Communities of practise are something that have had a huge impact on my teaching and have shaped the second half of my career.
About 6 years ago I was becoming increasingly frustrated with the way I was teaching and with being stuck in my classroom bubble. Long story short, I self-funded myself to ULearn, was made to join Twitter and introduced to the EdChatNZ group. And that changed me and my teaching.
This Community of teachers on Twitter has challenged me, supported me, shared ideas, and been the source of many discussions around a range of teaching practise concepts. They have also introduced my to EduCamps, another great community of colleagues!
Through out my career I have been a member of many CoPs - some informal, some formal. They come in many shapes and sizes!
So basically what I'm saying is that I love this concept - the opportunity to discuss and be challenged in my teaching practises. As Wenger discusses, "learning is central to human identity. A primary focus is learning as social participation – that is, an individual as an active participant in the practices of social communities, and in the construction of his or her identity through these communities."(retrieved from https://www.learning-theories.com/communities-of-practice-lave-and-wenger.html)
In my school we have Professional Learning Groups (PLGs), at my previous school we had Ariki - quality learning circles.
Currently our PLGs are quite small, because we are a new school and only have 7 FTE. So currently my particular PLG is a group of 2 but with input from the other PLGs / staff.
The inquiry my PLG is focussing on this year is: How can we use learning dispositions to promote the practice of making teaching and learning ‘visible’ (J Hattie, 2012) at Lemonwood Grove School - Te Uru Tarata
(working document from our PLG)
This question was formulated by our staff and identified as an area we feel the need to develop now for our learners.
The other CoP I feel would benefit from my second possible inquiry question is my teaching team - there are 4 of us teaching Year 3-8 and a further teacher joining us as we divide into various levels of play / project based learning.
The inquiry question that I would like to look into with this CoP is: How can we support our students to make their learning visible - provide evidence of and track their learning?
This is something we have been debating in our team for a while and looking at how this works in our play based learning space.
I also feel that discussions with my online CoP's - the twitter groups and the MindLab Google+ November 2017 intake groups will also be beneficial for me and those involved in the groups.
Like previous discussions with CoPs I have been involved with, I am looking forward to being challenged in my thinking, to hearing different perspectives, to finding new perspectives and learning. My experience of CoP's is that this is what happens, this is how I become a better practitioner.
References
Kwok Wing Lai, Keryn Pratt, Megan Anderson & Julie Stigter, (2006) Literature review and synthesis: Online Communities of PracticeUniversity of Otago. Report prepared for the Ministry of Education. Retrieved from https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/curriculum/5795
Diana Ayling, Hazel Owen, Edward Flagg (2012) Thinking, researching and living in virtual professional development community of practice. Retrieved from http://unitec.researchbank.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10652/2930/ayling%2c_diana_-_thinking.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Darcy Vo, Dr Truman Pham, Dr David Parsons (2016) Creating learning connections via an online community of practice: A case study. Retrieved from http://unitec.researchbank.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10652/4005/Vo_Pham_Parsons%20%282016%29.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y
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