Social Learning Systems and Communities of Practice

✍ Scribed by Chris Blackmore (editor)

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 231
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Social Learning Systems and Communities of Practice is a collection of classical and contemporary writing associated with learning and systemic change in contexts ranging from cities, to rural development to education to nursing to water management to public policy. It is likely to be of interest to anyone trying to understand how to think systemically and to act and interact effectively in situations experienced as complex, messy and changing. While mainly concerned with professional praxis, where theory and practice inform each other, there is much here that can apply at a personal level.

This book offers conceptual tools and suggestions for new ways of being and acting in the world in relation to each other, that arise from both old and new understandings of communities, learning and systems. Starting with twentieth century insights into social learning, learning systems and appreciative systems from Donald Schön and Sir Geoffrey Vickers, the book goes on to consider the contemporary traditions of critical social learning systems and communities of practice, pioneered by Richard Bawden and Etienne Wenger and their colleagues. A synthesis of the ideas raised, written by the editor, concludes this reader. The theory and practice of social learning systems and communities of practice appear to have much to offer in influencing and managing systemic change for a better world.

✦ Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
Introduction to Social Learning Systemsand Communities of Practice
Part I Early Traditions of Social Learning Systems
1 Government as a Learning System
Donald Schön
[Assumptions beyond the Stable State]
Public Learning
The Emergence of Ideas in Good Currency
Some Preliminary Considerations
Themes of the Process
Implementation of Policy […]
Implementation of Policy in a Learning System
Conclusion
2 Insights into Appreciation and Learning Systems
Geoffrey Vickers
Extract 1 Foreword
Extracts 2 Appreciation, Appreciative Systems and Social Learning
Extract 3 Checkland and Casar's Interpretation of Vickers' Appreciative Systems Model
Extract 4 Our Appreciated World and Our Appreciative System
Extract 5 Institutional and Personal Roles
The Institutional and the Personal
Extract 6 The Limits of Government
Part II Critical Social Learning Systems -- The Hawkesbury Tradition
Suggested Further Reading
3 The Community Challenge: The Learning Response
Richard Bawden
Genesis
A Word About Systems
A Justification for Critical Learning Systems:The Community Challenge
Meaning as an Emergent Property
The Experiential Subsystem
Worldviews
The Inspirational Subsystem
The Integrated System
Practical Application
4 Sustainability, Social Learning and the Democratic Imperative: Lessons from the Australian Landcare Movement
Jim Woodhill
Introduction
Risk Society and the Democrative Imperative
Towards a Paradigm of Social Learning
Philosophical Reflection
Methodological Pluralism
Institutional Design
Facilitating Institutional Design
Conclusion
5 Traditions of Understanding: Language, Dialogue and Experience
Ray Ison
At a Glance
Creating the Contexts to Foster Social Learning
Becoming Aware of Our Traditions of Understanding
First-order Research and Development
Second-order Research and Development
Learning Through Language and Dialogue
Living in Language
The Role of Metaphor
Fostering Dialogue
Facilitating Learning and Dialogue: Institutional Directions
Institutional Factors
Social Learning Systems in Practice
Conclusions
6 Messy Issues, Worldviews and Systemic Competencies
Richard Bawden
Introduction
Learning Systems Creating Systems of Learning
The Nature of Critical Social Learning Systems
Worldviews and their Influence
Appreciation and the Origins of the Hawkesbury Initiatives
Some Concluding Remarks
Part III Communities of Practice
7 Our World as a Learning System: A Communities-of-Practice Approach
William M. Snyder and Etienne Wenger
Design Requirements for a World Learning System
Cultivating Learning Systems
Civic Communities of Practice: Local, National, and International
A City-Based Community: Economic Development in Chicago
A National Community: SafeCities to Reduce Gun Violence
An International Community: Ayuda Urbana on City Management
The Fractal Structure of Large-Scale Learning Systems
Challenges for Supporting Civic Learning Systems
Where Do We Go from Here?
8 Conceptual Tools for CoPs as Social Learning Systems: Boundaries, Identity, Trajectories and Participation
Etienne Wenger
Extract 1 Boundaries
Why Focus on Boundaries?
Which Way Is Up?
What Is Doable?
Extract 2 The Landscape of Practice
Practice as Boundary
Boundaries and Peripheries
Extract 3 Identity in Practice
Trajectories
Nexus of Multimembership
Extract 4 Participation and Non-participation
Identities of Non-participation
Extract 5 Participation in Social Learning Systems
9 Learning Nursing in the Workplace Community: The Generation of Professional Capital
Mary Gobbi
Introduction
Professional Capital
Communities of Professionals
Society, Communities Groups and Teams
Linguistic Problems and Discourses of Professional Practice by Communities
The Community, Learning and Professional Capital
The Centrality of the Client in Generating Professional Capital
The Relationship between Community, CoP and Professional Capital
Professional Capital and Learning in the Workplace Community
10 Graduate Professional Education from a Community of Practice Perspective: The Role of Social and Technical Networking
Linda G. Polin
Introduction
The Changing Face of Graduate Professional Education
New Ideas About Learning
Relocating Graduate Education in a Professional Practice Community
The Special Problem of Education as a Practice
Getting to Community of Practice
Technology and Communities of Practice
Convergence: Social Computing, Social Learning and Graduate Education
A Closer Look at Virtual Worlds
The Expanding and Enduring Classroom
Access to Expertise and Generations
Reification and Participation: Blogs, Wikis, and LISTSERVS
Future Trends
Summary
11 Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems: the Career of a Concept
Etienne Wenger
A Social Systems View on Learning: Communities of Practice as Social Learning Systems
Learning as the Production of Social Structure
Learning as the Production of Identity
A Learning View on Social Systems: Communities of Practice in Social Learning Systems
Learning as the Structuring of Systems: Landscapes of Practice
Modes of Identification
Identity in a Landscape of Practices
Knowledgeability as the Modulation of Accountability
Applications and Critiques
A Powerless Concept: What about Power?
An Anachronistic Concept: Is it History?
A Co-opted Concept: On the Instrumental Slippery Slope?
Towards a Social Discipline of Learning
Practice: Learning Partnerships
Learning Governance: Stewardship and Emergence
Power: Vertical and Horizontal Accountability
Identity: Learning Citizenship
Part IV Synthesis
12 Managing Systemic Change: Future Roles for Social Learning Systems and Communities of Practice?
Chris Blackmore
Managing Systemic Change
Distinctions Concerning Social Learning and Social Learning Systems
Mapping a Landscape of Social Learning Systems Praxis
1. Institutions, Organisations and Institutionalising
2. Ethics, Values and Morality
3. Communication
4. Facilitation
5. Managing Interpersonal Relationships and Building Trust
6. Communities and Networks
7. Levels and Scale
8. Boundaries and Barriers
9. Conceptual Frameworks and Tools
10. Knowledge and Knowing
11. Transformations
12. Time Lag and Dynamics of Praxis
13. Design for Learning
14. Stability, Sustainability and Overall Purpose
What Future Roles for Social Learning Systems and Communities of Practice?
Index