Communities of practice form when common areas of concerns or interests unite social units; they interact regularly and share a common vocabulary. And, even without acknowledging the activity, they often learn with and from one another in the process.

These socially involved groups generate essential and valuable information and knowledge through regular interactions, exchanges, and cooperation.

Understanding the function and dynamics of communities of practice helps improve online learning communities focused on advancing knowledge and learning in the art, craft, and design communities.

The biggest challenge within communities of practice is that they sometimes create and perpetuate identities that flatter their interests. And, by doing so, they short-circuit the advancement of knowledge and learning within the community in the process.

Maybe this process sounds familiar?

A self-serving outlook promotes cheerleading and discourages criticism-- sycophantic behavior promotes and champions narcissism. Within these environments, there is no reflexivity. The conversations become unproductive and inefficient.

These themes suggest that it is essential to overcome egocentric behavior in online learning communities and pave the way for new collaborations and dialogues that extend beyond fixed and defined disciplinary boundaries.

In this way, online learning within communities encourages interaction among all users. They should enable spaces and places where users from outside the disciplinary boundaries can enter and participate in conversations.

Have you ever noticed how your fellow community members sometimes want you to "jump up" and "cheer about the group?" In other words, they want you to be enthusiastic about what they do and be able to complain about how they are misunderstood and underappreciated by people from outside of the group-- and in general, they encourage you to say that you like their ideas.

They want you to be happy, and they are pleased that you are satisfied.

But what if you are not happy? What happens when you express discontent? How do we move beyond this problem in online communities? How do we create an online learning environment that encourages reflexivity and critical thinking?

We need to develop the skills and ability within the community to scrutinize discourses that flatter the interest of the community.

To create a learning environment that encourages critical thinking, we need community members to communicate. We need community members to be able to speak up. Everyone should feel comfortable sharing their opinion and their concerns.

Community participants should have the regular opportunity to give their opinions. There should be a critical framework that enables the identification of divergent viewpoints and perspectives; stakeholders should identify their differences in attitudes, beliefs, and values.

What is “critical”? What is so valuable about being critical?

Critical thinking is the most vital skill that learners should master. A "critical" perspective allows participants to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information. This ability also builds their expertise, encourages self-appraisal, and motivates them to improve and extend their knowledge.

Through critical reflection and the evaluation of both experiences and resources, learners acquire the skills, tools, and knowledge to become reflexive learners-- this is the ability to think about thinking.

Linking reflexivity to pedagogy

The primary underlying philosophy of learning in art, craft, and design studio education is learning by doing; teachers model behaviors and attitudes, beliefs, and values— the affective domain of learning.

Teaching and learning in studio art and design education builds knowledge via social constructivist learning theories. The students learn by engaging with others in the community; this assists more experienced artists and designers become practitioners.

Within these various communities, students will encounter divergent values. They need to know how to recognize and evaluate the attitudes, beliefs, and values that they are being encouraged to adopt in the social context of the community.

This social constructionist perspective also applies to the online learning environment that models these same activities.

Although studio art and design education aren't bound to a particular method, it can mix abstract ideas with social constructivism; it can mix traditional academic teaching with group work and self-directed work; this teaching and learning method is both conventional as active and active innovative.

Studio Learning and Online Learning are Connected

To remain active and innovative in both studio and onilne learning, it is essential to emphasize critical reflection, social modeling, and evaluating experiences and resources rather than memorizing facts and theory.

This teaching and learning should also encourage problem-solving and highlight the importance of experimentation and active, creative expression.

In this context, when learners can think about their thinking, they enhance their inherent ability to improve their critical thinking skills.

Advancing the Role of the “Critical”

Critical thinking, by definition, is not the ability to memorize facts or regurgitate them in speech. It is the ability to consider the values, context, assumptions, and validity of different information; these are high-order skills.

The teaching methods of art and design studio education is categorized into two groups, formal lectures, and informal learning. There is a focus on practice-based learning, and the students develop essential skills.

Learners obtain a broad range of core skills, then practice building knowledge. The first type of teaching is the more formal lecture, where the teacher or lecturer speaks, and students listen.

But the study of art, craft, and design are also intellectual, and it often demands reading and research on the part of viewers. Typically it is graphically, iconographically, and referentially complex and ambiguous. Objects are paired with theories, metrics, hypotheses, and other products of the learning environment.

Visual art is presented as potential knowledge and the learning in this context is a product of cogitation, theorization, positioning, and critique.

• Cogitation: the act of thinking deeply about something; contemplating the subject

• Theorization: speculate and then form and propose new theories, perspectives, and general outlooks

• Positioning: to portray or regard themselves as a particular type of person; join the community of practice.

• Critique: to evaluate the amalgamation of the theories and practices (the outcomes of learning) in a detailed and analytical way.

Suppose we view these approaches as a continuum for our purposes in learning within an online community of practice. In this case, the role of critique (and criticism) is to situate the learning in a way that is not settled.

Studio Learning and Online Learning are Connected

To remain active and innovative in both studio and online learning, it is essential to emphasize critical reflection, social modeling, and evaluating experiences and resources rather than memorizing facts and theory.

This teaching and learning should also encourage problem-solving and highlight the importance of experimentation and active, creative expression.

In this context, when learners can think about their thinking, they enhance their inherent ability to improve their critical thinking skills.

Critique, criticism, and “the critical” should lead us back to cogitation.

A self-serving outlook that encourages cheerleading and discourages the active role of criticism prevents the community from moving forward, advancing knowledge, and allowing new knowledge to emerge— this is what we call: a community that is stuck. 

This stuck position is also very much about an intentionally fixed positioning— this is the need to portray or regard specific stakeholders as particular types of people (often involving the need to maintain power or prestige). Also, this fixed positioning requires others to take up their “appropriate” position within the community to join and remain an accepted part of the community of practice.

Within a self-serving and cheerleading community, the community lacks a pathway back to new cogitations, theorizations, and positioning.

Perhaps, this is by design, and unfortunately, this is fixed positioning. If the positioning in the community shifts, some members' status is at risk.

- - -

As always, I welcome your comments!

Peace and love, Peace and Love,

~ Dennis