Download Communities of Practice PDF

Rating: Author: Etienne Wenger ISBN : Product Detai New from Format: PDF

Direct download links available PRETITLE Communities of Practice POSTTITLE from mediafire, rapishare, and mirror link This book presents a theory of learning that starts with the assumption that engagement in social practice is the fundamental process by which we get to know what we know and by which we become who we are. The primary unit of analysis of this process is neither the individual nor social institutions, but the informal 'communities of practice' that people form as they pursue shared enterprises over time. To give a social account of learning, the theory explores in a systematic way the intersection of issues of community, social practice, meaning, and identity. The result is a broad framework for thinking about learning as a process of social participation. This ambitious but thoroughly accessible framework has relevance for the practitioner as well as the theoretician, presented with all the breadth, depth, and rigor necessary to address such a complex and yet profoundly human topic.Direct download links available for PRETITLE Communities of Practice (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives) [Kindle Edition] POSTTITLE

• Product Details
• Table of Contents
• Reviews

• File Size: 1204 KB
• Print Length: 338 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0521663636
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Up to 4 simultaneous devices, per publisher limits
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (July 24, 2013)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00D2WQ72I
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray:
  Not Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #79,605 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #50 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence > Human Vision & Language Systems
  • #62 in Books > Medical Books > Psychology > Social Psychology & Interactions
  • #84 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Psychology & Counseling > Social Psychology & Interactions
• #50 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence > Human Vision & Language Systems
• #62 in Books > Medical Books > Psychology > Social Psychology & Interactions
• #84 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Psychology & Counseling > Social Psychology & Interactions

Download Communities of Practice PDF

This book was a slow, arduous read, but well worth the effort.

I teach at a school that is part of the Professional Learning Communities (PLC) movement. Wenger's book has shed light on why "top-down" implementation of school improvement has failed. The guru of the PLC movement, Richard Dufour (2004), claims that the three big ideas of PLC's are ensuring that students learn, a culture of collaboration and a focus on results. It is in this context that I found Wenger's book valuable in understanding the poverty of the PLC movement.

Wenger claims that communities of practice are learning communities. Are Professional Learning Communities true learning communities as described by Wenger? The answer is no. In a learning community there is interplay between reification and participation. Reification is the artifacts and procedures of previous practice. Participation is the activity engaged in by the practitioner for the organization that results in reification. It is not an either/or model, but dualism. It is within this interplay that learning about practice and the ownership of meaning and identity formation takes place.

Teachers directed by their employer to become PLCs are required to make such large changes in their teaching practices that they become overwhelmed and lost in establishing new practices. The reason for this is that the PLC regime does not consider the requisite identity work and the time required for teachers to own the meaning of new practices. PLCs are not true learning communities.

What about schools? Wenger claims a community of practice emerges when an organization sets forth a structure to accomplish its goal: "...