A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who share a craft or a profession. The concept was first proposed by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger in their 1991 book Situated Learning (Lave & Wenger 1991). Wenger then significantly expanded on the concept in his 1998 book Communities of Practice (Wenger 1998).

A CoP can evolve naturally because of the members' common interest in a particular domain or area, or it can be created deliberately with the goal of gaining knowledge related to a specific field. It is through the process of sharing information and experiences with the group that members learn from each other, and have an opportunity to develop personally and professionally (Lave & Wenger 1991).

We speak of communities of practice as if this is a new concept but in truth since the beginning of man, clans, and communities, there has been a collective community of humans with similar interests and knowledge that have some together to share information.

Communities can exist in a physical space or in a virtual world of the internet.

I have recently looked into a couple of learning communities that are focused on connecting women, primarily business women, with likeminded or other professional women. I am a little slow in the uptake of this type of practice since it seems my teen children figured out this type of connecting platform a long time ago. I still had held onto the idea (and hope) of connecting with people in person. A busy life and a small community has proven to not be conducive to my idea of connecting. I have not committed to engaging with either community that I researched this week, but I will definitely be taking another look at them. I had not really thought of YouTube as a online learning community until I read a classmates update. I have actually used YouTube to help me fix my car and install a new dishwasher. Being able to connect with a community like mechanics or electricians who so generously share their expertise is phenomenal.

Communities of practice and collective intelligence go hand in hand.

The MIT Center for Collective Intelligence brings together faculty from across MIT to conduct research on how new communications technologies are changing the way people work together. MIT has created a space for the collective minds to come together, a community of practice. This community explores combining human / machine systems that are more intelligent that either people or machines could be independently.

Central LHIN Peer Support Community of Practice. (n.d.). Retrieved July 15, 2018, from http://krasmancentre.com/programs/central-lhin-peer-support-community-of-practice/

Community of practice. (2018, July 14). Retrieved July 15, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_practice

K. (2010, January 20). Big Bang Theory - Sheldon and Raj working together. Retrieved July 15, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wNgq-tEbg