Notes: Communities of Practice

In discussing the concept of shared cognition one inevitably has to consider the social element, how individuals interact within an environment and with one another. Etienne Wenger (1998) developed the concept of Communities of Practice, in which there are three key elements: the domain, the community and the practice. The key to each of these domains (and indeed the community itself) is the interactions between individuals, their joint purpose and their actual endeavours. Wenger sees this as a means by which to promote collaboration online, more often than not it is mistakenly perceived that a community of practice is a mere website, network or shared concern. All of these may indeed form the constituent parts of a community of practice but they require activities to bring them to fruition e.g. Problem solving, Requests for info, Seeking experience, Reusing assets, Coordination and synergy, Discussing developments, Documentation projects, Visits, Mapping knowledge and identifying gaps.

Wenger refers to a “community of practice seen as a living curriculum…” it is this entity that may form the foundation for collaboration and in turn the structure within which shared cognition occurs on an ongoing basis, promoting both life long learning and continuing professional development. A study by Olivera and Straus (2004) testing the transfer of knowledge in a lab-based cooperative learning scenario indicates that learning occurred primarily around cognitive tasks rather than actual social factors, thus highlighting the need for structure based scenarios or a framework to facilitate collaborative efforts such as may be found Wenger’ Communities.

Thomas (2002) puts forward the proposal that the use of discussion boards may aid in the level of thinking undertaken by students. In particular the attainment of critical thinking and deep cognitive processing. In her paper she explores the idea of measuring the environmental impact of the use of facilitators and collaborative tasks. Cooke and Sheeran (2004) also cite the use of moderators to determine behavioural changes in cognitive relations. Problem-based learning is often chaired and run by the learners themselves, in this online version a facilitator was in place to ensure the process was followed through to fruition and to offer any additional and necessary support factors (such as technical assistance, course guidance and mentoring).

An individual’s construction of knowledge, can be suggested as being a ‘collaboration with oneself’, drawing on experience, practice and implementation to achieve a desired objective e.g. a particular learning goal. This is brought into a group dynamic where such implicit experiences are often made explicit via cognitive conflict (i.e. challenging and exploring concepts co-operatively). Each group member may demonstrate a ‘personal’ interaction with the curriculum elements that is interpreted internally yet shared externally. This interaction offers an increased range of experience demonstrated, explored and shared via the entire group. Van Boxtel et al suggest that a key element in the positive perception of collaboration “...is the notion that social interaction stimulates elaboration of conceptual knowledge’ (313, 2000). It provides a forum within which individual learners have the opportunity to engage with the process and express their understanding.

Though this may appear elementary, i.e. differing group members applying personal learning styles or social perspectives for instance. What is not as apparent is the effect upon the group dynamic. According to Vygotsky (1978) the internalization of a shared event by an individual may only be revealed at a later date when that individual is confronted by a similar problem/context within which to react. Thus the results of shared cognition may be seen to be internalized/referenced for future interactions. Furthermore the exposure to differing learning styles may actually affect the way in which individuals decide to learn themselves in future - collaboration leading to co-construction of knowledge.