Communities of Practice¶

Principle · All principles
Evidence · 33 claims (22 for, 10 mixed, 1 against) · 30 studies (7 qualitative, 6 causal, 6 review, 3 quant-synthesis, 3 associational, 3 theoretical, 2 design), q1–q4 · 2 of 30 report an effect size · 30 claims rest on one study

Conditional relationship¶

For learners who are entering a shared practice (mostly adult, in the adult-workplace or postsecondary band: teachers in a professional learning community, students in an advanced laboratory, members of an online professional community), and whose starting response is limited or peripheral participation in that practice, sustained participation alongside more experienced members is proposed to change three things: how they take part (the norms of talk and contribution they use), their understanding of the practice's content, and their ability to carry out the practice itself. The knowledge type is a complex-skill together with the practice's tacit norms and vocabulary; the setting is workplace-clinical, classroom or online-instructor-led; and the duration is term-plus. Membership alone is not the activity: what is expected to matter is active contribution to shared work, norms that make critique safe, and a shared object the community is working on.

Three conditions limit this. Norms take time to form, so a short assignment is unlikely to reproduce the relationship. A community's stated aim and what its members actually learn often diverge, so the outcome must be observed rather than assumed from the design. And the model's newcomer-to-centre trajectory can mark learners who do not or will not move toward the centre as failures, which is a harm to design against, not a learner deficit. No pattern page instantiates this principle as a conditional model yet; Fostering Communities of Learning is the nearest pattern. The withdrawal of expert support as members gain competence is modelled in Scaffolding and Fading and the cognitive apprenticeship pattern it links; this page does not repeat it. Collaborative Learning holds the conditional model for structured group work within a course, which is shorter and more bounded than the practice this page concerns.

Default design, while the relationship is untested¶

The page's earlier guidance, kept as a concrete default a designer can act on and revise. Each step is a design proposal; the evidence for it is stated beside it, and none of it has been tested as written.

Name a shared object of practice. Give the group a real problem space, profession or recurring task to work on, not a topic to discuss. Without one the group becomes a discussion forum. Choose the materials the group works with to match the object: for collaboration norms, structured questions and protocols that make contribution safe; for understanding of the content, problems and representations that bring out its concepts; for teaching repertoire, lesson plans, observations and student work or data. Evidence: the mathematics professional-learning-community review describes directing attention towards an object as one category of productive norms (see below), finds three objects across its 32 studies, with developing teachers' repertoire of teaching actions the most common (27 studies), and reports that the artifacts used were selected according to the object: PLC in mathematics pursue three distinct objects, repertoire the most common [+W] (a configurative review, descriptive; it does not compare objects or artifacts on outcomes). Video from members' own classrooms can serve any object but makes critique delicate, so it belongs after step 3.
Schedule recurring interaction over a term or more. One-off discussion does not build norms. A workable dose is a meeting of an hour or so, monthly at least and more often early on, across a school year; in early sessions a facilitator or teacher leader sets the agenda and the protocol, and by the later sessions members bring their own cases and lead parts of the meeting. Evidence: the same review reports that productive norms develop over time, and one laboratory case describes exchanges deepening between week 1 and week 8; both descriptive. A developmental evaluation of a pre-K-to-kindergarten transition programme found that consistent attendance at monthly cross-grade, cross-school teacher meetings over a year was where implementation deepened and teachers built a support network: Consistent participation in a cross-grade, cross-school PLC supported implementation and teacher learning [+W] (one programme's first year, participant reports and observation, no comparison). The session length and the hand-over from facilitator to members are untested proposals.
Build trust norms before asking for critique. Make explicit that criticism is directed at practices, not people, and establish open communication before inquiry and disagreement. Evidence: the review's report that trust norms act as prerequisites for critical inquiry; descriptive, not a tested sequence. Members of one honours community described its communal spirit as "a safe enough environment to explore new ideas" and ask for help: Honours community members perceive a safe and supportive environment [+W] (open-ended responses from 28 students; perceptions, not a test of the order).
Design entry points at manageable levels of participation. Give newcomers specific contributions (reporting a case, reviewing an artifact, asking a briefing question) before more central roles, and coach them responsively. Untested here; from the earlier page. Online communities in particular are argued to need deliberate design and scaffolding through teaching and assessment activities rather than emerging on their own: Online learning communities do not simply emerge; they must be designed for and scaffolded through teaching and assessment activities [+W] (one case study, the authors' interpretive conclusion; not yet checked).
Ask for reasoning, not only resources. Prompt members to articulate and compare how they solved a problem, and to apply, test and revise ideas in their own practice. Where reflection itself is a goal, ask both what members did and how they decided what to look at when reflecting. Untested in a community here; from the earlier page. One phenomenological study of three PLC leaders found both levels of reflection in their accounts and that they described the community as developing it: The PLC is an environment in which teacher metacognition can be nurtured [+W]; Teacher metacognition in PLCs appears at a lower and a higher level [+W]. The experimental evidence that explaining one's reasoning helps learning comes from individual study, not communities (self-explanation, under Further evidence).
Make non-central participation legitimate. Decide in advance what a valued contribution from someone who stays peripheral looks like, so the community does not read every member who does not move to the centre as failing. Argued, not tested (see the limiting claim below).
Observe the outcome you intended, and the ones you did not. Record changes in practice and understanding against the community's stated aim, since the two often diverge. Describe the practice you expect to change (a teaching move, a routine) rather than members' attitude toward the community's goals, and treat members who resist the agenda as holding a position with reasons, not as a deficit to fix: one theoretical critique argues that professional-learning-community designs leave practice under-described and treat change as attitude change: Current PLC formulations trivialize teacher practice [~W]; Teacher resistance as agency challenges current PLC formulations [~W] (argument, no data).

