Community of Practice (CoP) – Page 5

Beginning my next Research Design / Project

It is now time for me to begin formulating my reserach idea for my Module 3 research project at Lancaster University. I so appreciate the feedback I received on my previous projects, and hope to receive some of the same support with this project as well.

I have been thinking a lot about this, though find that I really organize it and learn about it (and myself) when I begin to write it out (cf. Richardson, Writing: A method of inquiry, 2000), as the notion of writing as a form of inquiry is valuable for me. I learn as I write, and then the feedback along the way from my distributed community is invaluable.

To this end, I am beginning to look at the concept of Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge, as it seems related to the concept of transformational learning (something that I think may be related to autoethnographic inquiry). Lots of relationships here. A lot to process, though I just accessed these two articles and a book section that my faculty tutor suggested I read for some ideas. This is now my reading for the remainder of the week.

Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framewok for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49(3), 378-388.

Marshall, J. (1999). Living life as inquiry. Systemic Practice and Action Research, 12(2), 155-171.

Perkins, D. (2008). Beyond understanding. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer & J. Smith (Eds.), Threshold concepts within the disciplines. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

I will begin tracking and developing my research idea here, and look forward to some feedback along the way. Any suggestions to help me process this are most appreciated!

Community of Practice Struggles, Part 1

I have spent the past 2 hours catching up with colleagues and (perhaps) soon to be colleagues in the CP2 Community, where there have just been 2 Research and Dissertation Fests this week (one I could attend, and one I could not), as well as on Twitter.

Between reading and chatting on Twitter about Nancy White’s amazing recipe, seeing how other people I know were doing the same, discussing ways of using social media for community building (some direct Tweets I received and replied to about this topic), reading how Lilia Efimova had an idea and how she is considering blogging about this still unformed topic as she knows the benefits (and then she finally did blog about these thoughts), not to mention my chats with Jacquie McDonald, chatting about a research idea around Communities of Practice with Etienne Wenger (who did a discussion and co-facilitated the CP2 Foundations course I recently completed), and getting other ideas from colleagues via Direct Tweets, I realize I have a lot of interests and like reaching out to this distributed community.I also like their reaching out to me.

With all this, I wonder why I struggle with consciously enlarging my own community of practice. I tend, for example, not to look for people on Twitter and Facebook, but rather process all this if “friended” first. Perhaps I do not want to be pushy? rejected? or even seem needy? Ironic, as more and more of my work is in the area of communities of practice; perhaps more of my life should be there, too?

Networked Learning 2010 – Hot Seats Discussions

I am hoping to attend the Networked Learning 2010 conference in Denmark in May of 2010 (as long as my paper gets accepted, of course!!), and this conference is doing something different from most other conferences — it is actively engaging potential participants, presenters, and those who are just interested in pre-conference conversations about networked learning.

Very smart.

These Hot Seats are described here, and are free and open to the public. What better way to prepare for a conference on networked learning, than by engaging in this learning medium itself? Right now I find myself engaged in a great conversation with George Siemens ( this week’s facilitator, Athabasca University member, and Connectivism advocate) and the other distant colleagues about how technology changes the possibilities and dynamics in teaching online.

PPOCCID Online Class Began Tonight

My new online class, Principles and Practices of Online Course Creation and Instructional Design (#PPOCCID) at NYU’s SCPS, began this evening. I am glad to see that there have been some nice improvements to the Epsilen online class platform:

As I am asking my students to blog over our 8 weeks together, I thought I should continue to do the same (and as I have been so busy at work and with food poisoning and a paper to complete as well), I am far-enough behind in my sharing here that I have a lot to say!

Communities of Practice & Learning Focus

In the Foundations of Communities of Practice (#FCoP09) workshop I am attending, I am learning a lot more about communities of practice than I expected. I was not really sure what to expect in this workshop, though I did anticipate (correctly, it seems) that I would meet a lot of interesting people, some of whom I hope become lasting colleagues.

I had a revelation over the weekend, partly due to a number of questions I asked about communities of practice (CoP) that were answered by Etienne Wenger, the CoP guru (and the one who, along with Jean Lave, coined the term). One of the things I learned in the last week is something I have heard more times than I can count about communities of practice (CoP), though it never sunk in until now.

A community of practice is primarily about learning.

This is a social learning framework, and with the 3 domains necessary for a community of practice (domain, community, practice), it seems they all contribute to the learning, whether the learning is the intentional goal or not.

I never really considered learning to be the focus of a community of practice, and this insight is now worth the price of admission for me. I finally get it . . . I now see how to accurately use this as a research framework, as well as how others have been doing this incorrectly . . .