Community of Practice

Ethnography of a Community of Practice

What makes a Community of Practice?

First you need people.  Then you need a practice.  The community is a group of people that interact and learn or improve a practice over time.  It’s not just a group that meets once or twice (for example a one-time craft workshop).  A community of practice is a group that meets on a continuous basis.  This community can be virtual, in real life, or a combination of both.

A virtual and real-life community of practice (CoP)

I work as the technology teacher in an elementary school.  When I was thinking about what community of practice to research for this project, I was stuck on ideas.  As time passed I looked around at work and realized we have a real CoP that I hadn’t noticed before. On their own, students were working with each other to play the games in the First in Math online gaming site. (All of our students have a subscription.) Of course this is prompted at times.  I’ll have students share games they know by coming up to my computer which is projected to the class.  I open the lab for students to come in at recess and play.  When students come to technology class we sometimes use First in Math.  There are times where this is mandatory for all students and times where it is an option among other tasks.  As you will see in the video, students help each other out by showing others new games or telling them how to solve a math problem.

A true community of practice versus this community of practice

In a true community of practice participation is voluntary.  In this CoP I’d say that this is one where our participation is mostly voluntary.  Some argue that students in a school cannot make a Community of Practice.  Students move on year after year and if you just look at their grade level and the fact that they’re a student–one could argue that they don’t really have a practice.  The practice could be being a good student or getting good grades–but what is the real practice.  With First in Math, students are working to be good “gamers” (similar to how a community of practice around a popular video game woud be) and also improving their math skills.

A student CoP like this one may not be a 100% true CoP.  Students in grades K through 5 are limited because of their ages, mobility, ability to make their own decisions, must follow a schedule. The confines of a school setting and their age limitations (they may think  they are in charge of their lives) but really their parents are in charge at home and at school the teachers take the helm.  Students may get to choose what they do at recess time, but recess time will only last for 20 minutes.  The student can’t change that last part.

This CoP is supported by parents(at home) and teachers(at school) but parents and teachers do not run the CoP.  A CoP is a challenging thing for kids to really “run it”.

Newbies and experts

Community of practices have newbies and experts.  The experts are there to help and guide the newbies.  In our school, I have found that we have a wide range of newbies and experts within classes,  grade levels, and the entire school. Being an expert does not necessarily mean the student is exceptional in math ability.  I have seen “average” students spend a lot of time on First in Math and have learned the games (and also sharpened their math skills in the process).  It’s cool when new students join our school.  Other students are always eager to teach them the ropes.

Currently there is no communication feature for students when they play First in Math online.  In order to bridge the gap between students in different classes and grades, I built a blog where students could share their thoughts.  Here they can suggest games to play (or not play), give tips and read about tips for playing.  I planned it around several different topics to help with the organization.  Students liked this and have (You’ll notice that all comments are from “anonymous”. At the time the blog was set up media release forms had not been collected. Soon students will be able to comment with their names.)

Improvement Over Time

At our school this CoP started last year when we first began using First in Math.  We will continue to use it in years to come as it has been a hit!

Gaming Principals

It was also cool to see the gaming principals that went along with this CoP.  Well, the kids are learning to become better gamers.  Elements like hard fun, leveling up (and unlocking levels), multiple routes to gain stickers,  and rewards for partial correct answers encourage kids to keep playing.