Fitting the design to a situation¶

Ask for three facts when the brief omits them: who the members are and what practice they share, how long the community will run and how often it meets, and whether the outcome sought is changed practice, members' knowledge, or their students' achievement.

If the brief says…	Then change…	Basis
Members are mathematics or science teachers and the aim is changed teaching	Meet regularly over a term or more around students' work and thinking; record changes in practice as descriptions, since the reviews report them without comparison groups; give the sessions content and pedagogical-content focus, since that is where the reviews find teachers' knowledge and preparedness changing	STEM PLC participation shifts instruction toward student reasoning [+W]; PLC participation changed teachers' norms, understanding and practice [+W]; STEM PLC participation improves teachers' understanding of or preparedness to teach content [+W] (a knowledge synthesis judging this "moderately substantiated")
The aim is a rise in students' test scores	Expect small or no measured effects within two years, possibly only in mathematics or for lower-attaining students; plan to measure students, not only teachers	PLC at Work: +0.08 in mathematics [~W]; vPLC with ASSISTments: no significant overall effect [~W]; Mathematics-only studies give existence proof, not a link to formal assessment results [~W]
The aim is teachers' reflection on their own practice (metacognition)	Prompt reflection at two levels, on what members did and on how they reflect, and record it with interviews about specific episodes (stimulated recall) rather than a satisfaction survey	PLC nurtures teacher metacognition [+W]; Lower and higher levels of teacher metacognition in PLCs [+W] (three participants, all PLC leaders)
Members are isolated in their roles (principals, one specialist per school, district or state)	Form a network across organisations that meets regularly on members' own problems of practice, with a facilitator who plans sessions around what members say they need; expect relationships and shared problem solving first, and observe practice separately	A facilitated CoP helped isolated American Indian Education Directors build relationships [+W]; Principal networks support sharing practice and problem solving [+W] (participant reports and a narrative review)
The community spans grades, schools or organisations to carry out one programme (a transition between phases, a shared curriculum)	Meet monthly across the year with consistent attendance from every site, and give it an external facilitator who keeps one vision across the sites	Cross-grade, cross-school PLC supported implementation [+W] (one programme's first year; the facilitator recommendation is the evaluators', untested)
The community is mandated as part of a reform and some members resist it	Put the practice the reform asks for, and members' reasons for doubting it, on the agenda; do not define success as members coming to agree with the reform's goals	PLC formulations trivialize practice [~W]; Teacher resistance as agency [~W] (argument only)
The group has no designated leader	Appoint a teacher leader to plan sessions, keep the focus and deepen discussion	PLCs with a teacher leader were more productive [+W]
The group is new and the brief wants members to critique each other's practice	Set and state trust norms first (criticism is of practices, not people), then introduce critique	Trust norms are prerequisites for critical inquiry [+W]
Members disagree about practice	Keep the disagreement on the agenda and ask each side for its reasons rather than adjourning to avoid conflict	Disagreements within a PLC can catalyse learning [+W]
The community meets only once or for a few weeks	Do not expect the norms the reviews describe; use a fixed protocol for the sessions and treat outcomes as provisional	Productive norms develop over time [~W]
The community is online or members are dispersed	Plan the interaction deliberately: scheduled synchronous sessions with open discussion, and tasks that require contribution	Online communities must be designed and scaffolded [+W]; Fortnightly web conferences supported community formation [+W]
A small rural school, with too few teachers for same-subject groups	Check bandwidth before planning cross-school online groups, and pair teachers with same-subject colleagues elsewhere where cross-subject groups leave them isolated	Small rural staffs forced cross-subject PLCs [~W]; Distance and bandwidth derailed cross-school PLC plans [~W]
The community has a stated object (a curriculum, a routine)	Observe what members actually change, including unintended outcomes, rather than assuming it matches the object; choose materials that fit the object (step 1)	The mathematics PLC review, which finds the objects and reports that outcomes matched them completely in only 3 of 32 studies (that finding has no claim page in the wiki): Three objects of mathematics PLCs [~W]
Learners, such as language learners, may stay at the edge of the community	Decide in advance what a valued peripheral contribution looks like, so non-central members are not read as failing	Nonparticipation can invalidate learner identities [-W]

