The discussion about the definition of CoPs has really been interesting. I've learned so much. Several of you have suggested good readings on this subject, and Chris Johnson has done a great job of keeping us informed when we've strayed from the definition according to the research on CoPs.

A related part of the assignment for this week is to find concrete examples of each attribute in Chris Johnson's graphic representation either in existing CoPs that you are involved in or in your ideal CoP. (Chris' graphic is at http://sites.inka.de/manzanita/cop/sitemap.htm) More specifically, using a CoP you participate in, are familiar with, or consider ideal,

1. provide specific examples of Practice, including artifacts, community and implicit knowledge, stories, and collaboration

2. in reference to Community, there has already been a lot of discussion about this area, especially novices, boundary practice, and experts. Perhaps we could focus more on the movement to expertise and the role of reflection, social scaffolding, rotating leadership, rotating leadership, negotiated meaning, facilitation, and trust.

3. give specific examples of the Knowledge Domain. What does it consist of? How do members access it?

Chris Jones

As I think about COPS, how to defines them I realise there is a need to distinguish those groups which have to have a legal structure because of funding issues etc, and to put them on a continuum or a growth cycle, because with size and time, successful independent COP groups evolve into co-ops, trusts, formalised clubs, partnerships and companies…and suddenly realise that this study connects to research on women's co-ops which I did20 years ago. Anyway..1. I belonged to the Co-counselling movement and joined a facilitation skills community of practice group. I think these were the best examples of ace to face COPs I can think of … and several of the fac sk grp founded a successful international business and produced about four books on facilitation. The tacit to explicit knowledge process and content that surfaced in these groups was truly enlightening!

2. I've also belonged to groups with similar characteristics although not online COPs to any marked extent. e.g. cofounded a musicians & writers group, parents & children's pottery group, and researchers group. The first became primarily a Poetry club and has produced collections and performances for about 30 years now.

3. For several years I volunteered with a solo parent's self help group which produced a lot of useful artifacts, such as a self help manual, grants and projects, influencing law changes, providing services) - this introduces a whole other field to COPs.

2. in reference to Community, there has already beena lot of discussion about this area, especially novices, boundary practice, and experts. Perhaps we could focus more on the movement to expertise and the role of reflection, social scaffolding, rotating leadership, negotiated meaning, facilitation, and trust. All these groups demand trust as a basic requisite, but the counselling, self-help performing & writing, groups need more safety than most..so could I propose a continuum along those lines? Also all of these involve degrees of reflection - in the coco group these are semiformalised into (groupwide) processes of self and peer accreditation and assessment and (pairwork) a refelective framework of varying degrees implicit in the range of counselling/actionplanning contracts. Rotating leadership was particularly a feature of the self-help ( i.e. once a month, all roles were rotated) and counselling groups ( thought there was a circle of expert trainers and facilitators who rotated roles for different projects. "Leadership" however has many forms, and while it is easy to distinguish formal/informal leaders in a formal org - not so easy in co-ops and loose groups, where you often still get both to some degree.

Scaffolding is a term I find confusing. In my most recent online collaborative tutorial group , which is quite task driven, the task doesn't get underway until one of us posts a table or outline of a possible product - just as Chris' diagram has helpd focus discussion. Isn't this a kind of scaffolding? In the Co-co group, the scaffolding is a process outline which we contract into, and which protects us from breach of confidentiality and situations we can't handle etc.

3. give specific examples of the Knowledge Domain. What does it consist of? How do members access it?

This question is too big to refer to all the different domains of knowledge my examples cover!!

Diana Hibbert

After that it can take any form (e.g., a list of procedures, graphic, CD-ROM, Web site, etc.). CoP theory embraces social scaffolding via collaboration among peers and facilitators, which is one type of scaffolding.

Prominent researchers in computer-based and social scaffolding are David Hannifin, Susan Land, and Kevin Oliver.

Chris Johnson

Having recently taught ESL writing to a small international/immigrant population at a medium-sized suburban university in Philadelphia, I can strongly disagree with this sentiment. Our philosophy (common I believe with many writing programs) was to raise the standards of the ESL students by setting high standards and grading strictly. We teach the conventions and expectations of academic writing (thesis statement, paragraphing, citations, objectivity, etc) in order that students have the tools at their disposal to be competent writers and achieve success in their mainstream classes. By originality, I understand critical thinking and writing, the ability to analyze source texts, and write analytically about them. In our experience, the native English speakers had as much difficulty with this as the ESL group, and all were working towards this essential but complex concept. In no way could the presence of diversity in the student population be seen as "dumbing down".

