Soon I find myself caught up in the life-drama of someone I don’t even know, cheering, nodding my head and thinking, “This lady really knows the answers” (I admit, maybe even say aloud). This is the same feeling that I had reading Etienne Wenger’s Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems. Social learning combines the standards set by the group with each member’s personal experience. This experience can catalyze the group to further learning and increasing standards. I cheered as Wegner talked about three elements of the social learning system: community of practice, boundaries, and identity.
Community of Practice.
The learning that takes place in a community of practice is so strong because it reflects what brain researchers know about how the brain learns. In communities of practice, learning takes place through “joint enterprise,” working together on a project that builds mutual respect and understanding (Wenger, 2000, p. 229). The brain also has two ways of learning, which Caine and Caine refer to as spatial memory and rote memory (1990, p. 68). Rote memory requires practice, but spatial memory are those things that you remember the first time they occur, those instant memories that are sometimes indeliably etched on our brains. The spatial memory is obviously more efficient. Communities of practice engage the spatial memory as colleagues work together, negotiating “competence through an experience of direct participation” (Wenger, 2000, p. 229). This explains why we learn better in study groups or when working through a new software application with a co-worker.
Every community of practice has boundaries, and when different communities touch each other, learning occurs and tensions possibly mount. We must bridge the boundaries in order to learn from each other (Wenger, 2000, pp. 233–234). My workplace has two communities of practice—the faculty and the office staff. We bridge these boundaries so that students have the best experience possible. The office staff and the faculty have to negotiate the use of the computer system that tracks student scheduling and grades. Staff should understand how faculty use the system, and the faculty need to know some of the logistics that the staff deals with. For example, faculty want to have their class rosters several days before classes begin, which is not currently possible. Staff need time to manually enter each student’s schedule, and this can not be done until language placement testing takes place. On the other hand, staff need to understand that a four-day lag period, while it seems like a half-week to them, means 10-15% of the entire course for the faculty (we have a 40-day program with classes meeting five days a week). We recently moved a faculty member into a newly-created position to bridge this boundary.
The identities of individuals are shaped by their experience: we define ourselves by what we know and don’t know (Wenger, 2000, p. 238). “Identity needs a place where a person can experience knowing as a form of social competence…their need to develop their competence is also part of their belonging” (Wenger, 2000, p. 241). This mirrors Caine and Caine’s brain principle that the brain needs familiarity, as well as novelty and complexity. The familiarity gives stability and anchors the search for meaning from the complex (Caine & Caine, 1990, p. 67). The community of learning can provide this stability and comfort, as a home where the identity feels competent. This allows the member to be willing to search for the complex and to expand her own personal experiential learning.
I think Wenger gets it right in his assessment of social learning, in light of both my own personal experience and the brain research highlighted by Caine and Caine.
References
Caine, R. N., & Caine, G. (1990). Understanding a Brain-Based Approach to Learning and Teaching. Educational Leadership, 66–70.
Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems. Organization, 7(2), 225–246. doi:10.1177/135050840072002
**To learn more about Caine & Caine’s article about brain research, see my blog post “A View from the Past: Bridging Brain Research to the Classroom” from May 30, 2014.
Dianna
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