Let's do this! - Creating a community of practice

One of the goals that all educators should aspire to is the creation of a community of practice among their students.  It is, in my opinion, the ultimate expression of the active, collaborative, and inquiry-based learning strategies.

What is a community of practice?

In brief, community of practice is a phrase coined by anthropologists Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger.  There are three requirements for a community of practice. The first requirement is commitment to a domain.  For example, computer programmers would share the common interest of programming.

The second requirement is that the members must actually be a community.  That means they interact in a way that allows them to share information, request help, etc.  Simply having an interest in professional wrestling does not make you part of the community of pro wrestling fans if you never interact with anyone else in the community.

The third requirement is that of practice.  The members of the community must be practitioners of their domain.  So, fans of the Chicago Cubs can be a community, but they are not a community of practice, since the domain is not a practice.

Communities of practice in the classroom

So, what does a community of practice look like in the classroom?  About what you would expect, really.  Students who work together on their studies are a community of practice.  The subject matter at hand is the domain, so all that remains is to build a community among students.

Often, students will form learning communities without any external influence.  In particular, students who have been in college for a while tend to forgo the lone wolf approach that tends to work in high school.  At Peru State College, our science majors in particular seem eager to work together in their studies

Even when there is no need for an instructor to induce collaboration, it may be necessary for other purposes.  For instance, accreditation entities tend to expect documentation of such activities.  They are not likely to accept your word for it when you tell them that your students work together on their studies.

What can we do to create a community of practice?

So, how do I go about creating a community of practice, um, in practice?  My strategy for establishing a spirit of collaboration among students is to borrow from Maria Andersen's approach to board work.  In this activity, students work on problems in pairs at the board.  Half of the students (one in each pair) are designated to remain stationary while the others move around the room, periodically changing partners.

Working at the board allows everyone in the room (especially the instructor) to see what the students are up to.  The instructor can keep track of student progress, and other students can look outside of their groups for help if they get stuck.  You also don't have to worry about any dysfunctional partnerships since no pair of students stays together for too long.  In fact, Muskegon Community College has gone so far as to design some classrooms with this approach in mind.

From a formal perspective, it makes sense to have students work on projects in groups.  This allows them to get more practice in working on teams as well as enabling them to tackle more involved assignments.

It is worth noting that students in online courses can also benefit from forming a community of practice with their peers.  The lack of face-to-face interaction does not preclude interaction among students, but it does require a more tech savvy approach.