Communities of Learning & Practice:

Basic Design Considerations

Dr. Apostolos KostasMember of Laboratory & Teaching Staff

Dept. of Primary Education, University of the Aegean

Email: apkostas@aegean.gr

Community is …

• Community is the fundamental social environment where learning and knowledge construction takes place on the basis of meaning negotiation via peer’s interactions.

• It refers to a group of people who live and act in the same geographical area sharing common aims and values.

Community consists of… People, common purpose, social interaction, activity

in space/time

Agency, belonging, cohesion, diversity

Acting together, dialoguing, collaborating,

bridging

Community to… V-community

• Virtual community = social aggregations in the network, where people join public conversations thus forming a web of interpersonal relationships within the Cyberspace.

• Internet community = group of people interacting in a virtual environment, having common goals, specific rules and behavioral norms.

Community of Learning is…

• A community in which members are tied together by a common interest to inquire a certain case in depth and learn together, share knowledge and solve problems collaboratively by this process.

• A group of people who shares a common goal, works together, respect different opinions, promote opportunities for active learning and develop a collaborative environment for empowerment of membership and new knowledge formation.

Learning Communities

{reflection, meta-learning}

Communities of Learners {enquiry,

knowledge-generations}

Community of Practice is…

• A group of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis.

• A group of professionals tied together in an informal manner via their engagement in a common class of problems and efforts to find solutions, thus comprising a potential inventory of shared knowledge and expertise

A Typology …

Community of Practice is not…

• According to Wenger et al. (2002) “… a CoP is not just a Web site, a database, or a collection of best practices. It is a group of people who interact, learn together, build relationships, and in the process develop a sense of belonging and mutual commitment…”(p.34)

E. Wenger, R. McDermott, W. Snyder, “Cultivating Communities of Practice: A guide to Managing Knowledge”, Harvard Business Review, pp. 139–145, 2002.

CoP consists of …

Domain: it is a shared field of interest and competence, related to members’ commitment and passion.

Community: it is a group of people engaging in joint activities, with regular interaction, relationships and mutual trust.

Practice: it is the shared repertoire of experiences, tools, techniques, stories, learning activities engaged to build, share and apply to practice and a sense of joint enterprise.

Cop vs. IMCop CoP IMCoP

Design Emerge from existing groups

Top-down

Membership Closed, follows certain norms

Open, without certain norms. Identification is based on an idea or a task, rather than the place, with more fluid formal boundaries, less dominated norms and greater flexibility [18, 21]

Leadership Emerge from the community

Pre-Assigned

Communication Face-to-face ICT-mediated

Development Less Time More Time: virtual community is the designed community, whereas the CoP is what emerges from the designed community

ICT Plays no role “Place” in virtual communities is substituted by the Web

The Big Questions Now…

• Can relationship and trust developed and

sustained in IMCoPs?

• Can tacit knowledge and practice be shared within

IMCoPs?

Which are the critical elements of IMCoPs?

Kostas, A., Sofos, A. (2012) Internet-Mediated Communities of Practice: Identifying a Typology of Critical Elements. In Daradoumis, T., Demetriadis, S., Xhafa, F. (Eds) Intelligent Adaptation and Personalization Techniques in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, Studies in Computational Intelligence, 2012, Volume 408/2012, 311-334, Springer Berlin/Heidelberg.

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-28586-8_14

Critical Elements

MOTIVATORS Short-term Long-term Personal Community Explicit Implicit

Professional Development      

Professional challenges encounter ▪   ▪   ▪  Improve quality of processes   ▪     ▪  Reach learning environments  ▪       ▪Development of synergies   ▪   ▪   ▪Learning curve reduction   ▪       ▪

Personal Development            Emotional improvement ▪ ▪     ▪Informal learning activities   ▪       ▪Reduce project completion time   ▪     ▪  Creativity & innovation   ▪ ▪     ▪Peer relations & social networking ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪  

Resource and Information Sharing            Get answers from experts ▪ ▪ ▪  Experts network formation   ▪   ▪ ▪Promotion & dissemination of practices  ▪ ▪   ▪ ▪  

Resources re-use ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪  

Information and knowledge sharing ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪Ethics            

Recognizability ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪  Altruism ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪  Common values/vision/objectives ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

SUCCESS FACTORS personal …• media literacy level 

• prior knowledge and expertise

• writing skills 

• communication capabilities

• self-control

• learning self-organized capabilities

• learning self-acting capabilities

• learning self-assessment capabilities

• learning on reflection capabilities

• socialization capabilities

BARRIERS personal …

• lack of time for a member to engage in various activities

• cultural diversities

• no motives

• high level of competitiveness

• low professional confidence

• lack of trust/hide identity

• reluctance to innovation and use of new practices and methods

• low digital skills/inflexibility

• common understandings diversities

• modesty/ personal particularities

• members are not familiar with knowledge sharing values

SUCCESS FACTORS technology …• quick member registration

• member’s security & privacy with security levels

• efficient search engine

• role management system

• dynamic & flexible CMS

• avatars

• push-pull mechanisms

• Usability, reliability and availability of services

• user-interface transparency

• simulation of face-to-face communication 

SUCCESS FACTORS operational• security and trust environment 

• clear definition of common goals

• focus on the strategic objectives and sub-objectives of the community

• efficient members support

• successful cultivation of “feeling of belonging”

• balance on typical and non-typical procedures

• community assessment and evaluation mechanisms 

• pluralism and rhythm on communities’ activities

BARRIERS design/organization …• insufficient ICT design and development

• social capital takes time, while the web favors short-terms connections

• low interest due to ill design

• lack of objectives

• lack of common values

• lack of support

• indistinct practice

• lack of a core group

• information hoarding/lack of trust

• insufficient flow of information

• cohesiveness reduction through time

A “healthy” community …

Fade out

Now what?

eTwinning is offering a viable environment where

many of the IMCoPs’ success factors can be traced...

Its up to YOU now to utilize all the motivators and

build sustainable virtual communities!!!

Thank you!