Observation, state and explanation¶

What can be observed is participation under stated conditions: who posts, speaks or contributes, how long and how detailed exchanges are, what artifacts are shared, what members say they changed in their own practice, and what the practice itself looks like afterwards. "Has become a full participant", "holds the community's tacit knowledge" and "belongs" are inferred states. Silence, brevity and deference can each reflect several different states, and a self-report of learning is not an observation of changed practice.

Response	Plausible explanations	Observation that could change the interpretation
A newcomer attends but rarely contributes	Lacks the practice's vocabulary or a manageable entry point; norms do not yet make contribution safe; values the community for observation alone; time or workload limits	Offer a specific bounded contribution (report one case, review one artifact) and, separately, ask what the member wants from the community; see which, if either, changes the response.
Exchanges stay brief and superficial	Norms for how long an enquiry may last are not yet negotiated; no shared object to discuss; members lack expertise to offer each other	Track exchange length and depth over several weeks on the same interaction type; give a shared problem and see whether depth changes.
Members trade resources but rarely critique one another	Trust norms not yet established; critique read as personal; no expectation of articulating reasoning	Ask for reasoning on a common case, with critique framed at the practice, and record whether disagreement appears and is taken up.
Members report learning, but practice outside the community looks unchanged	Learning of a different kind than intended (norms, not practice); the self-report reflects belonging, not change; the change is real but not yet transferred	Compare the community's stated object with an observation of practice (a lesson, a review, a work product) before and after, recording unintended outcomes.
Experienced members dominate	Expertise is concentrated; norms reward speed or status; newcomers' contributions are not recognised as legitimate	Record who speaks and whose contributions are taken up; rotate roles and see whether participation spreads.
Members attend a mandated community but contest its agenda	Disagreement with the reform on its merits; the agenda does not touch their actual practice; workload or distrust of how results will be used	Ask members to name the practice they would change and their reasons for doubting the one proposed; see whether engagement changes when the agenda is their own problem of practice.

These are proposals, untested with learners. A probe can shift confidence between explanations; it does not identify a cause, and probing a community changes it.

Evidence and qualifications¶

No claim in the wiki tests this relationship as stated: none compares learners who take part in a community of practice with comparable learners who do not, on a measure of practice or understanding. Every claim below is a review of descriptive studies, a single qualitative case, a developmental evaluation, a perception survey or an argument, and none has yet been checked against its source.

