Central to a community of learners is the sharing of common values and an active engagement to learn together and from others’ experiences. This ‘mutual recognition’ of

experience, knowledge and/or skills initiates a ‘shared practice’ (in our case the teaching and learning) with its own repertoire. The ‘community’ is not confined to experts but invites novices and ‘masters’ to complement each others’ knowledge and experiences and as a result create a ‘practice’ (Wenger 1998). In education you could assume that the novice is characterised by the learner and the master by the teacher. However, as the concept allows for the sharing of practice, it recognises that learners can also be masters in their own rights and teachers may become novices or partners, depending on the topic or level of learning.