The art of learning together

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Communities of practice
The art of learning together
......................................
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Purple in the nose ...
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Learning competence and experience
Socially defined competence
The experience of members

• Learning can be defined as a realignment of
  competence and experience, whichever leads the
  other.

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Core and boundary learning

• Communities of practice are interconnected
  through

boundaryobject
peripheralaccess

• brokers
• boundary objects
• boundary practices
• boundary projects
• peripheral access

boundaryprojects
broker
boundary practices
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Identity involves complex set of characteristics
related to participation in social contexts.
Knowing as identity

• Constitution
• Participation and reification
• Individual and collective
• Inside-out and outside-in
• Participation and non-participation
• Time and space
• Trajectory and events
• Multimembership
• Local and global

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A social theory of learning
Where do webelong
community
learning
Who are webecoming?
practice
identity
What are we doing?
meaning
What is ourexperience?
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Teachers joining forces
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A community of practice is ...

• a group of practitioners, who
• share similar challenges
• interact regularly
• learn from and with each other
• improve their ability to address their challenges

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QB at Eli Lilly
Quantitative biologists develop a community of
practice after an acquisition.They create a
common identity, build trust, and develop a
shared practice.
They learn to collaborate, avoid repeated tests,
pool supply purchases, share equipment--saving
frustration, time and money.
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Key dimensions
Social knowledge structures
Sponsorship
Domain
Participation
Nurturing
Community
Practice
Support
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Palliative care community
crossing boundaries in Quebec

• Hospitals
• Local centers
• Home care
• Private clinics

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Communities of practice everywhere
Agents at Clarica
Mass storage at Sun
Windshield wipers at DaimlerChrysler
High availability at HP
Mayors in Central America
Turbodudes at Shell
Quantitative biology at Eli Lilly
Stroke at St Luke
Teen markets at HLL
Global marketing at JJ
Technical advisors at NASDSE
Urban Services at the World Bank
Stress engineering at Westinghouse
Acquisitions at the Navy
Manufacturing processes at PG
Emergency care in Victoria
Financial Services at Oracle
Imaging at Agfa
Client CLOs at SABA
Safe cities at Dept of Justice
Electricians at TAFE
Project management at EDS
Hospital managers at Solucient
Telecommunication solutions at Siemens
Etc, etc, etc...
Telehealth in Alberta
Rumble Strips at FWHA
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In government
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Nurse practitioners in British Columbia
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Connecting states, colleges, vendors and industry
Voc Ed in Australia
Part of the strength of the group was to note
that our discussions were at the proactive end
rather than reactive.
Reframing the Future build the capacity to
implement the National Training Framework
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A learning system for transition
55 partner organizations
OSERS
The IDEA partnership
51 technical assistance outreach network
States Regions
Districts Schools Communities
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Formal and informal an opportunity
Rio Tinto is designing a new service organisation
to focus on excellence in strategic domains
Just when the organization focuses on knowledge
two complementary paths to
the same vision
Just when CoPs need a more strategic focus
We already have a set of functioning communities
of practice in key domains informal
infrastructure-gt some passionate coordinators
CoP
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Horizontalization of learning
Provider
Negotiation of mutual relevance
Recipient
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Knowledge strategy at the World Bank
Communities of practice are key to the strategy
of becoming the knowledge bank. More than
100 thematic groups cut acrossregions
andsectors.Now some communitiesare taking a
strategic lead, applying the principles beyond
the bank, to organize knowledge among client
countries.
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Please meet Sheena...
Who is she? What does she know? Where is she
going? What is she learning? How does it all add
up to the person she is becoming?
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We are witnessing a radical shift in the primary
source of value creation.
Personalization of value creation
The personal in the service of the formal
The formal in the service of the personal
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The future of learning
The 21st century will be the century of
identity.
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Information has become a commodity...
Three new learning realities
the half-life of knowledge is getting shorter
traditional canons are destabilized
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A journey of the self
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Identity as a curriculum

• Hypothesis Education is about opening
  identities to embrace learning as an ongoing
  journey of the self.
• Practical corollary It is more important to
  create transformative experiences of identity
  than to cover a full curriculum.

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Identity as an invitation

• A teachers deepest resource a slight breach
  of the law, it is almost a theorem of love, that
  we can invite others into our own identities of
  participation, let them be what they are not, and
  thus start what cannot be started.

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The end
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