Etienne Wenger (2007) asked Cristina Costa when she knew she was in a community of practice and she said, when she noticed her practice had changed. And this is the correct answer. When your practice changes, you know you have truly learned. The next step as a teacher is to model what you did for your students so that some will follow in your footsteps.
So how can you do it? Your change in practice probably won't be from this one encounter, unless I can convince you or nudge you, if you were heading that way already, into taking the next step in your journey. The goal is to move from being just a consumer of networked content, which you in essence hoard, to a creator of content, which you share with the network that shares with you.
Paul Beaufait on 06 Mar 14"Even in traditional classes students may do little or no work but get the same grade as their more industrious colleagues, and serious conflicts may arise between teammates with varying levels of ability and senses of responsibility. The problems may be even worse when groups are virtual and don't have the self-regulating capability provided by face-to-face meetings. It is therefore particularly important in distance classes to adhere to the defining principles of cooperative learning, especially positive interdependence (if anyone fails to do his or her part everyone loses in some way), individual accountability (all team members are held accountable for all the material in the assignment), and regular self-assessment of team functioning."
