Community of Practice

Etienne Wenger has explained a community of practice in this way:

"Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavour: a tribe learning to survive, a band of artists seeking new forms of expression, a group of engineers working on similar problems, a clique of pupils defining their identity in the school, a network of surgeons exploring novel techniques, a gathering of first-time managers helping each other cope. In a nutshell: Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly." (Wenger, quoted at http://infed.org/mobi/jean-lave-etienne-wenger-and-communities-of-practice/)

Wenger argues that our identity is bound up in the way we learn and share knowledge. By coming together in a community or participating in a ‘social learning system’, we are able to cascade or acquire knowledge and understanding (Wenger, 2000).

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