Participation in mathematics PLC changed teachers' collaboration norms, understanding of mathematics and its teaching, and ability to design and carry out teaching [+W]: a systematic review of mathematics professional learning communities (synthesis-mixed, review · r2, q2) synthesises outcome descriptions across its studies: teachers changed collaboration norms, understanding of mathematics and its teaching, and their ability to design and carry out teaching, including leaving more of the talking space to their students. No effect size and no comparison group are reported on the claim page; it describes what participants changed, not what participation caused. Teachers only, mathematics only.
Productive collaboration norms in mathematics PLC fall into three categories, with trust norms acting as prerequisites for critical inquiry, and develop over time [~M]: the same review, in schools where collaboration norms were established, groups productive norms as supporting participation and critical inquiry, supporting open communication and trust, and directing attention towards an object, with trust norms as prerequisites for critical inquiry; several studies concluded that productive norms develop over time. It qualifies the relationship: the community's effect is conditional on norms that take time to build. Descriptive synthesis, not a tested order.
Reported PLC outcomes frequently do not correspond with the stated object; complete object–outcome correspondence appeared in only three studies [~M]: across the review's 32 studies, only three showed complete correspondence between what the community set out to work on and what was reported as its outcome; six had non-corresponding outcomes and eight had additional unintended outcomes. It limits the relationship: a community's design does not predict which learning it produces, so the outcome must be observed.
Active participation in a community has a more significant impact on learning than mere membership [+W]: a mixed-methods perception survey of 28 honours students (correlational, associational · r1, q2); the contrast between active participation and membership is the author's interpretation of perception data, not a tested comparison between groups. It supports the page's emphasis on contribution over membership only as students' perceptions.
The quality of inter-group interactions shifted from brief, superficial exchanges to long, detailed, collaborative discussions as community norms were negotiated [+W]: a micro-ethnographic analysis (qualitative · r3, q2) of an advanced physics laboratory course compares a week-1 briefing exchange with a week-8 exchange of the same type, which had become long and detailed with expertise shared. One course, one pair of episodes; it shows that norms of interaction changed over a semester, not that learning outcomes did.
Within the CoP model, learners who do not progress toward the centre through nonparticipation are relegated to the fringes with invalidated identities [-W]: a theoretical critique (argument, theoretical · r2, q1) of the model as applied in second-language acquisition, arguing that its newcomer/oldtimer binary limits the identities available, and that learners who may not, cannot or choose not to move toward the centre are negatively interpreted. No data. It bears on how a designer reads non-central participation, not on whether communities produce learning.
Participation in STEM PLCs positively impacts teachers' understanding of or preparedness to teach content and attitudes toward teaching methods [+W]: a knowledge synthesis of studies of STEM teachers' communities (review · r3, q2) that judges teacher-knowledge and belief change "moderately substantiated" and says more evidence on students' learning "clearly is needed"; its companion finding is that the few studies of student outcomes, all in mathematics, give "existence proof" without a clear link to formal assessment results (existence-proof claim [~W]). No effect sizes. Teachers only.
Consistent participation in a cross-grade, cross-school professional learning community supported PKTP implementation and teacher learning [+W]: a developmental evaluation (design · r2, q2) of one pre-K-to-kindergarten transition programme across 18 classrooms in six sites in its first year, from surveys, interviews, focus groups and observation. It describes where implementation deepened; it does not compare attenders with non-attenders.
The professional learning community is an environment in which teacher metacognition can be nurtured [+W] and its lower and higher levels [+W]: one phenomenological study (qualitative · r3, q2) of three PLC leaders, using stimulated-recall interviews. It shows that reflection at two levels can be elicited and described in a community, not that the community caused it.
A facilitated Community of Practice helped isolated state American Indian Education Directors build relationships [+W] and Networks of practising principals support sharing practice and problem solving [+W]: participant reports from one evaluated community (qualitative · r?) and a narrative policy review (review · r2). Both describe what isolated role-holders get from a network (relationships, shared problems of practice); neither measures a change in practice.
Current PLC formulations trivialize teacher practice [~W] and Teacher resistance as an exercise of agency challenges current PLC formulations [~W]: one theoretical paper (theoretical, q1). It qualifies the model: a design that defines success as members' agreement with a reform's goals is measuring attitude, not practice, and reads resistance as failure. No data.

Taken together: the wiki's evidence describes what members of established communities report changing (now including teachers' content preparedness, reflection, and isolated leaders' relationships), that productive norms take time and rest on trust, and that outcomes often differ from aims; it does not predict an effect size, a horizon at which change appears, or that a community outperforms other professional learning. How far each may be carried: the three review claims are mathematics teachers in professional learning communities, so they transport to other teacher communities more readily than to students or to online networks; the laboratory case is one physics course; the survey is one honours community's perceptions. None is evidence about online communities of practice in particular, which the page's key source (a systematic review of adult learning in online communities of practice) concerns but which no claim page yet records.

The evidence by question¶

Each question below links a general claim that gathers the studies behind it into one table, one row per distinct study, with each study's design and effect as recorded and no averaged verdict (eval/synthesis/communities.json, scripts/synthesize_claim.py). The count is of distinct studies across the claim and the narrower claims that bear on it.

