Your professional community
Define and Evaluate your professional community
- Who are the stakeholders of your professional community? In what ways do they influence your practice?
The community of practice is defined as “people who share concern/passion for something and learn how to do it at they interact regularly (Wegner-Trayner, n.d.). It differs from networks as the community of practice has a shared identity (Wegner-Trayner, n.d.). If we use this definition these are the stakeholders:
Stakeholders
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Ways they influence my practice?
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The students/learners in my room
The students/learners in the 3 digital classes
The students/learners outside the digital classes.
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Their the biggest stakeholders as my practice directly influences them. They are the main reason I do what I do. They change my practice to what suits them. They are part of my community of practice as I feel we are partners in their learning. This ties nicely with Maori concept of ako. There is no distinguishing of teacher and students - we are all learners. Through our interactions, we construct learning and cultivate a shared identity.
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Parents including BOT
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Like the students/learners they are part of the community of practice. We have a domain of interest - their children. Through regular communication, we learn from each other how to approach their children. I would change my practice according to their child’s needs and discussions - learning from sharing.
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Colleagues
Digital Class colleagues
Mindlab Colleague/Critical Friend
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Through our daily interactions, we learn from each other through shared stories. They offer new insights on how I approach certain situations. Together we problem solve concerns, we reuse assets, we share resources for the sake of learning. We regularly communicate to make our learning better.
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Senior Management - Principal, DP, AP
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The management is part of my community of practice that makes decisions and facilitates so that learning in a community can take place. The structures they put in place can influence the way I teach and can limit or enhance my practice.
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Cluster School
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Our cluster was brought together for one purpose: to accelerate learning through 1:1 devices. We share failures/success, share resources, request information and visits for a shared purpose.
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- What is the purpose and function of your practice? In what ways do you cater for the community of your practice?
The purpose and function of my practice are:
(NZC,2007, p.8)
We are here to produce actively involved, confident, connected life long learners. Why? For a functional society. Teachers are society producers and Marxists will argue teachers produce the “working class”/ body to make an economy work. My practice aims to make sure these young learners are equipped for the future.
How do I do cater for this community?
I remove my fears of failure to contribute to my learning. I seek what is out there - I actively participate, discuss and collaborate online to ensure I learn what is the latest research. I use every opportunity given to me (although maybe hesitant) - join Mindlab, share learning during meetings &workshops, share new concepts in classrooms, commit myself to being the best I can for learners.
3. What are the challenges that you face in your practice?
Trying to sell the idea of 21st-century learning and collaboration
The structures in our institution is traditional top down - my teacher training and my past school experiences have told me this was okay. This is how I learned how to teach. I was a knowledge pouring type of teacher. So the challenges? Moving away from what I find comfortable and navigating a new way of teaching.
Along the way, the new way of teaching is met with resistance from structures put in place and the people. The other day I was told that “this is the way we have done things”. Fair enough, why would they change if it’s been successful for them.
My challenges:
How do I navigate within the confines of an organization's structure so that I have the freedom to experiment new teaching strategies?
How do I lead learning in our community of practice that are hesitant to move?
How do I make sure I do not revert back to my fixed mindset? ( I suspect reflection is a good strategy)
How do I keep my practice reflective so that I have the confidence in my current practice?
4. What are the current issues in your community? How would you or your community address them?
Resistant to anything new from all areas of the community - especially the use of technology in the classroom. How would we use technology in the classroom? Why do we need it? Why resistant? They have been successful in the past. People know the education system because they have experienced it themselves - they feel they know what works and doesn’t work. Change is hard as people feel they will have to lose something. Why try this 21st-century learning?
How are we addressing them?
In our Mindlab assessment, we looked at different leadership style and how to lead change. In there we highlighted some strategies including exposing them to our classes/practice and changing the professional development structure.
The challenges faced
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Reflection on causes.
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How are we addressing them?
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Limited resources - time
(Lave, n.d.) |
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Job status
(Lave, n.d.) |
It’s been highlighted that the higher you are in your job status the more learning opportunities you get. This is seen in our institutions. It is a hierarchy with teacher aides at the bottom. Marx argues that learning is commoditised, people have social and cultural capital - the learning is unequal. (Lave, n.d., p.8)
| We are addressing this by having workshops and making sure all PLD opportunities are open for everybody - teacher aides, cleaners, different levels of technology knowledge...etc. |
Lack of participation
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Lack of ownership, history of being dictated what to do, mistrust is fostered as we are not trusted to learn on our own, uncertain about the new pedagogy.
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Create a safe environment - use design thinking process, trust teachers can choose their own PLD, expose to new pedagogy, present success stories
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5. What are the changes occurring in the context of you profession? How would you address them?
Changes
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Why?
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Addressing them how?
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From knowledge transferring to pedagogy - 21st-century learning/Knowledge construction/Knowledge connecting ..etc.
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Technology, devices and BYOD have forced classrooms to change and identity is being reconstructed again.The community of practice’s identity is changing. People have a sense off a loss and the loss of identity is hard. The old pedagogy is gone. Pedagogy has a link to identity - it can become THE identity. We have to reconstruct and negotiate the identity again. What are the values we want as a community? How does it fit into the world around us now? The uncertainness of identity and sense of loss has caused the lack of participation for members.
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Based on this, when we implement this we have to be sensitive to there is a sense of identity.
Identity can be fashioned through storytelling and modelling ( (Hodkinson & Hodkinson, 2004 p.72) Because of this we will continue to share stories and experiences with others - share stories from other teachers.
Open the classrooms for them to see so they can have experiences.
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What’s next?
Now that we understand what is underpinning the issues in our community practice. With my critical friend, we created a community engagement plan and strategized what we can do. However, we will review that plan again taking into considerations in our reflection - this plan, of course, will be in collaboration with the community.
References:
Lave. (n.d.). Situating Learning in Communities of Practice. Retrieved from
http://www.ecologyofdesigninhumansystems.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Lave-Situating-learning-in- communities-of-practice.pdf
New Zealand Curriculum. (2007) Vision. Retrieved from
http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum/Vision
Wegner-Trayner. (n.d.). Communities versus networks. Retrieved from
http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/
Wegner-Trayner. (n.d.). Introduction to Communities of Practice. Retrieved from
http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/
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