Week 19: Communities of Practice

Activity 3: Contribution of Teacher Inquiry Topics to my Communities of Practice

Critically reflect on how two potential and inspiring digital and/or collaborative learning related teacher inquiry topics would contribute to your Communities of Practice.

Figure 1: Jay and Johnson’s reflective model

Definition: “A Community of Practice (CoP) is a group of people who share a passion for something they know how to do and interact regularly to learn how to do it better.” (Knox 2009).

The 3 key areas within a CoP are:

·         Community: Developing relationships based on respect, trust and a shared passion for improving both of these inquiry areas. Feeling like we belong.

·         Domain: We have been actively developing our practice in these areas alone, which makes it perfect for an area of shared inquiry.

·         Practice:  We bring a body of knowledge, methods, experience and tools which we can use as a base to develop our pedagogy and practice.

The purpose of a CoP is “to create expand and exchange knowledge and develop individual capabilities. (Knox 2009).

Descriptive:

The Digital and Collaborative learning related Inquiry topics that would contribute to my Community of Practice (CoP) are:

1.      How can we personalise learning for the 21^st century?

2.      How to work effectively in a Flexible and Innovative Learning Space (ILS).

I have chosen these two topics because my school is developing a Flexible ILS. In order for this to work successfully we want to collectively develop the mindset change for this style of personalised learning and how it works in this type of space.

Our staff are only in their second year of working together so working in a CoP would also contribute to our sense of identity as we merge new staff with long term staff and create a new sense of belonging by working together in an area of agreed need. (Knox 2000). These two areas of inquiry are also areas we are all passionate about.

How to personalise learning for the 21^st Century relates to my CoP by being an area we all want to move towards and because each person in the CoP has a different aspect of what this could look like to bring to the collective group. This will build a sense of trust in each other personally, in how we do things, and in building a kete of tools we can use to be successful.

The community, bearing in mind it is voluntary, would be made up of the 5 staff involved in working in the Flexible ILS because they are the main stakeholders in its success with other layers being a local school who we have interacted with to look at how their ILS runs, my Mind Lab community and Face Book and Twitter communities.

Comparative:

All of the groups above are interested in both topics and have varying degrees of expertise to offer. They invite different levels of participation as it is unrealistic to expect the same level for each person. (Knox 2009 ). The group I imagine for this CoP also has an alignment to both inquiries because we are heading in the same direction with our environment and through regular discussion I know we all see the benefit of personalising learning for our students. (Wenger 2000, p228).

As CoP’s need to be fostered and nurtured, not created, they thrive on the personal relationships and energies of members. (Wenger 2000). One of the most important aspects Wenger discusses is the need for trust, not only personal trust of those in the CoP but trust in each other’s ability to contribute in a way for everyone to feel comfortable and be able to talk about the real problems truthfully.  Having this level of trust will be a crucial point in successfully developing the pedagogy and systems we want as well as creating a solid foundation for working through future problems together.

Critical reflection:

The CoP I have talked about all want the same outcomes which are to be successful in our Flexible ILE and to deliver 21^st Century personalised learning to our students. Our opinions on what this looks like will differ vastly due to our own experiences and research. Shaping a successful community and fostering its growth will be a matter for continual reflection and I will need to remember that this is not about me and my needs but about strengthening our personal relationships and energies (Knox 2009). How it looks at the end of the inquiries will be about the CoP team not how I envision it.

References:

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.