CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
3.4 The dimensions of the Communities of Practice
76 before they went through learning. In achieving this, participants use frameworks that guide their actions in mutual engagement. The third element is the relation between learning and identity which looks at the changes that are brought about in an individual by learning. People assume different identities as a result of the learning that they went through: this happens within a context. Individuals
experience this as they participate in their different communities. The last element looks at learning as belonging to a community. Individuals’ abilities are recognised as they participate in communities. They are recognised as they mutually contribute, as they negotiate meaning. The learning is generated as the participants engage, each one coming as an expert and knowledgeable in the field but, at the same time, learning from the others. In this element, learning takes place through the three dimensions, namely, Mutual Engagement, Joint Enterprise and Joint Repertoire.
The three dimensions are discussed below.
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Figure 5 Dimensions of practice as the property of the community (Wenger, 1998, p. 73)
3.4.1. Joint Enterprise
Wenger (1998) defines joint enterprise as a means that lead to relations of answerability that are not just inflexible limitations or norms. The focus here is on what brings the community together. The intention is eternally debated by the members, counting on what needs to be reralised. This dimension is informed by three aspects that keep the Community of Practice together. “It is as a result of the collective process of negotiation that reflects the full complexity of mutual engagement; it is the participants’ negotiated responses to their situation and, thus, belongs to them in a profound sense; and it creates among participants relations of mutual accountability that become an integral part of the practice” (Wenger, 1998, p.77-78).
For the purposes of this study, joint enterprise is the learning that takes place in the Life Sciences cluster. The achievement of the enterprise is dependent on the diversity of the group. According to Wenger (1998), the enterprise is joint, not
negotiated enterprise mutual accountability interpretation
rhythms local response
joint enterprise
shared repertoire mutual
engagement
engaged diversity doing things together
relationships social complexity
community maintenance
stories styles artefacts tools actions historical discourses events
concepts
78 because everybody agrees but because it is communally negotiated and their responses to their conditions are interconnected because they are engaged together in a joint enterprise. They must find a way of doing that together and even living with their differences. Coordinating their respective aspirations is part of the process.
Mutual accountability by the participants takes place at this stage, because this is where the core business is discussed. It is at this stage that important issues are discussed and the determination of what is and is not important is made. What is finally agreed on should benefit everyone who is a participant.
It is at this stage that meaning is negotiated by the participants as they engage in joint enterprise. This platform is also used for mutual accountability in order to ensure that all tasks that were supposed to be carried out have been dealt with.
Members report on the tasks performed. As the members engage, the
interpretations are shared and re-interpreted so that everyone has a common understanding of the issue at hand. The CoPs are localized in nature; however, they have a global presence. They have to be open-minded in their approach. The subject cluster concept and the activities taking place in the cluster, as an
alternative to conventional professional development activities, are supposed to take into consideration international trends in teacher development space. This will assist in directing them to use the acquired skills to teach and produce learners who can compete globally. Various participants’ ambitions, which include goals, are analysed in order for a shared vision to be shared by all community members (Woolside et al., 2009). I also analysed whether there were signs of professional growth and the introduction of changes, continuation and discontinuation of what brought them together.
According to Wenger (1998), the negotiation of a joint enterprise keeps the CoPs together and active. The joint enterprise operation is informed by the premise that it reflects a negotiated settlement of mutual agreement: the participants define the form and content of their joint enterprise. Lastly, mutual accountability in relations is key in the operations of the joint enterprise. The CoPs may be faced by challenges;
79 however, it becomes the responsibility of the participants to deal with those
constraints.
