See also the following which refers to "psychological communities"
Psychological communities, or communities of face-to-face personal interaction governed by sentiments of trust, co-operation, and altruism. This refers to a group of persons who participate in common activity and experience a psychological sense of togetherness as shared ends are sought. Such communities, based on face-to-face interaction, are governed by sentiments of trust, cooperation, and altruism in the sense that constituent members have the good of the community in mind and act on behalf of the communitys interest. They differ from communities of place by not being necessarily defined by locality and proximity. The differ from communities of memory in the sense that they are more ‘real’, they are typically based on face to face social interaction at one point in time and consequently tend to be restricted in size.[14] The family is the prototypical example. Other examples include small-scale work or school settings founded on trust and social cooperation.
Communitarians tend to favor policies designed to protect and promote ties to the family and family-like groups. This would include such measures as encouraging marriage and increasing the difficulty of legal marriage dissolution. These policies are supported by empirical evidence that points to the psychological and social benefits of marriage (Waite 1996). Communitarians also favor political legislation that can help to restructure education in such a way that peoples deepest needs in membership and participation in psychological communities are tapped at a young age. The primary school system in Japan, where students learn about group cooperation and benefits and rewards are assigned to the classroom as a whole rather than to individual students, could be a useful model (Reid 1999)." from Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy
Robert Stake puts his finger on classroom pay-offs and communitarianism via the following:
"Communitarian teaching. And last or almost, I wantto talk about communitarian teaching. Here
the schools are more advanced than the colleges. The traditional concept of evaluating teaching
is the evaluation of an autonomous instructor in an individual classroom. (3)
I’m urging an additional perspective, evaluating the contribution each instructor makes to the
maintenance and improvement of all instructional programs in the department. What instructors
do directly for students in their classes is, of course, important but what instructors contribute to
the integrity of all offerings, not just their own, is important too. A charismatic lecturer or
innovative lab-organizer or personalistic mentor, that is, a star, sometimes contributes little to the
upgrade of weak, misdirected, frivolous and out-dated courses in the department. Both individual
and team contributions need to be considered if teaching is to be evaluated at all.(4)
Collaboration across a campus faculty about matters of teaching is not new, but, in most places, it
remains the exception more than the practice. Writing about a faculty as a "community of
practice"(5)has become identified with Philip Morrison and John Seely Brown and colleagues at
the Institute for Research on Learning. Some observers (Wenger, 1991; Brown, 1997; Alpert,
1998) of US and Canadian campuses have noted the scarcity of departments where instructors
work closely together to maintain and improve teaching programs.(6 )Wenger said:
Even those who speak about learning organizations, life long learning, or the information
society do so mostly in terms of individual learners and information processes. The
notion of communities of practice helps us break this mold (p. 7).
3 A substantial body of research has been conducted along this line of inquiry. Most of the
research has focused on methods and sources of information regarding teaching effectiveness,
especially on the use of students as raters. (Kinney and Smith, 1992; Braskamp, Brandenburg &
Ory, 1984; Cashin, 1988; Marsh, 1987; El-Hassan, 1995).(4)
Wheeler Loomis, once head of the Physics Department on our campus, used to keep a list of
faculty names in his pocket, a list of those who contributed most to the department. According to
Daniel Alpert (1998), Loomis recognized individual professional performance but also placed
great value on qualities that held the community together. The Loomis List ranked individuals in
terms of individual contribution to the department. At one time, at the top of the list was a Nobel
Prize winner, so placed not for intellect but for his powerful contributions to other members of the
department.
5. A community of practice can be defined as "a group of professionals, informally bound to one
another through exposure to a common class of problems, common pursuit of solutions, and
thereby themselves embodying a store of knowledge." (Peter & Trudy Johnson-Lenz, 1998).
Communities of practice have been traced back to the European guilds, but some writers see
them as old as human interactivity of any kind (Community Intelligence Labs, 1998).
6. According to Alpert (1998), “Learning is not only an activity, but also a vehicle for engagement
with others. Learning is a social phenomenon. We all belong to communities of practice (work,
school, in personal activities). It is through membership in communities of practice that we come
to know—and become empowered by what we know. The social world is where work gets done,
where learning takes place. Instructors encompass an ensemble of interconnected communities
of practice whose boundaries do not necessarily (or usually) follow the formal boundaries of the
organization"
In order for you to see the relevance of Stake's summaries the parallel is this: you are a department member who has his or her own work and the work of the whole
to be concerned with.
Our effort here is to build an effective learning community in which individual and group are needs are served. Grading will account for the quality of your learning and project and will also take account of your support for the learning of the group overall.
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