Teacher Learning in a Community of Practice: A Case Study of ...

The Stewardship stage involves the community maintaining the relevance ofits role and
purpose, keeping the 'intellectual focus' sufficiently engaging, especially for core
members, and acquiring and developing new knowledge. It is a period of active
involvement on the part ofthe core group. The core group in the TEMS community
began to take responsibility to translate its learning into documents and artefacts that
could be used by other members.
Although the TEMS community had not quite reached the fifth stage ofdevelopment (the
Transformation stage), it is useful to remember that the key issue for the community in
the fifth stage is the rapid increase in membership (or a decrease in energy levels ofthe
core members). The community could see itselftransforming by returning to an earlier
stage, or dissolving completely.
While Wenger et al (2002) provide a useful framework for analysing the development of
the TEMS community, it is important to remember that their work is based on studies of
learning communities in the corporate world. The development ofteacher learning
communities presents different challenges. The world ofteaching and the corporate world
have distinct phenomena that distinguish them. In the corporate world, according to
Wenger et al (ibid.), the coalescing stage is characterised by three key issues, namely,
establishing the value ofsharing knowledge, developing relationships oftrust, and
discovering specifically what knowledge should be shared and how. The negotiation of
these issues within a teacher learning community presents different challenges. On the
issue ofdeveloping relationships oftrust for example, we recall from the discussion in
Chapter Two, that trust was a delicate issue that had to be negotiated and nurtured in a
sensitive manner. Teachers are often understandably sceptical ofthe intentions offellow
teachers, principals, policy innovations and researchers. Wenger et aI's framework offers
limited insights into how relationships oftrust and power play themselves out in a
learning community. In a teacher learning community, these issues hold particular
significance.
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