Nigel

First of all, Chris Johnson, congratulations and thanks on yet another great and very helpful diagram on Cop theory. When you can sort out and simplify things to this point, it means you're very knowledgeable in your topic. If I were doing it, the only thing I'd replace is the reptiles. ;-) I hate them! They're disgusting to me! They get on my nervous system.

The message below from Chris Jones asking us to sort of wrap up our ideas on some basic features of CoPs can certainly help shed a lot more light into what we think about all this.

First of all, I have to say that this week's postings have been extremely insightful and inspiring, but the level of the flow of ideas has not allowed me to keep up with everything. I'll need a lot more time to 'digest' and process all the interesting ideas that have come up. One thing I have concluded: most of us have our own great ideas (and doubts) and they don't necessarily have to agree with the ideas of the so-called gurus (lack a better word at this time) on this topic.

Next, here are a couple of lose and general ideas I have on week 2 topics:

-- regarding the definition of CoP, the first and most basic example I can think of is the 'family'. Going on from here, according to some of the authors, I guess most anything can be a CoP considering we 'accept' that a list that exchanges two messages a year is a CoP (according to one of the authors, I forget the name)! I do not buy this idea, either;

-- it seems to me that a CoP can have a general and broader definition as well as a specific and more concrete one. I personally feel we need to narrow things down quite a bit.

Most of the (short and simple) readings I did this week deal with corporate CoPs and we're dealing with CoPs at the educational level. I think there are differences, especially in the goals and aims, and in the way they may/should be managed, but I won't go into that.

Now, to get to the points that Chris Jones refers using very practical examples:

1. examples of practice
-- our weekly TI sessions;
-- TI special sessions (Carnival 2002 and Summer Carnival 2002);
-- several online events we have participated in (take a look at the WiA index page), all extremely well documented by Vance in his never-ending Web pages (it isn't easy to keep track of everything!) and later on with the help of other community members. There are numerous examples of artifacts, community and implicit knowledge, stories and collaboration in these pages;

2. movement to expertise
-- we started out as an 8-week training program coordinated by our 'one and only' Vance Stevens and then turned into an ongoing project; later, we started referring to our community as a CoP (basically, I think, after Chris Johnson referred his diss. project of a case study of our community); out of this evolution and practice came this year's training program titled "Communities of practice online: Reflection through experience and experiment with the Webheads community of language learners and practitioners" in which e-moderation for most weeks has been handed over to people who started out as novices last year; our 'reflections' will be presented at TESOL 2003;

-- related to the previous item, Vancehas always welcomed 'decentralizing' tasks and roles;

-- we welcome and have always welcomed) 'newcomers'; several have joined us for this year's round of training and are feeling 'at home' with us;

-- there is a constant 'come and go' of experts, boundary members and novices: more adept members in certain areas take the stand, so to say, in a natural at times and for different reasons, some very active members also fade into the background and then come back into the limelight (so to say);

3. role of reflection
-- the best example is our training program for this year and our upcoming presentation in Baltimore; though we've been reflecting on our practice all along the past year, this is a crucial phase in that process and a great time to examine 'good' practices;

4. social scaffolding
-- Chris Johnson said that it is a "confusing and broad term" and I second that. He defines it as "the difference between what an individual can learn on their own vs. what they can learn with an expert, guide, teacher, and/or, in the case of CoPs and situated learning, peers";

-- I see it as implying knowledge acquired through negotiated meaning (that goes on at all times in our comunity allowing us to understand and sort out ideas), facilitation, trust and a sense of belonging, all fundamental ingredients of 'good learning' and 'good practices';

5. rotating leadership
-- the first example that comes to mind is Team Blackboard
-- different moderators in our training program this year (EVOnline2003), an idea that came hand-in-hand with his suggestion of a panel for TESOL 2003.

6. knowledge domain (in our specific case):
-- I see it as ESL/EFL in broad terms and in narrower terms as community
building online and the use of (a)synch communication tools and their role in language
learning;
-- it is my impression that the kd is defined at the outset by the moderator, coordinator or facilitator of the CoP and consists of the areas that to be dealt with in the discussion and practice.

I would love to carry on, but time is short and I do have to be ready for week 3 as of tomorrow (or else mr 'you know who' may get angry! ;-)

I'm sure we will all have a lot more to say in week 4. I'm really looking forward to it!

Chris Jones, ChristineBR and John Steele, thank you for a great week! Great job!

Teresa

Thanks for putting so much time into this when I can see that you're busy getting week 3 off to a great start! It's especially nice as there have only been a couple people who've taken the time to write about this so far.

Chris Jones