ABSTRACT
A framework for thinking about teaching communities is situated learning, which focuses on how legitimate peripheral participation leads to people becoming members of a community of practice. Unpacking those terms, a community of practice is a group of people bound together by interest in some activity, such as knitting or particle physics. Situated learning focuses on the transition from being a newcomer to being accepted as a peer by those who are already community members. The governance model the author prefer is a commons, which is something managed jointly by a community according to rules they themselves have evolved and adopted. Board members can be elected by the community or appointed; in either case, it’s important to prioritize competence over passion (the latter being more important for the rank and file) and to try to recruit for particular skills such as accounting, marketing, and so on.