Does taking part in a professional learning community change teachers' knowledge and practice? Participation in mathematics PLC changed teachers' collaboration norms, understanding of mathematics and its teaching, and ability to design and carry out teaching [+M]: 7 distinct studies.
Does teachers' community participation reach their students' achievement? A small set of mathematics-only studies gives existence proof that teacher participation in a mathematics PLC can enhance student learning, but evidence is insufficient to link formal assessment results to PLC participation [+M]: 4 distinct studies.
What conditions make a community productive: norms, trust, leadership, active participation? Productive collaboration norms in mathematics PLC fall into three categories, with trust norms acting as prerequisites for critical inquiry, and develop over time [~M]: 6 distinct studies.
What goes wrong: outcomes that differ from aims, excluded members, and communities that cannot form? Reported PLC outcomes frequently do not correspond with the stated object; complete object–outcome correspondence appeared in only three studies [~M]: 5 distinct studies.
In an online community of inquiry, which presences go with learners' regulation and learning? Social presence shows the strongest association with metacognition in an online case-based course, while teaching presence shows no significant relationship [~M]: 4 distinct studies.

Further evidence, not yet read against this model¶

Re-read 2026-10-19 against the model above. The community-specific claims listed here before (the cross-grade transition PLC, STEM PLC knowledge gains, the two critiques of PLC formulations, the three objects of mathematics PLCs, the two teacher-metacognition claims, the American Indian Education Directors' CoP, principal networks, honours students' sense of safety, and mathematics student-learning existence proof) are now in the default design, the situation rows and the evidence list. What remains is mechanism evidence from individual study or tutoring. None of it was studied in a community of practice; it bears on default steps 4 and 5 by transport only, and it does not change the model.

Prompting learners to self-explain improves understanding and problem solving on immediate tests by a moderate average amount, with little evidence yet on delayed or classroom gains. [+S] — not settled: the text available could not confirm the entries (abstract). Individual learners prompted while studying (meta-analysis g = .55, immediate tests); supports asking members for reasoning (step 5) only by transport.
Fading support promotes the transfer of responsibility from instructor to learner. [~S] — not settled: the text available could not confirm the entries (abstract). Faded worked examples and a scaffolding review; the community analogue (facilitator handing over to members, step 2) is untested.
A training-design argument, not tested by any study recorded here, holds that practising whole complex tasks improves transfer of complex skills [+M] — checked by the judge: all 1 entries pass (abstract). A design argument about training, not about communities.
Contingent scaffolding improves learning more than fixed or absent support. [+M] — not settled: the text available could not confirm the entries (abstract). One-to-one tutoring studies; bears on coaching newcomers responsively (step 4) by transport.

Objective and learner-valued goal¶

The designer's objective names the practice the community is meant to change and how that change will be observed: a teaching move, a diagnostic routine, a code review standard, at a stated horizon. Elicit separately what each member wants from the community: help with an immediate problem, colleagues, a credential, a professional identity, or simply to watch how others work. Agreement and divergence are both observations, and a member who values observation is not thereby failing.

For example, in a teacher inquiry group the designer's objective may be that teachers leave more talking space to students in mathematics lessons, while a newly qualified teacher may value the group mainly for reassurance and practical lesson resources. Attendance and a positive self-report serve the teacher's goal; only an observation of lessons, compared with the group's stated aim, tests the designer's. Recording both keeps a sense of belonging from being read as a change in practice, and keeps a member who wanted resources from being read as disengaged.

What would revise this model?¶

The model should weaken if comparisons of comparable learners who do and do not take part in a structured community show no difference in observed practice or understanding at a term-or-longer horizon, or if structured entry points and trust norms make no difference to newcomers' participation. If outcomes keep diverging from stated aims, the model should say plainly that a community's learning cannot be designed toward a target, only observed. If non-central members turn out to learn as much as central ones by other measures, the trajectory toward the centre should stop being treated as the indicator of learning. Do not protect the model by calling every unchanged practice a sign that norms have not yet formed.

Changed participation norms, changed understanding, changed practice and a member's sense of professional identity are separate claims. The present evidence does not establish how long a community needs, what size or mix of expertise works, whether online communities behave like co-located ones, or that communities outperform other forms of professional learning.

