A community of practice is “a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do, and who learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.”1
What is a Community of Practice
Communities of practice are based on the premise that learning happens best through relationships with others. In these communities, we share stories about how we do our work, participate in learning activities together, and develop and share resources and tools.
In our work, communities of practice may form around a clinical approach such as case management or motivational interviewing. They may also form around a body of research that informs our practice, such as the impact of trauma on parents and children who are homeless.
How Does Learning Happen
There are four ways to learn in a community of practice:
- in becoming, we learn to become part of a community of practice and understand how the community of practice changes us;
- in practice, we learn through collaboration with peers to apply theories, ideas and tools we learn about within the community;
- in experience, we learn to take knowledge developed in the community of practice and make it personally and professionally meaningful; and
- in belonging, we learn to be a central member of the community of practice with knowledge, relationships, and experiences that are highly valued by other members, especially newer members of the community of practice2).
Learn more about Communities of Practice:
Communities of Practice and T3
Why We Care: Communities of Practice & T3
1 Wenger, E. Retrieved from Etienne Wenger’s Web site on September 10, 2010 http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.htm
2 Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Additional Resources
Lave, J., Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning. Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press.
Wenger, E., McDermott, R., and Snyder, W. M. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Wenger, E. (2009), Digital Habitats Stewarding Technology for Communities. Portland, OR: CPsquare Press