WEEK 25 COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

17.5.2017

A Community and Practice are groups of people who share a passion or concern for something together. With regular interaction and sharing of knowledge they learn how to improve this passion. 

"Communities of practice provide an environment for people to connect, interact, build and extend the shared resources within shared learning goals" Cambridge, Kaplan, and Suter (2005)\

The three areas of a community of practise as described by E and B Wenger-Trayner, (2015) are;

1. The Domain: A community of practice is not  a club of friends or a network of connections between people. It has a shared of interest and membership therefore implies a commitment to the domain, and a shared competence that distinguishes members from other people.
2. The community: In pursuing their interest in their domain, members engage in joint activities and discussions, help each other, and share information. They build relationships that enable them to learn from each other.Members of a community of practice do not necessarily work together on a daily basis.
3. The Practice: A community of practice is not only a community of interest–people who like certain kinds of movies, for instance. Members of a community of practice are practitioners. They develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems—in short a shared practice. This takes time and sustained interaction.

My Community of practise.

Management team (teaching team)

Shared domain of interest: In our teaching team, we have developed a strategic plan and vision that best suits our learning styles. We have developed a plan for increasing our student’s engagement and academic progress. In this community of practise, we exchange knowledge about and around our curriculum that best suit the needs of our students. As we are, all educators and are here for a common reason with a strong focus on accelerating achievement for our students. Our team also belongs to another Community of practise and that is Whakcol which is all the schools including secondary schools bring together common practise and the shared goal of  accelerating achievement for our students in the Whakatane area. The Whakcol community of practise meets regularly to up skill, share teaching practises, and solve problems.

Examples of the activities and our Shared Repertoire:

My main community of practice is my management team (teaching team). We meet once a week for an hour and half. In these sessions we run PD (professional development) on a variety of curriculum areas, we developed programmes of learning and collaborate together with a common goal "how can we move our students?" For example, we are currently looking at PaCT in our management team. This then flows onto our Whakcol Community of practise where as a community of schools we share ideas, examples of student’s work where we mediate work and bring in other professionals from outside areas. This community then meet 6 times a year or more. 

My role within the community of practice:

My role varies from facilitator/ leader to an active member. These change depending on the curriculum area. In each of my roles I feel collaboration, listening and taking an active role is the key to a being a good community member. When I am the leader or facilitator it is definitely is more challenging for me making sure everything is working correctly and speaking in from of other educators can be out of my comfort zone. 

Reference:

Cambridge, D., Kaplan, S. & Suter, V. (2005). Community of practice design guide: A Step-by-Step Guide for Designing & Cultivating. Retrieved from https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/NLI0531.pd...

Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner, 2015, Introduction to communities of Practice. Retrieved from http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/

Knox, B. (2009, December 4).Cultivating Communities of Practice: Making Them Grow.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhMPRZnRFkk