I have not been living in Australia for very long but have been fortunate to start teaching in the schools quite soon after my arrival. In former schools where I’ve taught and even now, I’ve taken my classes on excursions which in this sense is a journey – going somewhere and coming back. On the excursion and at the venue, learning takes place, information is gathered and shared and exhibited through projects and then we move on within the walls of the classroom to do other relevant learning. The excursion or venue do not become or form part of our everyday life. We don’t build on it, expand it or put out for others to know or experience in the near future. The excursion, as quoted from Wenger (1998 p.3) “has a beginning and an end; that is best separated from the rest of our activities; and that is the result teaching”.
Learning that is involves a community where people are engaged in a process of collective learning in a shared domain is a community of practice. People join in common activities through what they have commonly learned and interact regularly to share [from] their practices. They form the characteristics of a CofP having the three elements of the domain, the community and the practice.
A CofP therefore is not the opportunity to go on an excursion for a while and then return but instead to form a community of relations that soon develop around things that matter to people. It needs to “generate and appropriate a shared repertoire of ideas, commitments and memories”.
I went through my list of activities which I’m involved in in my community and have not been able to class any as a CofP but they are not excursions. I think that my first real CofP will be through my PLN as I link up with other people in my profession and share resources, knowledge, etc outside of the traditional structures of the school (through the internet) and through that establishing a long-term organizational memory .
hclarkemusic 