Kathy's Mindlab Journey

A 'Community of Practice' (CoP) is defined as “groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interaction on an ongoing basis” (Wenger et al 2000). The two areas of practice I inquiring into are: Key Competencies in Leadership  - How can a deeper understanding of the key competencies develop my own leadership skills? Blended Learning - How can I use a range of digital tools to support the design of flipped learning tasks? Description: One Community of Practice I belong to is with my two teaching partners - this meets the criteria of a Community of Practice (CoP). We have a shared domain of interest with the 85 year 5 & 6 students we are responsible for teaching and learning with in our ILE. We are a community as we work at building relationships that enable us all to learn and grow from each other. We are practitioners as we regularly meet, conv...

The reflective model chosen is Gibbs’ Model for Reflection (Findlay, 2009, p8). Step One: Description - key facts only The theme I have chosen is "Changing the Script": rethinking learners and teachers roles. Over the past years in my teaching practice and now through my experiences during my study the roles and relationships I have with my students has changed, in other words the script has been changing. The main changes I have implemented in my practice is the introduction of the flipped classroom, along with being more aware of the nature of my role with my learners - facilitating is not a default setting from actual teaching! Step Two: Feelings - did these affect my actions? As an identified early adopter I have generally grasped change with both hands - thou sometimes the 'look before you leap' is a saying I have begun to take more notice of. I tend to grasp something, read about it, get excited and jump in with both feet. By holdin...

The survey intially bought to the forefront my thinking the wording of criticism versus critical thinking. To criticise I believed was more of a judgement, and often through a negative lens: "the expression of disapproval of someone or something on the basis of perceived faults or mistakes." While critical thinking I believed was more of a form of asking questions rather than accepting something. The video below supported my thinking around this: Therefore a shift in my thinking that critical thinking does involve judgement but one based on reasons and evidence.  Criticism on the other hand while does intersect with being critical - it does involve a judgment however seems to be aimed at a reaction rather than a response. I would like to acknowledge the blog of Suzanne Manning -  Suzanne Manning Blog  - that supported by thnking and wording about this along with the link to the above video. I have decided to use the model below to support my refl...