Claims¶

Ask Experts — communities widen access to expertise beyond isolated expert encounters
Mentoring/Coaching — mentoring relationships often serve as entry points into a broader practice community
Peer Discussion — discussion is one mechanism communities use, but not the whole structure
Authentic Audiences & Purposes — communities provide real audiences, norms, and feedback loops for learner work
Find each teacher's strengths and entry point before asking for instructional change
Advocate for teachers' voices, purposeful change, and continued professional development
Respond to student writing as an interested reader rather than only as an evaluator

Examples¶

Fostering Communities of Learning (FCL) — a structured pattern for collaborative inquiry and shared knowledge building
Community Involvement — invites learning relationships that extend beyond the classroom
Professional learning networks, code review communities, nurse book clubs, teacher inquiry groups, and apprenticeship cohorts are common real-world forms
Online communities can function well when they include recurring tasks, visible artifacts, and norms for contribution rather than only informal chat
Support the evolving instructor role with professional development beyond product training, articulated role expectations, and communities of practice
Grow-your-own teacher pipelines and institutionalized peer-based professional learning to build a qualified newcomer-school workforce
Ground coaching conversations in the work of children
Take a listening tour of classrooms when beginning work in a new school
Incorporate a method for identifying areas of improvement into PLC models
Structuring PLCs with clear purpose and collaborative-work frameworks (High-Leverage Team Actions)

Key Sources¶

Abedini, A., Abedin, B., & Zowghi, D. (2021). Adult learning in online communities of practice: A systematic review. British Journal of Educational Technology, 52(4), 1663-1694. doi:10.1111/bjet.13120
Boud, D., & Middleton, H. (2003). Learning from others at work: Communities of practice and informal learning. Journal of Workplace Learning, 15, 194-202. doi:10.1108/13665620310483895
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511815355
Office of Educational Technology. (2014). Designing online communities of practice for educators to create value. U.S. Department of Education.
Dozier, C. L. (2008). Literacy coaching: Engaging and learning with teachers. The Language and Literacy Spectrum, 18. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1059644
Riveros, A., Newton, P., & Burgess, D. (2012). A Situated Account of Teacher Agency and Learning: Critical Reflections on Professional Learning Communities. Canadian Journal of Education, 35(1). https://journals.sfu.ca/cje/index.php/cje
Harvey, F., & Teledahl, A. (2022). Characteristics of Professional Learning Communities in Mathematics: A Systematic Review. Mathematics Teacher Education and Development, 24(1), 72–95. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1361397
Prytula, M. P. (2012). Teacher Metacognition within the Professional Learning Community. International Education Studies. https://doi.org/10.5539/ies.v5n4p112
Fulton, K., Doerr, H., & Britton, T. (2010). STEM Teachers in Professional Learning Communities: A Knowledge Synthesis. National Commission on Teaching & America's Future / WestEd. https://www.nctaf.org/resources/events/STEMWingspreadConference.htm
Spain, A.K., Ehrlich, S.B., Cowhy, J.R., Dasgupta, D.K., & Lockaby, T. (2018). A community effort to support the transition from pre-K to kindergarten. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Consortium on School Research and Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/community-effort-support-transition-pre-k-kindergarten
Sutcher, L., Podolsky, A., & Espinoza, D. (2017). Supporting principals' learning: Key features of effective programs. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute. https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/supporting-principals-learning
Wabike, P. (2021). Enhancing Learning through Community Membership: Honours Students' Perceptions of Community Membership and Its Impact on Learning. Journal of Educational Issues, 7(2). doi:10.5296/jei.v7i2.18814
Region 15 Comprehensive Center at WestEd. (2024). Listening Deeply and Responding Accordingly: R15CC Facilitates a Community of Practice Rooted in the Perspectives of American Indian Education Directors. https://www.wested.org/resources/working-respectfully-with-indigenous-communities-around-data-and-evidence-a-resource-for-state-education-agencies/

Page metadata

Field	Value
`type`	`principle`
`id`	`communities-of-practice`
`aliases`	`engage-teachers-literacy-events-learner-to-learner`, `situated-account-plc-design`, `invest-in-plcs-for-teacher-metacognition`
`title`	`Communities of Practice`
`description`	`For adults and professionals entering a shared practice, sustained and structured participation with more experienced members, under norms of trust and critical inquiry, is proposed to change their practice and understanding over a term or more, though the wiki holds only descriptive, qualitative and argued evidence for it.`
`status`	`review`
`moved_from`	`pattern/plc-mediating-artifacts-vary-by-object`
`canonical`	`True`
`generated`	by `claude/unspecified` on `2026-10-19`
`trust`	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
`sources`	5 — `abedini-2021`, `dozier-2008`, `riveros-2012`, `harvey-2022`, `prytula-2012`

Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.