I think that the theatre class which I attended fits in with Wenger's model of Cofp as, "communities of practice develop around things that matter to people" (http://www.ewenger.com/pub/pub_systems_thinker_wrd.doc p.2) and I believe that everyone who was apart of this theatre class, was people who where interested in the subjects that the class raised i.e. acting, singing and dancing, and not just apart of it because they had to be - as it took place on a Saturday morning so was not like part of school or anything!
The whole concept of the theatre class (which was referred to as several different things, such as, theatre school, drama class etc - just incase your wondering why I keep calling it different things!) was to learn how to act, sing and dance. Inevitbley we ended up learning from each other, particularly with the dancing if people couldnt get the moves etc.
Unlike organisational units, there is not really a boss as such, instead there was three tutors who I guess more supervised, and helped direct us in the right direction with our learning whilst also helping it improve, they also learnt from us too though - we all learnt from each other. There was not any other clear heirachal structure other than the main tutors, however obviously some participants where better at things than others so we all sort of helped each other where others lacked behind.
The learning was also expanded when some of us voluntarily took part in extra classes so that we could each do an official acting exam, we helped each other in these extra classes learn about the texts that we had chosen to recite for our exam.
Going back to general jist of this all beign part of a Cofp, I think this quote is very apparant to my experience at the drama class, "A community of practice is different from a team in that the shared learning and interest of its members are what keep it together". (p.4) This is relevant as if nobody turned up and nobody was interested in learning how to act, sing or dance, then the community would no longer exsist as it wouldnt be able to without participants who wanted to share the learning experience.
We had her own techniques for things, as we had our own excercise routines we did before dance, and our own set of vocal chord practice before a singing session etc. This demonstrates the groups shared repertoire of communial resources. Obviously someone who hadnt been before would not be able to pick these up straight away, so it was something that was developed the more time they spent becoming part of the CofP.
2 comments:
i agree with the shared interests keeping everyone together. For example, in my Stage School, there were about 150 main students so obviously everyone knew eachother but it was still split in to many micro groups of friends and there would obviously be some people who didn't always get on or wouldn't really talk to eachother, but when we came together in singing, dancing or acting, we all had to come together and work as a team to perfect dance formations, harmonies and onstage relationships. These things were never a problem, even for the 1s who didnt get along very well, because our performance at the end of the day was our shared interest and our main priority and therefore we could work as a team/community
Good,
I think Wenger would be asking whether you still keep in touch and give each other advice about your work here at uni?
Wenger's notion is sort of a half-way house between workgroup and friendship network. It's centred on a particular aspect of work/'professional' practice and isn't necessarily about 'friends', but knowledgeable acquaintances who you have a 'you can ask me' relationship with.
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