My environment -
When I think of a Community of Practice, firstly I think of the Environment I teach in.
I teach at a rural school of 65 children. We are a decile 9 and over the years we have become increasingly more transient and multicultural with families coming in related to dairying.
We have 3 classrooms which work full time and 1 classroom which is Board and Community funded for mornings. At the end of the previous year, it is put to our Community about funding the 4th teacher in mornings for core subjects and for many years now the answer is yes. This takes a lot of effort from the Community for raising the money.
We are a small staff of 3 full time staff, thats including the Principal, 1 principal release teacher, 1 teacher who comes in for 0.2 ORRS funding and ESOL funding, 1 office receptionist and 1 teachers aide but amongst this small group of people we have a lot of different strengths, interests and passions. McAlister (2016) states that size of group does not matter as powerful discussion can occur in the smallest groups.
My Community of Practice -
Wenger & transient-Wenger, 2015, describe Communities of Practice as groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do, and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly, and this is what I feel everyone on our staff is like. Everyone has information and practical ideas from their strength, passion and happy to share. Staff are happy to take these ideas and develop them for their own professional gain. Knox (2009) explains in his video that a Community of Practice is a group of people sharing a passion for something they know how to do. They interact regularly to get better at what they do. He also says, the purpose is to create, expand and exchange knowledge to develop individual capabilities.
Within my Environment I believe our Domain is our staff and our shared domain of interest is our children. Our principal often reiterates our ideas and to check that, are the ideas going to be benefit the children at our school. It is all about the kids. Yes, there is the mandatory paperwork we have to complete but for everything else is it about the children.
Our Community is the staff and in particular our teaching staff. We are all willing to share from our strengths. This happens in our set staff meetings where we discuss the latest things we have heard in our practice or record ourselves and use this as a learning / moderating tool. As mush as we have to overcome feeling self-conscious about this, we do walk out of there having something to think about our own teaching. This is interwoven with the Practice Wenger (2000) discusses, where we share tools, stories. All of this practise also happens anecdotally when we visit other classrooms and have a professional discussion about what is happening in our rooms. As our classrooms are multilevelled this also helps us to have a flow from the different ages as we know what is expected in each classroom. Wenger (2000) suggests that “In the end, the success of the community will depend on the energy that the community itself generates, not an external mandate”.
It's all about me -
We as a staff are all valued for our contributions. I am the staff member that often 'thinks outside the box' for ideas that are more kinaesthetic, involving more than one curriculum area at a time, for bringing in the creative side to learning so no matter what planning we do, there are elements of all our ideas. Ironically I have also been involved in ALiM ( Accelerated Learning in Mathematics) in 2016 and I share a lot of strategies I have learnt from there. Our target group of 10 children made huge gains after being on this programme and I am looking forward to ALiM 2 in 2017.
This environment with passionate teachers who are all willing to learn off each other make for a very effective Community of Practice.
References -
Knox, B. (2009, December 4).Cultivating Communities of Practice: Making Them Grow.[video file]. Retrieved from https://app. with the.com/media/31246/view
McAlister, M. (2016). The Creative Nature of Communities of Practice. Transformative Dialogues:
Teaching & Learning Journal, 9(2), 1-7.
Wegner, E (2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization, 7(2), 225-246.
Hi Kay,
ReplyDeleteI can clearly see your community of practice is supported by your wider school community. You are lucky to have them invest in a fourth teacher for the mornings. I have a class of 33 Year 4/5's this year so can see the benefits of having that extra teacher in the morning. It sounds like you and your fellow staff share a passion for what you do. Your outside the box thinking speaks of creativity and innovative teaching. I admire you manage your ALiM learning and Mindlab at the same time!
Thanks Marrie for commenting - I remember my time teaching a class of 34 children and how much of a struggle it was to see everyone, and even the space in the room. The lower numbers mean you get to create spaces around the room and children have the flexibility to work in different situations so I empathise with your situation.
ReplyDeleteKia Ora Kay
ReplyDeleteYour community of practice sounds like a very positive and supportive place to work. I think that it is fantastic that your wider school community took on the task to organise fundraising activities to fund your fourth teacher, especially with a school roll of 65 students. Like you my school has three teachers and a roll of 54. Our community of practice is similar to your school. We find that collaboration between the students and the staff make tasks more manageable and achievable. Each teacher has a strength which they bring to our community of practice too.
Thank you Piri for commenting. I think that is what make a small school special is the strength of all staff members is certainly needed and valued, bringing together a strong CoP. I think collaboration is needed as otherwise all responsibilities could create burn out for a few people.
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