Week12+questions

Wenger (1998) seems to ague against the way administration identifies its workers, proposing that identity is built by everyday participation and reification where experience and social interpretations inform each other. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using this proposal? (NA)

How are Wenger's "trajectories" similar to what Simon (1995) describes in his article? (JH, 4/4)

What serves as **convincing** **evidence** that a community of practice has been formed? Some //indicators// of communities of practice are listed on page 125, but what serves as convincing evidence? For example, is our class a community of practice? How do we know, and how could we provide convincing evidence of this to an outside source? (CZ, 4/5)

How much are the three dimensions of practice of a community (Figure 2.1, p. 72) talking about the same thing/s as the modes of belonging to a community (Figure 8.1, p. 174)? (JE, 4/6)

The heart of Part II is on identity and Wenger (1998) claims that "issues of identity are an integral aspect of a social theory of learning and are thus inseparable from issues of practice, community, and meaning" (p. 145). I realize that this is the argument that Wenger attempts to support in the chapters that follow, but I'm wondering if others have the perspective that identity is indeed integral to theories of social learning, or if this a unique aspect to Wenger's theory. (NF, 4/6)

The switch between communities for learners from family to classroom and back may be problematic (p. 160). Getting readjusted and dealing with this conflict may pose problems to learners. How does this social learning theory help learners adjust to this? (NA)

I think it would be useful to spend some talk talking about the differences between the three modes of belonging: engagement, imagination, and alignment. Alignment, in particular, seems somewhat less than clear to me. At first I thought, "Ah, so this is the grunge scene. It's teenagers wearing flannel shirts and torn jeans." But on a second reading alignment seems more like conformity to the expectations of a community. And I think that while there is a degree of conformity in torn jeans and flannel shirts, I also think there is quite a bit of what Wenger characterizes as "imagination." And even, perhaps, engagement. Wenger characterizes these three (engagement, imagination, and alignment) as "distinct modes of belonging" (p. 181). Does this mean mutually disjoint? (RK, 4/6)

What exactly is meant by a tension between between experience and competence? This tension is what transforms a community of practice into a community of learning and so it seems worth revisiting and clarifying. (RK, 4/6).

With all this reading about trajectories of participation and identity, I would like to return to Boaler and Greeno (2000) and reinterpret their work through Wenger's lens. In particular, I wonder how their concept of a "figured world" fits into Wenger's work. (RK, 4/6)

The arguments of page 166 seemed to imply that it was better to instruct in procedures first, so that "non-participation" would allow learners to assume their roles quickly, and only later would this level of non-participation become insufficient. Only then would deeper understanding be necessary or called for. This idea seems to conflict with constructivist thought that understanding should precede procedural knowledge. (Or am I over-generalising or mis-applying that example?) (JDS 4/6)