Etienne Wenger: Learning in and across landscapes of practice

We were delighted to co-host with the Management School, as part of the LUMS learning & teaching forum series, a special event led by Etienne Wenger.  The event attracted over 150 participants to the Management School and was also streamed live.  This live web-stream attracted at its peak 50 concurrent viewers, so in excess of this number dipped into the event at some point - one at least from as far away as Canada.

Etienne is well known for his work on Communities of Practice (CoP) and used this forum to explore how people move within and between these communities, as well as the different 'landscapes' that these communities occupy.  Etienne, who was an external examiner on Sue Smith 's PhD Viva panel that morning and which resulted in Sue being awarded her PhD, used this process as an example of how one gains recognition within a particular community of practice.

The powerpoint presentation and a full video recording of the session (below) is followed by pictures from the event.

Session Abstract

The human world can be viewed as a huge collection of communities of practice—some very prominent and recognized, others hardly visible. Our learning can then be understood as a trajectory through this landscape of practices: entering some communities, being invited or rejected, remaining visitors, crossing boundaries, being stuck, and moving on. In such a landscape, both the core of communities of practice and their boundaries offer opportunities for learning. Learning is not merely the acquisition of a body of knowledge, but a journey of the self. Achieving a high level of "knowledgeability" is a matter of negotiating a productive identity with respect to the various practices that constitute this landscape.

http://www.ewenger.com/

Pictures from the event:

There were plenty of questions after the event too...

Followed by LUMS logo cakes provided by the Yummy Cup Cake Company of Lancaster.