The Practice
At Minds Studio, we understand a community of practice as a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly*, developing a sense of craftsmanship.
After years of experimentation in collaboration with education institutions, we have witnessed how the creation of communities of practice are one of the most powerful tools to help individuals develop their skills and sense of belonging.
Minds Studio as a Community of Practitioners
Minds Studio operates as a community of professionals who share a passion for learning craftsmanship, and we come together regularly to learn how to do it better. Within the Minds Network, there are several groups meeting regularly and sharing their findings under an Open Source license.
Our Current Minds Framework
In order to be able to conduct our work, we have developed a common language that helps us explain the core of what we do, as well as the stakeholders involved. This is a living ecosystem that continuously changes as we keep running experiments and discovering new theoretical frameworks.
What’s a Studio?
We define a Studio as a facilitated community of Practice, where Participants meet with a Facilitator following a framework designed for emergent learning. This gathering could happen in person or online.
What’s a Practice?
A Practice is the act of rehearsing a behaviour repeatedly, to help learn and eventually master a skill or way of being. A practice not only involves doing specific tasks but also encompasses ways of thinking, learning, and being.
Who are the Participants?
The Participants are the lifeblood of the Studio. Their curiosity is the energy that keeps the community growing by showing up regularly to Practice.
They contribute their time, knowledge, perspective, experience, skills, attitude, beliefs, and stories. They are willing to be part of an unusual space where exploration and emergence replace rigidity and predictability.
When participating in a Practice, Participants receive the gift of a community of peers dedicated to growing and learning. They strengthen their existing abilities, stretch into weaker areas, and open up to completely unexpected paradigm shifts.
Who is the Facilitator?
The Facilitator orchestrates the learning experience, co-creating with the Participants a safe yet challenging environment that transcends traditional educational paradigms by
– gently fostering playful inquiry and collective discovery,
– holding space, listening deeply, and weaving together diverse perspectives
– encouraging them to lean into uncertainty and embrace the unexpected.
Facilitators are the catalyst of the Studio, fostering the conditions for emergent learning within the group, strengthening their abilities, venturing into new areas, and nourishing their curiosity.
Who is the Steward?
The Stewards identify a space where a Studio could sprout and flourish through providing the strategic focus and resources to nourish the Practice.
They ignite the initial spark that sets in motion a process of increasing engagement with Participants and Facilitators in novel and more meaningful ways.
They also provide the scaffolding and nourishment necessary for the community to reach its full potential. Observing nature, we realised the process of creating a thriving community of practice resembles nature’s cycles, so we’ve decided to follow them.
We work in Seasons
Each Studio decides when to Practice with a commonly agreed Cadence and Season Length under a Theme. This allows the Participants to feel progress and enables the onboarding of new ones, which happens at the beginning of every Season.
For example, the Participants at the Minds Studio internal Practice come together every week, with a Season length of 8 weeks per theme. At the end of each Season we produce an outcome with our findings that is open sourced under a creative commons license. New Participants are allowed only during the first and second Practices of each Season at the Studio .
Some of our Practices
Our Practice’s Principles
Our principles and values are not only inspirational, they are the guidelines we use when making decisions and strategic choices.
Curiosity driven, not curriculum driven
We don’t provide pre-conceived or traditional academic curriculums. Instead, we develop the scaffolding that helps groups of people who practice together, find what they are interested in learning in order to develop a sense of craftsmanship over time.
Organic growth, not rushed
We believe that learning is an emergent process very similar to the growth of organic life. It happens spontaneously when the environment and the conditions are right. It does not need to, and actually cannot be, forced or coerced. Rather, it invites us to reflect on the required and ideal conditions for its emergence.
Facilitators are explorers, not experts
Facilitators prepare the practice structure, but they don’t develop fixed plans nor need to be subject matter experts. We aim to explore together, based on the participants interests and interactions, in order to meet participants where they are.
Learning as a network, not as individuals
We have witnessed that complex concepts and challenges more often than not need the interaction of different individuals with a wide arrange of backgrounds in order to accelerate collective mastery and epistemological knowledge. We believe that by coming together often, all our learning curves accelerate exponentially.
Open access, not gated
We believe that learning should not be gated by experts or teachers that can prevent or dictate anyone’s access to learn. Rather we believe we are all practitioners, some with more experience, some new to the practice. The interactions of a diverse group of practitioners is key to move forward as a whole.
Our Practice Structure
We craft each Practice differently but with a similar core structure consisting of:
The Pre-Practice. Activities that need to happen in advance of the meeting, in order to maximise the effectiveness of a Practice.
The Opening. The initial activity that happens at the beginning of each practice, helps participants connect to each other, and lasts for up to 15 minutes.
The Focus. This is the central part of our time together, starts with a ritual, and lasts for up to 60 minutes. Some of the activities that could happen during the Focus time are:
Discussion Focus – We all discuss what we know to improve our understanding
Expertise Focus – We all learn we know from someone who knows more about it than us
Skill Focus – We all try to learn something new at the same time and share our experiences
The Closing. It takes part in the last 15 minutes of the Practice, and its goal is to collaboratively summarise the learnings that emerged during the Focus.
The Post-practice. Those activities that happen after the Practice, and help ensure the continuity and consistency of the Studio with Participants who were not present.
The Minds Toolkits
At Minds Studio we are constantly developing tools to help Facilitators improve all the different parts of their Practices, and we update them at the end of each cycle.
The Minds Rituals
We develop rituals that help groups connect and focus at a deeper level. For example, the Participants of the Minds Studio agreed to light a candle at the beginning of the Focus stage of each Practice, as a symbol of the spark of curiosity driven learning. The candle remains active until The Closing of the Practice.
Continuous Improvements
We are a Community of Professionals who help organisations to design and develop Communities of Practice. Therefore, we consider our work a living organism and not a closed product or service. We aim to develop and improve it continuously with all our stakeholders.
Sources
**For theoretical frameworks, see Jean Lave, Etienne Wenger, “Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation”