Week 19 - Community of Practice & Relevant Inquiry Topics


My Community of Practice is two-fold in that the shared teaching area of 4 classes operates within the wider concept of the whole school which is following IB (International Baccalaureate) principles. We plan according to the rubrics laid out by the IB programme and working on a two year rotating basis, ensure our students do not experience duplication in their learning. Our Community of Practice (CoP) “provides a concrete organisational infrastructure for realising the dream of a learning organisation.” (Wenger, McDermott & Snyder 2002) As a team, we meet regularly for weekly planning as well as communicating on a daily basis.
I am also a member of a small group of fellow students from the Ashburton Mindlab November 17 intake. We have agreed to meet on a regular basis to share ideas and to support each other’s learning.

As such, my CoPs functions through:-

• Joint Enterprise - in that it is a shared domain which is the “collectively developed understanding of what our community is about.
• Mutual Engagement - we, as members engage through interactions within the community, building mutual trust in our relationships.
• Shared Repertoire - the “Communal resources” or practice that the CoP produce                              

                    (Wenger 2000 and Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner 2015)

My chosen topics to further explore within my CoP are the application of Blended Learning which is something currently being discussed as a way to deliver topics from our programme. This will be achieved through Implementing Technology Innovation in the Classroom. As an alternative to having resources dotted around our Google Classroom folders and sub-titles, we will use general platforms e.g. ‘TES Teach’ to streamline resources both for the students and staff.


                                                                         
In order to reflect upon the success if these topics, I have decided to utilise the reflective model of Jay and Johnson (2002) as laid out above.

In describing the topic, I have sent a trial copy of the proposed blended learning model to my team and we will implement it during term 2 of this year. (We are starting a new topic so this should dovetail well with our planning.) We are all in agreement that we need to streamline how we deliver the content of our learning programme and make it more accessible.

We will then be able to compare this to previous methods and take the best of practice from each. As an IB school we are already competent in teaching via collaborative learning and working as a team in a shared learning space. However, all learning is organic, and we are constantly reviewing our practice and delivery.

With the application of critical reflection, we can monitor what changes/improvements have been made. We regularly invite our students to comment and assess how they feel a study unit has gone. They will be a key part of this reflection process.
It should then be possible to make a judgement about our actions and either simply integrate them into our future practice if it has better helped us understand the problem or continue to rethink how best to deliver our learning.

REFERENCES

Jay, J.K. and Johnson, K.L. (2002) Capturing complexity: a typology of reflective practice for teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 73-85.

Knox, B. (2009, December 4).Cultivating Communities of Practice: Making Them Grow.[video file]. Retrieved from:- 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhMPRZnRFkk

Wenger, E.(2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization,7(2), 225-246.

Wenger-Trayner, E., & Wenger-Trayner, B. (2015). Introduction to communities of practice: A brief overview of the concept and its uses. Retrieved from :- 

http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/