Tim on Etienne (Part IV: Reifying College)

Although not planned, this fourth post emerged as a post weaving the earlier three posts together (Part I: Learning in Practice, Part II: Identity in Learning and Part III: Design for Learning) as a final means to prepare myself for the series of lectures on Knowledge Management 2009 at the University of Amsterdam.  This post contains the skeletal structure of the college and sheets, again derrived from Wenger’s (1998) seminal work on communities of practice. The previous post already mentioned the topics that needed to be covered*.

• Social Learning, what are the constituents for social learning and how does it work.
• Designing for learning, if communities of practice are the configuration for learning, how can we design for learning.
• Understanding social media, Wenger’s theoretical concepts can help us understand and recognize the pitfalls and challenges of social media to live up to its claims of supporting epistemic practices and self-actualization

* This structure needs to be subjected to further scrutiny

College 1 – Introduction (October, 28^th)
Introduction course and staff;
Positioning this course in relevant traditions;
Aims of this course and intended way of working;
Assignment: <>

College 2 – Social Learning Theory (November, 4^th)
Read Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity (pp.1-41)

Recapping of previous week;
What is social learning;
Introducing practice;
Introducing identity;
Relevance of Wenger;
Assignment: <>

College 3 – Design (November, 11^th)
Read Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity (pp.223-277)
Read Buchanan, R. (1992) ‘Wicked Problems in Design Thinking’. Design Issues, vol. 8, no. 2 (spring) (pp. 5-21)

Recapping of previous week;
What is design;
Traditional design for learning;
Design for participative learning;
Relevance of design framework;
Assignment: <>

College 4 – Practice (November, 18^th)
Read Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity (pp.43-142)

Recapping previous week;
What is practice;
Practice as meaning;
Practice as community;
Practice as learning;
Practice as boundary;
Practice as locality;
Relevance of practice-based approach;
Assignment: <>

College 5 – Identity (November, 25^th)
Read Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity (pp.143-221)
Read Smith, G.W.H. (2007) ‘Goffman, Erving (1922-82)’ in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, volume IV (Ed. George Ritzer), Oxford, Blackwell Publishing (pp.1995-1999).

Wrap up previous week;
What is identity;
Identity in practice: Participation and non-participation;
Identity formation: Modes of belonging;
Being identity: Identification and negotiability;
Relevance of identity;
Assignment: <>

College 6 – Social Media (December, 2^nd)
Read Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity (pp.223-277)
Read Knorr Cetina, K. (1997) ‘Sociality with Objects: Social Relations in Postsocial Knowledge Societies’. Theory, culture & society, vol: 14, no. 4 (pp. 1-30)

Mystery guest explaining mechanisms of Social Software
Assignment:<>

College 7 – Rounding off (December, 9^th)

College 8 – Oral Examination (December, 16^th)

College 9 – Oral Examination (December, 23^th)