Communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity, Wenger (1998)

assumption =learning is part of human nature, life sustaining and inevitable, given a chance, we are good at it!

For individuals, learning is engaging in and contributing to community practices
For communities, learning is refining practices and ensuring new generations of members

Learning can not be designed. Need to design social infrastructures that foster learning
Learning is inherent in human nature
Learning is the ability to negotiate new meanings
Learning creates emergent structures
Learning is fundamentally experiential and social
Learning transforms our identities
Learning constitutes trajectories of participation-builds personal histories relating to community, past to future
Learning means dealing with boundaries (creates & bridges)
Learning is a matter of social energy and power
Learning is a matter of engagement, depends on opportunities
Learning is a matter of imagination (orientation, reflection, exploration processes)
Learning is matter of alignment (connection to social effectiveness of our actions)
Learning involves interplay between local and global

Integrative training scheme focuses on practice and seeks points of leverage for design to support learning

Guidelines:
Construe learning as a process of participants, whether for newcomers or old-timers
Place the emphasis on learning, rather than teaching, by finding leverage points to build on learning
opportunities offered by practice
Engage communities in the design of their practice as a place of learning
Give communities access to the resources they need to negotiate their connections with other practices and their
relation with the organization.

Do my adult learners have a sense that their competence, individual and communal, is valued, recognized and managed as a corporate asset? If not, why not? If not, how can I influence change?