How is Learning in Communities defined? According to Riel & Fulton (2001: 519),.” A community of practice is a group of people who share a common interest in a topic or area as well as a particular way of talking about the phenomena, tools, and sense-making approaches for building their collaborative knowledge with a set of common collective tasks”.

Teamwork strengthens bonds.  Allows the participant to work effectively with others and this allows for critical thinking and also improves problem solving skills.  They develop a sense of competence and empowerment in areas where they are most motivated or skilled and can pull others who are weaker in these areas up with them.

In order to ensure teamwork all members of the group can be given some sort of incentive for actively participating and not relying on one member to do all the work.  In this way we learn and move out of our comfort zones. It gives us the courage to venture out and try new platforms and the advantage of collaborative learning is that each one helps the other.   

Lee (2000) states that “As partners-in-learning we are on a pilgrimage. We need one another; we relate to each other; we look after each other; we learn from each other.” We need to work harmoniously together so that we can achieve the goal that is required.

References:

Lee, M. (2000). Collaborative Learning in Three British Adult Education Schemes. Adult Education Research Conference. Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Riel, M. & FULTON, K. 2001.    The role of technology in supporting learning communities. Phi Delta Kappan , 518-523. (Online). https://0-journals-sagepub-com.oasis.unisa.ac.za/doi/pdf/10.1177/003172170108200708? [Accessed 15 November 2019].