This report presents you the concept of a community of practice. Normally the term community of practice in reduced to CoP and this term was created by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger in 1991. Now to understand this notion, we should understand the fathers of this notion. Jean Lave is a social anthropologist. She studied at Harvard University. Now she is teaching at the University of California, Berkeley. She published three books. Etienne Wenger is an educational theorists and practitioner. He is known for his theory about the situated cognition. He is also famous for his work on the community of practice subject. Etienne Wenger worked with Jean Lave on these two projects. Moreover he thinks that that learning is a social process which cannot be separated from its environment. Now this theorist lives in California but he is not American, he is from Switzerland.
[...] Principl Invite Some people will be active in the community and levels of contributions and learning take place in participation different ways. Principl Develop both Relationships form during informal community private the purpose of the community. Formal organized community events and discussion spaces are needed to help spaces people feel part of a community. Both are important. Principl Focus on value The true value of a community may emerge as it be encouraged to be explicit about the value being delivered. [...]
[...] Purpose Duration Community of Developing members' capabilities Whilst there is Practice by building and exchanging interest by the knowledge members Formal Work Delivering a product or service Until there is a Group re-organization Project Team Accomplishing a specified task Until the end of the project Informal Collecting and passing on business As long as people Network information have reason to connect The author also says that benefits can be found from CoP. To summarize her idea, managers could have a good team by creating a strong team with social links. [...]
[...] To have a CoP, we need to use one of these three means of communication: - Intranet - Extranet - Internet In the past community of practice was the main way to learn manual work. Each person could see the best way to make a product. Old worker could teach young worker and answer his questions. According to Christine Van Winkelen it is natural for humans to socialize. This point explains that CoP exists. These kinds of communities not only give knowledge but also create relationship between people. [...]
[...] They are held together by a common interest in a body of knowledge and are driven by a desire and need to share problems, experiences, insights, templates, tools and best practices. Community members deepen their knowledge by interacting on an ongoing basis. (Christine Van Winkelen) As we can see, the author Van Winkelen defines also the CoP like an individual need. She said that people need to share and create knowledge, but the main point is that you cannot forget the social aspect. [...]
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