The differenece between an organisational unit and a community of practice.
Leaders
In organisational units i believe that there is usually one boss, one that rules over everybody, where as in communities of practice there are often leaders, but the point is to learn off every body not just the one leader. Like it is said in wenger "the boundaries are flexible" it is not an institution For instance in schools there is one teacher who teaches the class. In Cheerleading evreybody has different experiences with different aspects of the sport. For instance i have a dance background and help out with that, there are a few gymnasts who help with the tumbling and there are few people who have a cheerleading background! Some of these people are better at what they do than the actual coach and so often the coach seeks there advice on how to go about things!
because my cheerleading team has a coach, does this then mean that it is not really a community of practice?
Learning that people do together
Wenger also states that it is defined by knowledge rather than task, so a organisational unit may be focused on getting the job done and finished by a certain deadline, for instance in my job at sainsburys we are told that we have to scan 19 items per minute, other wise we are not performing to the standard and could get a warning to improve. Where as in cheerleading we need to concentrate on the knowledge so that everybody knows exactly what they are doing, so there are no injuries or anything, though in the end there is a task and a goal which is to do well at competition. So i am again unsure whether this means that we are not a real community of practice?
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2 comments:
hmm interesting questions Kayleigh, I myself am unsure which category to place cheerleading afetr reading this post. I think I am slightly more inclined to say community of practice. I think I am leaning more towards this because of the aspect of shared goals within the cheerleading squad, like you said wanting to avoid injuries etc. Whereas I think of organisational units as more of an institution such as school or the workplace as there would be punishment for not doing something right, like you said about in Sainsbury's, you would want to do things right to avoid getting trouble with your boss. Whereas with cheerleading you know your coach wouldn't shout at you for doing something wrong, but that's not the point because you WANT to do it all right.
Kayleigh,
I think you seem to have accurately defined the differences between CofP and an Organizational Unit here. I think your cheerleading would still fall into the CofP, because although you have a coach, it is your personal choice to be there, and it's an environent of learning, rather than perhaps a work experience where there is more of a sense of having to be there to earn your wages?
Crikey, that seems and awful lof of items that you need to scan in a short space of time....what about when things have really difficult to scan bar-codes or none at all?
All the best
Emma
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