A couple of the students, on the other hand, didn't see the same connection between the learning in the classroom and the learning in the coffee shop. Marion thought that her learning in each setting was different and said, "The kitchen work, we work together like group, like real work. [In] the class, we learn the reading and writing." Hannah agreed, then suggested that the employability work they did once a week was more connected to the coffee shop than the literacy skills work. During the time set aside for employability, students discussed topics such as fire safety, personal safety at work, and health regulations related to the handling and storage of food. Suzanne also commented on the employability class.

Getting input from the students and using their input as much as possible, really facilitates learning. This worked very well, for example, in employability class where students had lots of real–life examples and situations to relate to the rest of the class (food safety, fire safety, hazardous products, etc.) This made the information so much more meaningful, and when information is meaningful, it is more easily retained.

Overall, the classroom did not contain consistent elements that could be described as a community of practice. The focus was on teaching, and the students and instructors had contradictory ideas of the learning purpose. One of the instructors, Fran, acknowledged that her group was predominantly teacher–led. Suzanne, in comparison, said her group contributed more to the class but this occurred within a structure set by the instructor. Examples of this structure include the subject–based schedule, the types of materials used to support learning, and the physical set–up of the class. With regards to identifying the learning purpose, the instructors felt that the class activities were directly related to the activities that occurred in the coffee shop, and became a preparation for the coffee shop activities. The students viewed the two settings separately. Classroom activities did not support or connect to coffee shop activities; the only exception to this understanding was the time spent in the class doing employment activities, such as learning about fire and employee safety.

Participation

Students were engaged in a variety of activities in the classroom that emphasized the development of literacy skills, as illustrated by both the vocabulary lesson and the lesson devoted to learning fractions. But to see participation in a learning setting, as described by Lave and Wenger (1991), a student would have to be involved in a productive activity that leads to a new way of seeing herself. In other words, the literacy activities of the classroom would have to be seen to be an integral part of a broader activity that was meaningful to the students and helped them to think of themselves in new ways. One way to look at participation in the classroom is to focus on how students might integrate the classroom activities with the way in which they feel about themselves. Are the classroom activities helping them to see themselves in new ways?