Wenger, E. (1998) proposes this idea of Community of Practice (COP) as “simple social systems in which learning takes place as people and social situations interact. The idea of COP is to necessitate members to understand community values, ask them to engage productively with co-members and allow them to use resources owned by the community and gradually, it becomes a community of practice.” Inspired by this idea we have been working towards building a Community of Practice for teachers in Nepal with the goal of enhancing the practice of promoting learning through play in our classrooms. The teaching community comes together every week to discuss, share, reflect, learn and navigate their own teaching styles and approaches and understand playful learning.

In collaboration with the Tufts University's Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO), we are running the Playful Engineering-Based Learning project where teachers/educators design their own learning through play experience and integrate them in their curriculum that allows children to experience learning through play in their classroom on a day to day basis.

This community has become a learning platform for teachers. They not only share the same profession but also learn from productive teacher development workshops, which helps them to reflect on their own teaching pedagogy and share success or failure stories of their classroom within the community.

We organize weekly virtual reading sessions and also monthly in person teacher development workshops with teachers to strengthen their understanding of Community of Practice and progressive learning pedagogies and to enhance their capacity to deliver hands-on lessons that promote learning through play.