Community of practice for teachers: sensemaking or critical reflective learning?

While collaborative learning among teachers is encouraged and practised in many schools today, the process of learning through ‘communities of practice’ may involve ‘sensemaking’ rather than critical reflective learning. This paper argues that sensemaking in a community of practice utilises a restricted form of reflective learning that is largely technical in nature and confined to immediate practice concerns. It is further argued that the quality of learning will be significantly enhanced by encouraging practitioners to engage in critical reflective learning where reflection is implicit and intuitive in nature, and general and contextual in scope and object.