“Negotiating a joint enterprise gives rise to a relation of mutual accountability among those involved. These relations of accountability include what matters and what does not … when actions and artefacts are good enough and when they need improvement and refinement “. (Wenger, 1998, p. 81)
3.4.2 Mutual engagement
According to Wenger (1998, p. 76), “mutual engagement takes into consideration competencies of all participants: they do what they know best in order to connect meaningfully to both what they know and do not know”. This dimension looks at language development among the members, meaning the manner in which they communicate and promote collegiality and how that language is used to create the practice together. One of the main tasks of community members is to pay more attention on the specific tasks to be achieved and draw out other members’ on- going interaction (Guldberg & Mackness, 2009). The levels of engagement are negotiated and not rigid. Depending on what is to be achieved by the cluster, it would be interesting to know how that is negotiated. The CoPs acknowledges the fact that even though members are drawn together by a universal purpose, they are still unique from contrasting circumstances and what makes debate in practice feasible and fruitful is an issue of variety and a matter of cohenrence (Wenger, 1998). As a researcher I have to take all these into consideration when I gather data, as it will assist me in analysing their mutual engagement.
According to Wenger (1998), the CoPs assist in the improvement of personal relations through well-managed relations. The end result is tighter CoPs. (Wenger, 1998) notes that good working relations are a reflection of having a shared understanding of what brought the members together and cannot be reduced to a single entity that is not related to the enterprise and what is sought to be achieved by the community. Wenger (1998) warns that the consequential relations demonstrate the full entanglement of doing things as a collective and they are not really lessened to an individual belief such as authority, amusement, rivalry, cooperation, wish, economic relations, functional preparations or information
80 processing.
The dimension helped me interpret how meanings were negotiated by the cluster members, what kind of activities facilitated negotiated meaning and any other means used. This dimension further helped me to examine whether cluster meetings and content workshops facilitated transformative learning among teachers, and the role played by collaborative learning.
There is appreciation of diversity. All participants have knowledge that they are bringing to the community in order to recreate the new knowledge from what they would have shared. The activities are done together by the members.
They create relationships such that they are able to work even beyond
communities. These relationships help in the maintenance of the community, so that they continue to grow each other intellectually.
3.4.3 Shared Repertoire
The elements of shared repertoire can be very diverse. “They gain their
coherence not in and of themselves as specific activities, symbols or artefacts but from the fact that they belong to the practice of a community pursuing an
enterprise” (Wenger, 1998, p.82). There are distributed plans that are shown in countless ways. According to Whitaker (2006), a community would establish a practice and this may consist of tools that will help to carry out the duties,
structures and means of communication which form part of a shared repertoire to facilitate the members’ communication strategies. O’ Mahony (2014) points to the fact that collaborative learning is the key in helping members interpret the
meaning of the learning that would have taken place. Key meanings are entailed in these shared symbols and can be easily understood by the community
members (Stephens & Delamont, 2010).
The repertoire of a Community of Practice includes routines, words, tools, ways of doing things, stories, gestures, symbols, actions or concepts that the community has produced or adopted in the course of its existence, and which have become parts of its existence. The repertoire combines both reificative and participative aspects. It
81 includes the discourse by which members create meaningful statements about the world, as well as the styles by which they express their forms of membership and their identities as members. (Wenger, 1998, p. 83)
The shared utterances reflect what has been discussed, using the tools that would have been agreed upon by the participants. These would be collaboratively
agreed upon (Gau, 2016). Coherence of the learning through activities takes place. This is as a result of clearly stipulated objectives for participating; each and every member feels that they belong to the community and their contributions are valued (Lee et al., 2017).
Members bring with them styles and ways of doing what other members are not familiar with. They share artefacts to help each other carry out their tasks that otherwise they would have not been able to. Discourses are shared and those that take the community forward are adopted. Stories that help with learning and
creating meaning are shared among members. Stories are used to disseminate knowledge and to enhance knowledge. The stories are told to understand past experiences in the organisation and to understand the future of the organisation, through scenario planning and with the possibility that the current practice of the organisation may change.
Wenger’s three dimensions were used in interpreting the practices of the Life Sciences cluster and the consequences of participation as seen in the workshops, observations and heard through interviews held. Mutual engagement helped me examine whether the LS cluster activities promoted collaborative relationships and learning, rather than the instructive way of learning. By instructive learning I am referring to a process where an instructor imparts knowledge and the participant learns. Through joint enterprise I was able to understand whether the purpose of the clusters does negotiate the meaning for everyone to have a shared vision.
Applying shared repertoire, I was able to identify the kind of learning activities that promote learning among teachers so that they are better teachers when they go back to class.
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